On June 20th, a panting messenger came into Plymouth upon a blown and winded horse.
"Arm! Arm!" he cried to the settlers. "The house of John Winslow at Swansea has been plundered by the Indians and many houses have been burned while the people had been at church. War is begun and we must defend ourselves to the last ditch."
A stalwart Captain—a carpenter by trade, and Church by name—was one of the first to bear the dreadful news.
"To arms!" he shouted, as he ran to the house where muskets and balls were kept. "We'll soon show King Philip's men that the Puritans can fight as well as they can hoe corn." And, before two houses were passed, twenty horsemen galloped down the main street in the direction of Taunton; their swords gleaming in the bright sun, and their breastplates flashing like the saucepans in the kitchens of the good housewives.
Church was a stout soldier and as ready with his broadsword, as he was with his hammer and saw. His spirit was burning for a fight, and, joined next day by numbers of friendly Indians and troops, under Major Cudworth and Bradford, he pressed on to Swansea, meeting people fleeing from their homes, wringing their hands, and bewailing the losses of their houses and their herds. A part of his force was sent to escort a guide called Brown to his home at Wanamoiset, on June 23rd, and, meeting a part of the garrison going out to bring in corn from some deserted houses, they told the drivers not to go on as Indians were near. "We do not fear them," said the foragers, "for we could handle King Philip's whole army," and thus boasting and laughing, they proceeded onward. But scarcely had they gone more than two miles, when loud war-cries sounded from either side of the forests, accompanied by the sharp crack of rifles, and, to their dismay, they found themselves in an ambuscade. "Turn, men, back to the town," shouted the head of the force, but, although they quickly retreated, six of their number were shot and fell into the roadway, where the skulking braves soon made short work of them. In the following week this settlement, for which they gathered provisions, was abandoned to its fate, and the inhabitants sought refuge in Rhode Island.
Meanwhile two hundred and fifty fighting men of Boston had joined the intrepid Church at Swansea, where there was skirmishing with lurking Indians in the brush, but no battle with any great numbers of King Philip's men. "On, on, to Mount Hope!" was the slogan of the eager Puritans, as, with over five hundred warriors, the angry settlers crossed over the bridge at Swansea, and, with horsemen upon the flanks to prevent an ambuscade, pushed on towards the home of King Philip. They passed by groups of empty wigwams, the smoking ruins of the homes of settlers, Bibles torn to pieces and thrown into the roads in defiance of their Christian teachings; while the heads of men and women stuck on stakes bore full witness of the fury of the savages. The rain fell in torrents as they pressed forward to the Indian town, but, when they rushed exultantly amid the homes of the Wampanoags, not a savage was to be seen, and a heavy trail towards the shore showed that all had escaped to the inland country. Disgusted, but not disheartened, the white men camped for the night in the drenching mist and rain, and, leaving a force to build a fort, after a few days of fruitless search for the savages, the soldiers retired to Swansea and Rehoboth.
Philip had been too clever to be caught at his own home, which was without strong defenses, and had crossed the mouth of the Taunton River to the Pocasset swampland, where he and his men had hidden themselves. He was too wise to engage in open battle with the English, his tactics being those of defense and quick forage, rather than that of meeting the whites upon even terms. Furthermore, he hoped to prolong the war until he could get other western tribes to join with him and thus eventually drive the English into the sea. Should he have some great victory, he expected to gain the assistance of the powerful Mohawks of New York State, and with these to aid him in battle, the Colonists would have little chance for success. So—sullenly and craftily—he lay in the dense undergrowth, waiting for the English to find him in his lair, while he dispatched numerous messengers to the surrounding tribes, asking for the aid in this desperate war.
And he did not have long to wait for the enemy, as Captains Church and Fuller were soon upon his trail, with thirty-six men who were burning for a shot at the despoilers of their homesteads. They crossed the river and penetrated the dense Pocasset swamp, where suddenly a few of their number in advance ran into a small body of the savages. These fled, without offering to fight, and so the rest pushed forward upon the track which the great body of Indians had left as they had retreated into a dense pine swamp. But, suddenly, the sharp rattle of a snake sounded from the undergrowth. Another and still another was heard, and, more terrified by this enemy than by the savages, Church turned to his men to say:
"Back, boys! These serpents are worse than the Black Serpents whom we search for. We must out of this and look for the cunning varmints by a different route."
So they retreated from the wood, passed down the shore towards a neck of land called Punkatee, and soon came upon fresh Indian signs and a wigwam full of plunder. This made them push on much faster, and suddenly they were overjoyed to see two of the enemy in a field of ripening peas. Church and his men immediately fell flat upon their faces, hoping to surprise the two savages, but the eyes of the braves were keen. They saw the glint upon the steel breastplates of the English, and so took to their heels. A fence lay in their path, and as they climbed it, one turned around to discharge his gun. As he did so, a Puritan hit him with a bullet, so that he dropped into the thicket upon the other side, with a great yell of rage and pain. The English rushed forward, hoping to capture him, but, like a cat with nine lives, he wriggled away in the thick underbrush and disappeared.