The Great Swamp Fight (19 Dec 1675)
Date:
19 Dec 1675
[unknown]
Location: South Kingstown, King's Province
Location: South Kingstown, King's Province
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The Great Swamp Fight
- Historical Event: 19 Dec 1675 at South Kingstown, King's Province (Rhode Island)
- Who was there: Category:The Great Swamp Fight (19 Dec 1675)
- Beligerents:
- New England Confederation, Pequots, Mohegans
- Narragansetts
- Result:
- New England Victory
- Eight hundred surviving soldiers
- Two hundred dead and wounded English
- Thousands of men, women, and children killed
- "The Great Swamp Fight or the Great Swamp Massacre was a crucial battle fought during King Philip's War between the colonial militia of New England and the Narragansett people in December 1675."
With the help of a captured Indian, the Puritan army ultimately found their objective: a massive wooden fortress built by the Narragansett in the depths of a giant swamp, where thousands of Narragansett warriors as well as their women and children were hidden. This fortress in the swamp would normally have been inaccessible to such a large military assault, but the bitter cold had frozen the wetlands solid. The English soldiers endured extreme hardship during this march, sleeping in the open “during one of the coldest nights in New England’s history” and then marching for eight hours through 2-3 feet of snow until they came upon “a truly awe-inspiring sight” – the “huge wooden fort” of the Narragansett, “looming above the snow-covered swamp,” which was “[s]et on a five-acre island, and contain[ed] five hundred wigwams and thousands of Indians.“[1]
The immediate English assault that same day on this fortress on 19 December 1675 became known as the Great Swamp Fight. It was a bloody day in American history: 20 percent of the English soldiers were killed or wounded, double the rate of casualties suffered by U.S. forces on D-Day. Thousands of Indians were killed or driven into the swamp to freeze or starve. After the battle, the English soldiers endured another hours-long night march back through the frozen swamp, 800 soldiers carrying 200 of their dead or wounded comrades.[2]
Sources
- Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower: A Voyage to War (London: HarperPress, 2006)
- See also:
- Who was there: See Category:The Great Swamp Fight (19 Dec 1675)
- Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Swamp_Fight
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