fter killing several men, made good their escape back to
Maryland. Shortly afterwards people returning from church found a man
covered with ghastly wounds lying across his threshold, who managed to
gasp out, "Doegs, Doegs." Immediately the alarm was sounded, and a
party of thirty or more men assembled on the south bank of the river
opposite the Indian reservation under the command of Colonel George
Mason and Captain George Brent.

At dawn they crossed over to the Maryland side. Here they divided
their forces, Mason leading part in one direction through the woods
and Brent the other in another. Brent came upon a cabin full of Doegs.
Their chief denied knowledge of the murders, but when he started to
run Brent shot him. At this the Indians in the cabin made a dash for
safety in the face of a volley which brought down ten of them.

In the meanwhile Mason, too, had come upon a cabin full of Indians,
and had killed fourteen of them. But when he found out that they were
not Doegs but Susquehannocks, he shouted: "For the Lord's sake shoot
no more, these are our friends the Susquehannocks." But they now were
their friends no longer. They began a series of bloody raids in
Stafford County on the Virginia side of the river and Charles
County in Maryland. Governor Calvert was quite right in complaining to
Berkeley of the invasion of his province by an armed force to turn
friendly Indians into mortal enemies.

[Illustration: Courtesy Cook Collection, Valentine Museum. From
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Sept. 6, 1866
Bacon's Castle, Surry County, Virginia]

[Illustration:

STRANGE NEWS
FROM
VIRGINIA;

Being a full and true
ACCOUNT
OF THE
LIFE and DEATH
OF
Nathanael Bacon Esquire,

Who was the only Cause and Original of all the late
Troubles in that COUNTRY.

With a full Relation of all the Accidents which have
happened in the late War there between the
Christians and Indians.

LONDON,
Printed for William Harris, next door to the Turn-Stile
without Moor-gate, 1677.

From the Church Catalogue
Photo by T.L. Williams]

But since it was now too late to restore peac