We know not what reason there was to suppose that the Indians inhabiting this remote village were hostile.

But as the American officers decided immediately upon attacking them, we ought to suppose that they, on the ground, had sufficient reason to justify this course.
The army was immediately put in motion.

The rifles were loaded and primed, and the flints carefully examined, that they might not fall into ambush unprepared.

The sun was just rising as they cautiously approached the doomed village.

There was a smooth green meadow a few rods in width on the western bank of the river, skirted by the boundless forest.