The pastor and the families of his flock were driven from their homes to take refuge in blockhouses crowded with fugitives.

He was gone nearly three months of fall and winter with a scouting party of a hundred whites and nineteen Indians in the woods.

He sent off the fighting men of his town with sermon and benediction on an expedition to Canada.

During the second war he writes to his friend Bellamy (1754) of a dreadful rumor that "good Mr.Edwards" had perished in a massacre at Stockbridge.

This rumor was false, but he adds: "On the Lord's day P.M., as I was reading the psalm, news came that Stockbridge was beset by an army of Indians, and on fire, which broke up the assembly in an instant.
All were put into the utmost consternation--men, women, and children crying, 'What shall we do ?' Not a gun to defend us, not a fort to flee to, and few guns and little ammunition in the place.