Note THE EXPEDITION TO WESSAGUSSET — Chapter V

Page 63. The Expedition to Wessagusset. Mr. Longfellow has followed the account of this expedition given in Winslow's Relation of "Standish's Expedition against the Indians of Weymouth." He has, however, turned the incident of Standish's killing of the chiefs, Pecksuot and Wituwamat, into a much more open and heroic piece of conduct than the chronicle admits. The killing really occurred in a room into which Standish and a few of his men had enticed them. This was the first Indian blood shed by the Pilgrims. A general battle followed in the open field, from which the Indians fled and in which no lives were lost.