All night the country burned. All night wounded fugitives lay hidden, gritting their teeth, or, forced by intolerable anguish, crawled out and surrendered. All night long the troops swept through town after town, wreaking vengeance.
It was finished in the morning. “The country is pacified,” were the reports that went to headquarters. There were no gatherings of citizens anywhere within the province of the army’s operations. They were forbidden. There were no arms left in the hands of civilians. Houses in which weapons were found had been destroyed. Men who had been found with them in their possession were shot. Men with explosives were shot. In all New England that morning, every man had to be ready, for his life, to hold out his open hands whenever he met a soldier, and submit to search.
The Machine Shakes Down
Through the two armies ran the orders to restore stiff discipline. The soldiers came to leash and the big machine shook down. The patrols went out grimly, with a new meaning in their peering, scrutinizing frowns. They found a terrorized country, through which they moved unhampered.
“Worcester Occupied” was the early news that went through the United States. “Heavy Cavalry Body Enters Unopposed.”
“Motor Raiders at Fitchburg,” was the next report. It was followed by news of raiders east of Worcester.
Bit by bit the enemy was cutting Boston and all Eastern New England off from the rest of the United States.
East of Providence the advance guard of the army that was threatening Boston reached the line from Attleboro through Bridgewater and Silver Lake to Kingston, thus extending across that part of Massachusetts all the way to Plymouth Bay.[81]
Taunton, according to rumors that reached Boston, was being made the point for a heavy concentration of men and rolling stock.
Washington received news of an enormous unfolding of cavalry. The reports came from East Brookfield, half way between Worcester and Springfield in southern Massachusetts; from Willimantic in Central Connecticut, and from New London on the Long Island Sound shore in the south. Every road across the whole State north and south was held by horsemen who were pressing steadily westward, converting all means of communication to the army’s use and cutting off the population completely from the outside and even from communicating with each other.[82]