The village of Deerfield was among those which had suffered most from the first incursions of the Indians, the houses having been burnt, and the town evacuated in consequence. Their harvest had been cut about two months before, and having been stacked in the fields, escaped the conflagration. About eighty men from the settlements below came up to protect the harvesters in carting it in, and about three thousand bushels of wheat were thrashed, loaded upon the waggons, and had been drawn as far as the brook before mentioned without molestation. The settlers stopped here to gather grasses, and while thus occupied, were suddenly and furiously attacked by a body of eight hundred Indians. Captain Lathrop, the leader of the party, ordered his men to fight the Indians in their own manner, availing themselves of the protection of the trees; but the natives, trained to run from tree to tree, and to conceal themselves in this sort of warfare with unexampled address and caution, fought at great advantage, and soon decided the battle in their own favour. Lathrop was killed at the commencement of the attack; and of the whole number of reapers and armed men, ninety were killed on the spot. Captain Mosely, who was at Deerfield when the enterprise was undertaken, marched immediately with a small band to the relief of Lathrop; but, when he arrived, the contest was over, and the savages, flushed with success, were pillaging the dead. Forming his men into a close column, and commanding them to keep their ranks, he charged the Indians with the greatest intrepidity. Spite of their numbers, he drove them into a swamp, and forced his way through the whole body. They then attempted to hang upon his rear, but with great presence of mind he wheeled and broke through them again. In this manner the fight was continued for five hours. He drove them several miles, and, with only two men killed, and five or six wounded, succeeded in killing ninety-six of their number, and returned, unmolested, on his way to Deerfield. The next morning, the little band went out to bury the dead, and found the savages again stripping the bodies on the field of battle. Mosely drove them once more before him, and then, having performed his melancholy task, heaped a monument of loose stones over the victims, and returned. The name of the stream, Bloody Brook, is, at present, the only memorial of the catastrophe. [Illustration] VIEW ON THE ERIE CANAL, NEAR LITTLE FALLS. * * * * *