of bullets. The
pious Puritans ordered a fast day, for public prayer, in the hope that
God would stay the threatened scourge.

Upon that very day, June 24,1675, the war burst into flame. At the
town of Swansea, Massachusetts, near the Rhode Island border, and the
nearest settlement to Mount Hope, a Wampanoag was wounded by an angered
colonist. The Indians were glad. They believed that the party whose
blood was shed first would be victors. The colonists returning from
town meeting were fired upon; that day seven were killed and several
wounded. King Philip's young men had acted without orders.

When King Philip heard, he wept. He was not yet ready for the war, but
now he had to fight. He had at hand sixty Wampanoag men of fighting
age; all the Pokanoket league numbered six hundred warriors. Against
these could be mustered thousands of the colonists, whose ninety towns
extended through Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and into present Rhode
Island. Therefore he must act swiftly, or his cause was lost. All
depended upon his appeal to the inland tribes on the north.

The powerful Narragansetts, his neighbors on the west, were not
prepared, and sent no warriors at once; but certain of the other tribes
did respond with gun and hatchet and fire.

Before the colonists could rally under a skillful leader, the forces of
King Philip were successful. He had plenty of guns and ammunition.
Town after town in Plymouth Colony of southeastern Massachusetts was
laid in ashes by fierce surprise attacks. The scene shifted to western
Massachusetts. The Nipmucks of the Connecticut River, there, aided in
the dreadful work.

Throughout the summer and fall of 1675 all settled Massachusetts rang
with the war-whoops of the Pokanokets and their allies. King Philip
proved himself a master in Indian warfare to strike, and run, and
strike again. In this one brief space he earned his title, the Terror
of New England, not only because of his first successes, but also
because during the span of more than a year no Englishman recognized
his voice in battle, and only once was his face seen by his enemies.

Long after the war his name was used for frightening children.

"King Philip is coming!" And the naughtiest child would quiet and seek
his mother's skirt.

Although tortures and brutal killings were committed, King Philip
himself opposed this. Many stories are told of his kindness to
captives. He showed fully as much mercy as