At the time of the massacre in March 1622, he was on a trading cruise on the Potomac. According to Captain John Smith's General History, Croshaw challenged the chief Opchanacanough or any of his warriors to fight him naked (without armor), an offer that was not accepted. When Captain John Smith published his General History in 1624, one of the verses in Volume III of the book had been written by Croshaw—and in his writing, John Smith implies a high opinion of Croshaw's knowledge of Indians and their way of making war.