Soldiers in King Philip's war. Containing lists of the soldiers of ...

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letters of the Council show that the design of this company was to
fortify the fishing places upon the Merriinac, in conjunction with a
company of English, and under command of Capt. Samuel Hunt-
ing, of Charlestown. This Indian company, it seems, was at
Charlestown when the news of the attack upon Sudbury came, and
without waiting for particulars, Major Gookin immediately despatched
" a ply of horse " from Capt. Prentice's troop under Corporal
Phipps, and forty Indians under Capt. Hunting, which force ar-
rived at Sudbury that evening, the troopers in time to rescue the
remnants of Capt. Wadsworth's company from the mill where they
had taken refuge and had defended themselves against the enemy.
All the above accounts are of contemporaries, and all agree in
the main particulars and confirm each other in the matter of the
date. Rev. Mr. Hubbard, of Ipswich, whose history of this war is
most complete," and, in the main, the most reliable, agrees mostly
with the others, but seems to have known less of this fight than
usual, and less of the details than the others, and in the matter of
the date was unquestionably wrong.
From all the above authorities, the true account in brief seems
to be, that the English had no suspicion of the great numbers of the
Indians that were gathering about Marlborough and Sudbury, or of
the vicinity of any until early in the morning of the 21st, when seve-
ral deserted houses were burnt with the evident purpose of drawing out
the garrisons into an ambuscade. Then Deacon Haines's garrisonhouse
was attacked with fury by large numbers, but was successfully
defended from six o'clock in the morning until one o'clock, P.M.,
when the assault was abandoned. Twelve volunteers coming from
Concord upon the alarm, to aid the garrison, were lured into the river
meadow, and all slain save one. Mr. Edward Cowell, with a body
of eighteen mounted men, coming from Brookfield by way of Marlborough,
and by a different way from that taken by Capt. Wadsworth,
became sharply engaged with an outlying party of the enemy,
and lost four men killed, one wounded, and had five of his
horses disabled.
While the attack upon Cowell's party was still going on, Captain
Wadsworth and his company came upon the scene, and seeing a small
party of Indians, rushed forward with the usual impetuous haste,
and were caught in the usual ambuscade, for when within about a
mile of Sudbury they were induced to pursue a body of not more
than one hundred, and soon found themselves drawn away about
one mile into the woods, where on a sudden they were encompassed
by more than five hundred, and forced to a retreating fight towards
a hill where they made a brave stand for a while (one authority
says four hours) , and did heavy execution upon the enemy, until
(Mr. Hubbard says) the night coming on and some of the company
beginning to scatter from the rest, their fellows were forced to follow
them, and thus being encompassed in the chase by numbers,