thirty-six marching to the relief of that village. The next day but
one, as Major Robert Treat came up the road with his 100 Connecticut
soldiers, they found long poles planted by the wayside bearing the heads
of their unfortunate comrades. They in turn were assaulted, but beat off
the enemy, and brought away the people of Northfield. That village was
abandoned, and presently Deerfield shared its fate and the people were
crowded into Hadley. Yet worse remained to be seen. A large quantity of
wheat had been left partly threshed at Deerfield, and on the 11th of
September eighteen wagons were sent up with teamsters and farmers to
finish the threshing and bring in the grain. They were escorted by
Captain Lothrop, with his train-band of ninety picked men, known as the
"Flower of Essex," perhaps the best drilled company in the colony. The
threshing was done, the wagons were loaded, and the party made a night
march southward. At seven in the morning, as they were fording a shallow
stream in the shade of overarching woods, they were suddenly overwhelmed
by the deadly fire of 700 ambushed Nipmucks, and only eight of them
escaped to tell the tale. A "black and fatal" day was this, says the
chronicler, "the saddest that ever befell New England." To this day the
memory of the slaughter at Bloody Brook survives, and the visitor to
South Deerfield may read the inscription over the grave in which Major
Treat's men next day buried all the victims together. The Indians now
began to feel their power, and on the 5th of October they attacked
Springfield and burned thirty houses there. [Sidenote: Ambuscade at
Bloody Brook, September 12]

Things were becoming desperate. For ten weeks, from September 9 to
November 19, the Federal Commissioners were in session daily in Boston.
The most eminent of their number, for ability and character, was the
younger John Winthrop, who was still governor of Connecticut. Plymouth
was represented by its governor, Josiah Winslow, with the younger
William Bradford; Massachusetts by William Stoughton, Simon Bradstreet,
and Thomas Danforth. These strong men were confronted with a difficult
problem. From Batten's journal, kept during that disastrous summer, we
learn the state of feeling of excitement in Boston. The Puritans had
by no means got rid of that sense of corporate responsibility which
civilized man has inherited from prehistoric ages, and which has been
one of the principal causes of religious persecution.