IO HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



their number lay dead upon the snow ; but the survivors still fought on 

 with the desperation of men who understood the merciless character of 

 their assailants, and preferred death to a captivity that might end in 

 torture. Underhill now gave orders to fire the huts. The Indians 

 tried every way to escape ; but they were by this time completely sur- 

 rounded, and, finding it impossible to break through the lines, they 

 quietly retired with their wives and children to the blazing huts, and 

 whole families submitted to the flames rather than die by the sword. 

 They would not even gratify their enemies by the least sound that 

 might betray anything like pain or terror; although more than five hun- 

 dred Indians, many of whom were women and children, miserably per- 

 ished on that awful night ; not one was heard to cry or scream. 



The Dutch victory was complete. Large fires were built, for the air 

 was intensely cold; the wounded were dressed, sentinels were posted, 

 and the weary troops bivouacked on the battle ground for the remain- 

 der of the night. 



How terrible the change that a few hours had brought upon the Indian 

 village, which, at the setting of the sun, lay so peacefully in that moun- 

 tain gorge, surrounded by the pure, untrodden snow! 



The village now a smouldering ruin — the snow trampled and scat- 

 tered by many a desperate struggle — crimsoned, too, with blood, and 

 holding in its cold embrace hundreds of ghastly forms — what more des- 

 olate picture could Revenge itself have desired to behold than the 

 ruined homes, the broken weapons, the gory scalps, and the grim faces 

 of the dead, which the full moon disclosed as her silvery rays streamed 

 upon the mountain slope and floated down the valley !* 



O'Callaghon thus details the action in his history of the N. H. : 

 "On his return from Heemstede, Capt. Underhill was ordered to Stam- 

 ford, to obtain particulars of the whereabouts of the savages. He 

 brought word back, that they were encamped some five hundred strong 

 in that direction, and that the old guide urged the forwarding a body of 

 troops immediately thither, as he was desirous, on the one hand, to 

 prove that the former ill-success of the Dutch was not his fault; on the 

 other hand anxious for protection, as his life was in constant danger. 



"One hundred and thirty men embarked accordingly, under Capt. 

 Underhill and Ensign Van Dyck, in three yachts, and landed the same 

 evening at Greenwich, t But a severe snow storm having set in, de- 

 tained them at that settlement the whole of the night. The weather, 



*Sunday Liues, Manhattan Papers No. 10, by Jan Vogelanger. 



tThey probably landed on Greenwich Point, called by tha Indians Monatewego. 



