The Indians then responded by attacking Swansea, Massachusetts, after which the conflict rapidly degenerated into a brutal cycle of raids, massacres and reprisals in an area that stretched from the Mount Hope peninsula in Rhode Island to central Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. Personnel from the Middlesex Regiment participated in the Great Swamp Fight on December 19, 1675. This campaign, involving approximately a thousand militiamen from the Connecticut, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies, was a pre-emptive strike on the fortified winter encampment of the Narragansetts, who had remained neutral in the conflict up to that time but whom the colonists feared might join forces with King Philip. Between five and six hundred Indians were killed in the attack. The surviving Narragansetts then joined King Philip and began attacking and burning settlements in southeastern New England. The war ended in 1676 when King Philip was hunted down and killed near Swansea, his body drawn and quartered, and his head displayed on a pole in Plymouth. The conflict took the lives of eight percent of the male population of the Plymouth Colony and resulted in the near annihilation of several Indian tribes. The colonial predecessor of the 772d Military Police Battalion and 102nd Infantry (see below) also participated in King Philip's War. The Middlesex Regiment was expanded in 1680 and divided into two regiments: the Lower (or 1st) and Upper (or 2nd) Middlesex Regiments. The 181st Infantry traces its lineage back to the 2nd Middlesex Regiment; the 182d Infantry, to the 1st Middlesex Regiment. While remaining in state service during the Revolutionary War, the 2nd Middlesex Regiment was expanded on February 19, 1776, to form the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Middlesex Regiments. On April 23, 1775, these regiments were reorganized to produce five regiments in the new Continental Army: Prescott's, Thomas's, Nixon's, Brewer's, and Bridge's Regiments. Bridge's Regiment was disbanded later in the year. In 1785 the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Middlesex Regiments were reorganized as the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division, which, after a number of additional reorganizations and redesignations, became the 6th Regiment of Infantry in 1855 and the 181st Infantry in 1921. The 181st Infantry also perpetuates the lineage of the 104th Infantry, MA ARNG (Second Massachusetts), as a consequence of the consolidation of the 104th and 181st Infantry Regiments on September 1, 2006, with the newly formed unit retaining the designation of the 181st Infantry.