Chelmsford,
Andover and Sudbury. At least one half of the death and desolation of
this war was crowded into this short period of time.

There was no security except in garrisons defended by armed men. The
Indian marches exceeded in celerity the movements of well-furnished
cavalry in civilized countries. Their women even aided in the march
and in the camp. Accustomed to hardship and famine, they subsisted in
a manner incredible to our time and race. And with one or two
exceptions, when the colonists came upon the Indians unexpectedly, the
latter were superior in the strategic arts of war, though in open
fight their fire was much less destructive. It must be confessed that
Captain Lathrop at Bloody Brook, and Captain Wadsworth at Sudbury,
were, in a degree, incautious. Hubbard closes his account of the
disaster with these words:

"Thus, as in former attempts of like nature, too much courage and
eagerness in pursuit of the enemy hath added another fatal blow to
this poor country."

For a long period a feeling of insecurity oppressed the settlers. Each
town was furnished with a garrison. The Indian trail was the signal
for alarm, and through long years the events of Philip's war were borne
by tradition and history to itching ears and timid hearts in the
garrison and family circle.

Passing from the principal features of this bloody contest, we feel
that its details are less certain.

In 1676, Sudbury was a frontier town, although settled as early as
1638. Marlboro' was attacked and nearly destroyed the 26th of March,
1676. Captain Sam'l Brocklebank, of Rowley, with a company of Essex
men, was stationed at Marlboro'; but his apprehensions of danger were
so slight that he asked to be relieved from the service. On the 27th
of March, Lieutenant Jacobs, of Captain Brocklebank's company, with
forty soldiers, one half of whom were Sudbury men, attacked a party
of 300 sleeping Indians, and disabled thirty of them without the loss
of a man. The news of the attack upon Marlboro' early furnished by
Captain Brocklebank induced the Council to order Captain Wadsworth of
Milton, with about fifty men, to its relief. At or near Marlboro' he
was informed that Sudbury was the besieged town. It is certain that he
left his young men in the garrison at Marlboro' under the command of
Lieutenant Jacobs, and he was probably joined by Captain Brocklebank
with a part or the whole of his command. It is said that Wadsworth
had ma