The captain chose from among them a goodly number of warriors, and with these and with his English forces, under commission of the governor of Plymouth, he forthwith commenced an active campaign against the enemy (July, 1676). With indefatigable activity, he scoured the forests in all directions, killing and making captive great numbers of the hostile confederates. In the midst of this uncompromising warfare, we find him exhibiting a humanity and good faith uncommon at the time, using every exertion to prevent torture and cruelty, and vehemently protesting against any ill usage of the natives who surrendered. Once he fell in with Little Eyes, (who would have killed him at Awashonk's dance) and his Indians wished him to be revenged. "But the captain told them it was not Englishmen's fashion to seek revenge," and took especial care for his safety and protection. Whenever he took any number of the Indians, he would select the finest as soldiers, and enlist them in his company; judging, with perfect confidence, that they would soon be completely won over to his interest. "If he perceived that they looked surly, and his Indian soldiers called them treacherous dogs, as some of them would sometimes, all the notice he would take of it, would only be to clap them on the back, and tell them 'Come, come, you look wild and surly, and mutter, but that signifies nothing; these my best soldiers were, a little while ago, as wild and surly as you are now; by the time you have been but one day along with me, you will love me too, and be as brisk as any of them.' And so it proved;" for, what with his bravery and success, the fascination of his manner, and his thorough acquaintance with the Indian character, all whom he thus singularly recruited, became devoted to his service. Any "notorious rogue and murderer," indeed, who fell into his hands, he was accustomed to put to death without mercy -allowing them, however, the privilege of enjoying, with true Indian stoicism, a pipe of tobacco, before the tomahawk sank into their brains. As he pursued the retreating enemy into the Narragansett country, he came to Taunton river, over which the Indians had felled a large tree for the purpose of crossing. On the stump, at the opposite side, sat a solitary warrior. Church quietly raised his gun, but was prevented from firing by the suggestion that it was a friend. The Indian, aroused by the noise, looked up. It was Philip himself, musing drearily, no doubt, on the fallen fortunes of his race. Ere a gun could again be levelled he sprang up, and bounded like a deer into the forest. Crossing the river, Church hotly followed the track of the fugitives, and captured many of their women and childrenamong them, the wife and child of the great sachem himself. At last he came up with the main force of the enemy, encamped in a swamp. They were defeated, though not without sharp fighting; an hundred and seventy-three Indians, in all, were taken; but Philip, with his chief warriors, made good his escape. The prisoners reported the condition of their sachem as forlorn in the extreme, having lost friend after friend by war or desertion, and now inconsolable at the capture of his wife and child. "His ruin," says Mr. Hubbard, with a sort of slow Epicurean relish, "being thus gradually carried on, his misery was not prevented, but augmented thereby; being himself acquainted with the sense and experimental feeling of the captivity of his children, loss of friends, slaughter of his subjects, bereavement of all family relations, and being stripped of all outward comforts, before his own life should be taken away." CHAPTER XII. PHILIP RETREATS TO MOUNT HOPE-SLAIN IN A SKIRMISH-DISGRACEFUL USAGE OF HIS REMAINS-CHURCH PURSUES ANNAWON-TAKES HIM -SINGULAR SCENE-PHILIP'S REGALIA-The war ended— ITS RESULT-TREATMENT OF PRISONERS-PHILIP'S SON-REFLECTIONS. AFTER performing further active services in the war, Church, almost broken down with fatigue and exposure, went to see his wife on Rhode Island; but hardly had he alighted, when tidings came that Philip was lurking in his old quarters at Mount Hope, and the captain, a greeting hardly exchanged, again mounted his horse, and spurred off. The unhappy sachem, after seeing his followers, one after another, fall before the English, or desert his failing cause, had betaken himself, like some wild animal hard driven by the hunters, to his ancient haunt, the former residence of his father, the friendly Massasoit. In all the pleasant region washed by the circling Narragansett, there is no spot more beautiful than that miniature mountain, the home of the old sachems of the Wampanoags. But with what feelings the last of their number, a fugitive before inveterate foes and recreant followers, looked on the pleasant habitation of his fathers, may more easily be imagined than described. Still, he sternly rejected all proposals for peace, and even slew one of his own followers, who had ventured to speak of treaty with the English. The brother of this victim, naturally enraged and alienated from his cause, at once deserted to the English, and gave the information which led to his final ruin. A few brave warriors yet remained faithful to him, and with these, and their women and children, he had taken refuge in a swamp hard by the mountain, on a little spot of rising ground. In that troubled night, the last of his life, the sachem, we are told, had dreamed of his betrayal,* and awaking early, was recounting the vision to his companions, when the enemy came suddenly upon him. His old enemy, Church, who was familiar with the ground, coming up quietly in the darkness of night, had posted his followers, both English and Indian, so as, if possible, to prevent any from escaping. The result was almost immediate. After several volleys had been rapidly fired, Philip, attempting to gain a securer position, came in range of an ambush, and was instantly shot through the heart by one Alderman, an Indian under Church's command. He fell on his face with his gun under him, and died without a struggle (August 12, 1676). The relics of his force still held out in the swamp, and one of the warriors, "who seemed to be a great surly old fellow, hallooed with a loud voice, and often called out, 'Tootash! Iootash! Captain Church called to his Indian, Peter, and asked him who that was that called so? "He answered that it was old Annawon, Philip's great captain, calling on his soldiers to stand to it, and fight stoutly." This chief, with most of his followers, made good his escape. Meeting in the camp of their fallen enemy, "the whole army (1) gave three loud huzzas." The body of the ill-fated Philip, still lying where it fell, was drawn out of the swamp, "and a doleful, great, naked, dirty beast he looked like. Captain Church then said, that forasmuch as he had caused many an Englishman's body to be unburied and to rot above ground, that no one of his bones should be buried." Accordingly, (to use the spiteful language of Cotton Mather,) "this Agog was now cut into quarters, which were then hanged up, while his head was carried in triumph to Plymouth, where it arrived on the very day that the church there was keeping a solemn thanksgiving to God. God sent 'em the head of a leviathan for a thanksgiving feast!" * Mr. Hubbard, for a wonder, does not fully adopt this account, but dismisses it parenthetically, "(whether the devil appeared to him in a dream that night, as he did unto Saul, (!) foreboding his tragical end, it matters not,) &c. &c." + Church's "Entertaining History." Ibid. |