THE TURNERS FALLS, MASSACHUSETTS FIGHT
After sunset, Thursday, May 18th , this little army set out on a memorable march.... The cavalcade passed out from Hatfield street with high hopes and determined hearts. Crossing the meadows to the north, vowing vengeance for stolen cattle, they wended their way slowly up the Pocumtuck path. Over the Weequioannuck and through the hushed woods as darkness was closing down, to Bloody Brook. Guided by Hinsdell, the troops floundered through the black morass, which drank the blood of his father and three brothers, eight months before; they passed with bated breath and clinched fire-lock, the mound under which slept Lothrop and his three score men. As they left this gloomy spot, and marched up the road, down which the heedless Lothrop had led his men into the fatal snare, the stoutest must have quailed at the uncertainty beyond. Was their own leader wise? Did he consider the danger? Was it prudent to neglect precautions against surprise?
Leaving his horses under a small guard, Turner led his men through Fall river, up a steep ascent, and came out on a slope in the rear of the Indian camp. He had reached his objective point undiscovered. Silence like that of death brooded over the encampment by the river, save for the sullen roar of the cataract beyond. With ears strained to catch any note of alarm, the English waited impatiently the laggard light, and with the dawn, stole silently down among the sleeping foe; even putting their guns into the wigwams undiscovered. At a given signal the crash of a hundred shots aroused the stupefied sleepers. Many were killed at the first fire. The astonished survivors, supposing their old enemy to be upon them, cried out "Mohawks! Mohawks!" rushed to the river, and jumped pell-mell into the canoes which lay along the shore. Many pushed off without paddles; in other cases the paddlers were shot, and falling overboard, upset the canoe; many in the confusion plunged into the torrent, attempting to escape by swimming. Nearly all of these were swept over the cataract and drowned. Others, hiding about the banks of the river, were hunted out and cut down, "Captain Holyoke killing five, young and old, with his own Hands from under a bank." A very slight resistance was made, and but one of the assailants wounded; another "was killed in the action by his friends, who, taking him for an Indian as he came out of the wigwam shot him dead." The wigwams were burned, and the camp dismantled.
Excerpt abridged from The History of Deerfield, Vol. I, George Sheldon, 1895, pp. 155-157.