Note 1380 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

In order to show what has been accepted as history on this point, I quote a portion of the account in this history, which is typical: "After the savages had completed their work of slaughter in the field, they proceeded immediately to invest Fort Kingston, in which Col. Dennison had been left with the small remnant of Butler's troops and the defenceless women and children. In such a state of weakness the defence of the fort was out of the question; and all that remained to Dennison was to attempt to gain some advantageous terms by the offer of a surrender. For this purpose he went himself to the savage chief; but that inhuman monster, that Christian cannibal, replied to the question of terms that he should grant them the hatchet. He was more than true to his word, for when, after resisting until all his garrison were killed or disabled, Col. Dennison was compelled to surrender at discretion, his merciless conqueror, tired of scalping, and finding the slow process of individual murder insufficient to glut his appetite, shut up all that remained in the houses and barracks, and by the summary aid of fire reduced all at once to one promiscuous heap of ashes. Nothing now remained that wore the face of resistance to these savage invaders but the little fort of Wilksborough, into which about seventy of Col. Butler's men had effected their retreat, as has been said. These, with about the same number of Continental soldiers, constituted its whole force, and when their enemy appeared before them they surrendered without even asking conditions, under the hope that their voluntary obedience might find some mercy. But mercy dwelt not in the bosoms of these American Tories; submission could not stay their insatiable thirst of blood. The cruelties and barbarities which were practised upon these unresisting soldiers were even more wanton, if possible, than those which had been exhibited at Fort Kingston. The seventy Continental soldiers, because they were Continental soldiers, were deliberately butchered in cruel succession; and then a repetition of the same scene of general and promiscuous conflagration took place, which had closed the tragedy at the other fort. Men, women, and children were locked up in the houses, and left to mingle their cries and screams with the flames that mocked the power of an avenging God."