South Rhode Island was then an Indian wilderness, heavily timbered and deep with swamps. Near present South Kingston, in the Narragansett country, upon a meadow upland amidst a dense swamp Philip had built a fort containing five hundred wigwams. He had built well.
The only entrance from the swamp was defended by a high log fence or series of palisades. In addition, around a space of five acres he had laid a thick hedge of felled trees. A single log bridged the water separating the fort from the drier land beyond. The wigwams were made bullet-proof by great stores of supplies piled against their walls, inside.
It was reported that he had three thousand persons in the fort—these being his Pokanokets, and many Narragansett men, women and children. The place was called Sunke-Squaw.
Treachery it was that broke the power of King Philip. An Indian named Peter sought the English and offered to show them how to get in. After a long march amidst bitter cold and driving snow, they arrived at one o'clock in the afternoon of December 19. They were short of provisions, and very weary. For a time matters went ill with them. Again and again their attacking parties were swept from the single log that Peter the traitor had showed to them. A number of officers and men had fallen, before, pressing hard, with night at hand, a party succeeded in entering the fort.
Here the hot fight passed from wigwam to wigwam. Some of the English were killed by balls from their own soldiers. Through all the swamp the battle raged.
"They run, they run!" sounded the loud cries, from the English within the fort. Their comrades on the outside hastened—scrambling, wading, straddling the log or knee-deep in the half frozen mire.
Indian women and children and warriors had taken refuge in the wigwams. Torches were applied, burning them or driving them out to be shot down. Officers tried to prevent the burning of the wigwams, in order to save the provisions, but the fire spread.
So by night the fort was in ruins. The Indians were killed, captured or fleeing. Seven hundred had been killed by bullet and sword, three hundred more perished by cold and hunger and wounds; how many old men, women and children had burned to death, no one knew. But a third of the Narragansett nation had been slain or taken captive, and of the Pokanokets only a remnant was left.
Eighty killed, was the report of the Connecticut troops alone. There were one hundred and fifty men grievously wounded. As the soldiers had destroyed the fort and its provisions, they had no shelter. Through a furious snowstorm they made a miserable night march of eighteen miles before even the wounded could be attended to.
King Philip was now a fugitive, but he was by no means done fighting. He removed to the interior of Massachusetts—it is said that he traveled clear to the Mohawks of New York, and asked their aid in this war against the English. He did not get it.