676 alone, more people were butchered in Virginia by the savages than
fell in the massacre of 1644.[479] This fearful mortality was due to the
fact that the Indians were now supplied with firearms. Governor Berkeley
and his friends, in their greed to secure the valuable beaver and otter
skins, had not hesitated to purchase them with powder, shot and
guns.[480] The savages had now almost entirely discarded the bow and
arrow, and were so skilful with their new weapons that the English often
hired them "to kill Deare".[481] So that when the war cry was once more
heard upon the frontier, the savages, although less numerous than in the
days of Powhatan or Opechancanough, were far more to be feared.

It was Maryland that first felt the resentment of the savages.

[Illustration: MAP OF

VIRGINIA

DURING BACON'S REBELLION]

The people of this province had taken no part in the attack of Mason and
Brent, but the Susquehannocks were not in the humor to make nice
distinctions. In seeking revenge for the murder of their braves they
held all whites equally guilty, and fell immediately upon the nearest
plantations. Thus were the Marylanders made to suffer for the rashness
of the Virginia frontiersmen.

Feeling that it was his duty to aid the neighboring province in this war
brought on by the hasty action of two of his own officers, and fearing
that depredations upon the Virginia frontiers could not long be
prevented, Sir William Berkeley decided to join Governor Calvert in a
vigorous attack upon the savages. Colonel John Washington,
great-grandfather of George Washington, at the head of several hundred
men, was despatched across the Potomac to effect a junction with the
Maryland troops.[482] The combined forces of the two colonies are said
to have numbered "neer a thousand men".[483]

Unable to withstand this army in the open field, the Indians fell back
upon a fort which they had erected upon the north bank of the Potomac,
and here awaited the approach of the English. Their fortress had been
constructed with such care and skill that the white men were unable to
carry it by storm. The outer works consisted of lines of tree trunks,
from five to eight inches in diameter, "watled 6 inches apart to shoot
through", their tops firmly twisted together. Behind this was a ditch,
and within all a square citadel, with high walls and "fflankers having
many loop-holes". The fire of the red-skins from behind these works
proved so deadly tha