Just here we must turn aside for a minute or two, in order to understand
the situation.
On the third of July, Colonel Zebulon Butler, of the Continental army,
had marched forth at the head of his two hundred and odd boys, old men,
and a few able-bodied soldiers to meet his cousin, the British Colonel
Butler, with his horde of soldiers, Tories, and Iroquois Indians.
"We come out to fight, not only for liberty," said the patriot leader,
as the battle was about to open, "but for our lives and that which is
dearer than our lives--to preserve our homes from conflagration, and our
wives and children from the tomahawk."
For a time all went well, and Colonel Zebulon Butler began to hope that
the marauders would be driven off, but his force was unsteady, and some
of them gave way when they saw their enemies as they swarmed out of the
woods and assailed them.
The trembling mothers who were prayerfully listening to the sounds of
battle on the plain above, heard the regular platoon firing which showed
that all was going well; but, by and by, the increasing yells, the
dropping shots, the blaze of musketry from the swamp on the left of the
fighting settlers, where the Iroquois were rushing forth, the
panic-stricken fugitives coming into sight here and there, white,
panting and wild, told the dreadful truth. The patriots had been
overwhelmed by the invaders, who were driving everything before them.
But a single hope remained--flight.
Some might succeed in reaching the mountains on the other side the
river, and possibly a few would be able to force their way through the
dismal wilderness known as the "Shades of Death," and reach Stroudsburg
and the sparse settlements on the upper Delaware, many miles away.
The moment the patriots began flying before the Tories and Indians, the
panic spread to all.
It is a historical fact that in the flight the pursuers shot many of the
patriot officers and soldiers in the thigh, so as to disable them from
running, and left them on the ground to be finally disposed of
afterwards, while the Iroquois hastened after the other fugitives.
Many of these were tomahawked in their flight; others fled down the
river banks in the direction of Wilkesbarre, on the opposite side of the
river; others made for the mountains back of the battle-ground; still
others hastened to the protection of the Forty Fort, while a great many
found a temporary refuge in the undergrowth of Monocacy Island, in the
Susquehanna. Still others got across the river and plunged into the
mountainous wilderness and began their toilsome tramp through the
section I have named, and which is still known as the "Shades of Death."
It was at this hour that Fred Godfrey galloped directly into the
massacre in his desperate resolve to do all he could to save his
friends.
He had turned off from the main highway, and was making toward a point
whence came the sounds of sharp firing, and such shouts as to show that
some unusual conflict was going on. He caught glimpses of figures moving
among the trees, but he paid no heed to them, and pressed steadily
forward over a half-broken path until he was stopped in the most
startling manner that can be imagined--that is, by a rifle-shot.
Some one fired from the front, and undoubtedly would have struck the
youthful rider, had not his horse at the very instant snuffed the danger
and flung up his head. The action saved the life of the rider at the
expense of the steed, who received the cruel bullet and lunged forward
and fell to the ground with such suddenness that but for the dexterity
of Fred Godfrey he would have been crushed.
As it was, the youth saved himself by a hair's breadth, leaping clear of
the saddle and brute just in the nick of time.
The thin wreath of smoke was curling upward from the undergrowth, and
the horse was in the act of falling, when a Seneca Indian, in his war
paint and agleam with ferocity, bounded from the cover, and with his
smoking gun in his hand and the other grasping the handle of his
tomahawk, dashed towards the patriot, whom he evidently believed was
badly wounded.
"S'render! s'render!" he shrieked, coming down upon him as if fired from
a cannon.
"I'm not in that business just now," snapped out Fred Godfrey, leveling
and firing his pistol, with the muzzle almost in the face of the fierce
warrior.
The aim could not have been more accurate. The subsequent incidents of
the Wyoming massacre were of no interest to that Seneca warrior, for the
sharp crack of the little weapon was scarcely more sudden than was the
ending of his career.