In March 1646 the Assembly met again. The policy of building forts had evidently been considered successful enough to encourage the Assembly to order another, Fort Henry, constructed at the falls of the Appomattox for the defense of the inhabitants on the south side of the James River and to deprive the Indians of their fishing in the area. The war had been going on for a year and a half and the enemy forces were still not destroyed. The Assembly, considering the vast expense that the conflict had caused and considering "the almost impossibility of a further revenge upon them, they being dispersed and driven from their townes and habitations, lurking up and downe the woods in small numbers, and that a peace (if honourably obtained) would conduce to the better being and comoditie of the country," authorized Capt. Henry Fleet, the colony's interpreter, and sixty men, to go out and try to make a peace with Opechancanough. If they could not make such a peace, they were to erect a fort on the Rappahannock River or between it and the York.
The "break" in the war came with the daring capture of Opechancanough himself by Governor Berkeley. Berkeley, who frequently led the troops of the colony in the field, was apprised of the Indian leader's whereabouts, and with characteristic boldness led a troop of men in a raid on his headquarters. The raid was successful: Opechancanough was captured and brought back to Jamestown. The old chief, said to be over 100 years, acted the part of Emperor of the Indian confederation with grave dignity. The historian Robert Beverley tells us that one day the nearly blind warrior heard "a great noise of the treading of people about him; upon which he caused his eye-lids to be lifted up; and finding that a crowd of people were let in to see him, he call'd in high indignation for the Governour; who being come, Opechancanough scornfully told him, that had it been his fortune to take Sir William Berkeley prisoner, he should not meanly have exposed him as a show to the people." Berkeley accepted the rebuke, and ordered him treated with all the dignity due his position as the leader of many Indian nations. Unfortunately the life of Opechancanough was shortly after snuffed out by one of his guards who shot him in the back, despite his defenseless condition.