Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/177

 concerted resistance. The French and Indians had stolen into the town in several bodies, the door of every dwelling was instantly beset and burst open, and amidst the shrieks of women and children every atrocity was perpetrated that the vengeful cruelty of the Indian savage could suggest. Men, women, and children fell under the tomahawk in a promiscuous massacre; sixty were killed on the spot ; twenty-seven were taken prisoners; the village was set on fire; and by the flames of their own homes, the remnant, a small body of miserable half-naked fugitives, hurried away, in the midst of a driving snow-storm, towards Albany, spreading terror and confusion among the people by their account of the savage fury which had fallen upon their ruined homes.

The second war party sent out by Frontenac consisted of only fifty-two persons. They set out from Three Rivers, a village about half way from Montreal to Quebec, and made their way by the St. Francis, and the valley of the upper Connecticut to Salmon Falls, a village on the main branch of the Piscataqua. Falling suddenly upon it (March 27th) they killed most of the male inhabitants, burned their houses, and carried off fifty-four prisoners, chiefly women and children. These they drove before them into the wilderness, intending to sell them as slaves in Canada. The reader will understand something of the horrors of early warfare by the following extract from the narrative of a captive sufferer:—

"The Indians, when they had flogged me away along with them, took my oldest boy, a lad of about five years of age, along with them, for he was still at the door by my side. My middle little boy, who was about three years of age, had by this time obtained a situation by the fire in the house, and was crying bitterly to me not to go, and making bitter complaints of the depredations of the savages.

"But these monsters were not willing to let the child remain behind them; they took him by the hand to drag him along with them, but he was so very unwilling to go, and made such a noise by crying, that they took him up by the feet, and dashed his brains out against the threshold of the door. They then scalped and stabbed him, and left him for dead. When I witnessed this inhuman butchery of my own child, I gave a most indescribable and terrific scream, and felt a dimness come over my eyes next to blindness, and my senses were nearly gone. The savage then gave me a blow across my head and face, and brought me to my sight and recollection again. During the whole of this agonizing scene, I kept my infant in my arms.

"As soon as their murder was effected, they marched me along to the top of the bank. Here I beheld another hard scene, for as soon as we had landed, my little boy, who was still mourning and lamenting about his little brother, and who complained that he was injured by the fall in descending the bank, was murdered.

"One of the Indians ordered me along, probably that I should not see the horrid deed about to be perpetrated. The other then took his