The settlers on the Connecticut now resolved upon active operations against the Pequot tribe. Although the whole number of whites upon the river, capable of doing military service, did not exceed three hundred, a force of ninety men was raised and equipped. Captain John Ma son, a soldier by profession, and a bold, energetic man, was appointed to the command of the expedition, and the Reverend Mr. Stone, one of the first preachers at Hartford, who had accompanied his people across the wilderness, at the time of the first settlement of that town, undertook the office of chaplain a position of far greater importance and responsibility, in the eyes of our forefathers, than is accorded to it at the present day.

The warriors fought desperately, but their bowstrings snapped from the heat, and the Narragansetts, now coming up, killed all who attempted to escape. The scene within was horrible beyond description. The whole number destroyed (mostly by the flames) was supposed to be over four hundred, no small portion of which consisted of women and children.The spirit of the times cannot be better portrayed than by citing the description of this tragedy given by Morton: “At this time it was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire, and the streams of blood quenching the same; and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud, insulting, and blasphemous an enemy.” Dr. Increase Mather, in much the same vein, says: “This day we brought six hundred Indian souls to hell.”In looking back upon this massacre, although much allowance must be made for the rudeness of the age, and the circumstances of terror and anxiety which surrounded the early settlers, yet we must confess that here, as on other occasions, they exhibited the utmost unscrupulousness as to the means by which a desired end should be accomplished.

They were closely pursued by the whites and their Indian allies, and hunted and destroyed like wild beasts. The last important engagement was in a swamp at Fair-field, where they were completely overcome. Most of the warriors were slain, fighting bravely to the last, and the women and children were distributed as servants among the colonists or shipped as slaves to the West Indies; “We send the male children,” says Winthrop, “to Burmuda, by Mr. William Pierce, and the women and maid children are dispersed about in the towns.” It is satisfactory to reflect that these wild domestics proved rather a source of annoyance than service to their enslavers.