Not far off was another party of Indians, and, when they heard the noise of the fight, they came to the aid of their own blood, and were soon on Turner's tracks. Sad to relate, a panic seized the white troops—for a rumor was spread about that King Philip was at hand with a thousand warriors. A large number of the whites were cut off; Turner himself was killed; but the main body, with their tongues fairly hanging from their mouths—like the British troops in the retreat from Lexington—reached the settlement at Hatfield. The disaster had been a severe blow to Philip, for it broke up his fishery and many of his best sachems had been slain. In reprisal, he made an attack upon Hatfield, but the Indian warriors were so badly whipped that they retreated into the wilderness to mourn their losses and prepare for the last desperate stand of the war.
It was now spring of the year 1676, and, realizing that they must use every effort to put an end to hostilities, the Colonies called into active service every able-bodied man or boy who could shoulder a musket. All who could be spared from work upon the farms were sent out upon expeditions against the various bands of warring savages. Nor were the whites always successful, for many disasters came to the different bands of fighting men, as they marched and countermarched through the dense woodland of the interior of Massachusetts, where the moose still had its habitation, and the beaver, lynx, and bear were often to be met with. Thus one Captain Wadsworth was surprised as he went to the relief of Sudbury, Massachusetts, was entrapped in an ambush, and was killed, with sixty of his men. Shortly afterwards, a Captain Pierce with fifty Englishmen and twenty friendly Indians, when but eight miles from Providence, was surrounded, and, although his men formed in a circle, back to back, they were practically all killed or captured.
A messenger from the Captain was waiting at the church door, to inform a Captain Edwards that Pierce needed assistance, as the fierce fight was going on in the woods, and, had he not delayed in giving his message, because it was Sunday, and he did not want to disturb the meeting, there is no doubt that this fight would have had a different termination. Not long afterwards, things were reversed, and three hundred mounted men—English and Praying Indians—overtook a body of nearly the same number of Narragansetts in a swamp in their own country and completely annihilated them. Their chief was asked if he had anything to say before they executed him. "Yes," said he, "I shall die before my heart is soft, or I have said anything unworthy of myself. It is well. Ugh! Ugh!"
This was the beginning of the end. The tide of success for King Philip began to ebb, and, under the leadership of that hard, fighting man, Captain Church (who was more than a match for the Indians in cunning, as well as courage), those warriors who were still in the field against the whites were soon driven to the last ditch. Day and night Church followed the savages into the swamps and forests, so that they were reduced to live—if they did not actually starve or freeze—upon dead horses, clams and roots. The loss of chiefs and warriors disheartened the Indians, and their large expeditions were abandoned; while to distract pursuit, they split into small parties and fled into the solitude of the forest. Philip himself retreated to the neighborhood of his former settlement at Mount Hope, like a fox, who, when the hounds are hot upon his trail, seeks his burrow. He was set upon on all sides, and only escaped capture by many a hairbreadth.
The red warrior was now a desolate and desperate man, the last Sachem of an ancient race, without subjects, without territory, hunted like a deer, in daily fear of capture, in danger of starving and with no shelter at night for his head. All of his chief counsellors and best friends had been killed; his uncle was shot down at his side; his wife and child (an only son) were captured. Alone, friendless, and deserted, he hid in the dense forest, awaiting the doom which surely and relentlessly awaited him. "You have made Philip ready to die; you have made him as poor and miserable as he used to make the English, for you have now killed and taken all his relatives," said some Indian prisoners whom Church captured, as he looked for the Wampanoag Chief in the swamp.
Philip was hiding near Assowomset Pond, while numerous bodies of mounted troops and friendly Indians guarded the trails which led to it and scoured the country in all directions. So hunted and afraid was he that he fled southward in the hope of reaching the country of the Narragansetts. Hot in pursuit of the fleeing Sachem, Captain Church left Plymouth in search of the quarry, beat the woods about Pocasset, and finally ferried his men across the arm of Narragansett Bay—which here juts into the land—and camped with them in Rhode Island. The Captain paid a visit to a friend's house, some eight miles away, when two horsemen rode up, who called out:
"What will you give for some news of Philip, Captain?"
"I will give a good deal," replied the rough soldier.
"Then we can tell you where he is," said one—a Major Sanford—"for a Wampanoag has just come to our camp and told us that, as Philip had killed his brother for giving him advice that displeased him, he had fled from him, fearing the same fate, and, in revenge, will tell us where to find him."
"Let me see him at once," cried Church. "We will immediately be upon King Philip's trail."