Among the leading chiefs who took part in the decisive battle at Maumee Rapids, when General Wayne smashed the Indian confederacy, was Buckongahelas, a sachem of the Delaware tribe. He was an orator of ability and a military leader of skill, with a humanity not often shown by one of his race. He took the side of the British until his attitude was changed by a certain incident, soon to be related. No missionaries toiled more faithfully among the red men than the Moravians, who suffered every kind of persecution, facing privations, trials, tortures, and the most painful of deaths in order to bring the children of the forest to a knowledge of the true faith. They met with much success, and founded a number of missions, where scores of red men proved by their lives their belief in the religion professed by the white men. Thriving settlements were founded by the Moravian missionaries. These people, by their gentle ways, often suffered from their own race, while others, like Buckongahelas, treated them with kindness and respect, even though he did not believe in their principles. It cannot be denied that our forefathers on the frontier were often frightfully misused by the Indians. Many atrocities were too dreadful to be described. The winter of 1782 was marked by a number of cruelties at the hands of the Sandusky Indians. In revenge, a band of nearly a hundred men gathered on the frontier of Pennsylvania, and, led by Colonel David Williamson, marched against the Christian Indians at Gnadenhutten, a missionary settlement. Friendly messengers were sent to warn them of their danger, but, sad to say, they arrived too late. In March, 1782, ninety-six men, women and children, while singing hymns and praying, were slain by this company of white men, not one of whom ever was punished for the crime. A few months before this awful crime, two Christian Indians of Gnadenhutten went out into the woods to look for some estray horses. They had not gone far, when they met a chieftain at the head of eighty warriors. The Christians were made prisoners without explanation. Then the band took a roundabout course through the forest, until near the settlement, when they went into a secret camp, keeping the captives lest they should escape and give the alarm. Early the next morning, the town was surrounded so that none could leave, and the leader of the war party shouted to the frightened people that they must give up their chief and principal councillors, either alive or dead. The leader named the men he wanted and was determined to have, but the Christians replied that it chanced that every one was absent, having gone to Pittsburg some days before. The visitors searched each house from attic to cellar, and found they had been told the truth. Then the chief ordered that the leading men remaining in Gnadenhutten and Salem should appear before him to hear what he had to say. When they had assembled, he spoke: