Deerfield was the first town in the Connecticut Valley to be assaulted, and the alarm was general. The news reached Hadley the same day while the inhabitants were gathered in the meeting-house observing a fast; “and,” says Mather, “they were driven from the holy service they were attending by a most sudden and violent alarm which routed them the whole day after.” Their alarm and rout were needless; no enemy appeared. Yet these words of the historian are the narrow foundation on which Stiles and others gradually built up the romantic myth of Goffe, as the guardian and deliverer of Hadley. September 2, the tactics at Deerfield were successfully repeated by the Indians at Northfield. Eight men were killed in the meadows, but enough were left in the village to hold the stockade. September 4, Captain Richard Beers with his company who were marching to their relief, were surprised, and himself and twenty men were slain. September 5, Major Robert Treat, with a superior force, brought off the beleaguered survivors. Sunday, September 12, another blow fell upon Deerfield. The place had now a garrison under Captain Samuel Appleton. The Indians could see from the hills the soldiers gathering in one of the forts for public worship. They laid an ambush to waylay the soldiers and people returning after service to the north fort, but all escaped their fire save one, who was wounded. Nathaniel Cornbury, left to sentinel the north fort, was captured, and never again heard from. Appleton rallied his men, and the marauders, after inflicting much loss on the settlers, drew off to Pine Hill. But a sadder blow was to fall upon the dwellers in this little vale. The accumulated result of their industry and toil was to disappear in flame and ashes. In their wanton destruction the Indians had spared the wheat in the field for their own future supply; “3000 bushels standing in stacks,” says Mather. This wheat was needed at headquarters to feed the gathering troops, and Colonel Pynchon, the Commander-in-Chief, gave orders to have it threshed and sent to Hadley. Captain Thomas Lothrop, with his company, was sent to convoy the teams transporting it.