Chapter XIX
202 Palmer’s Incidents of the Late Indian Outrages in the Hamilton Freeman (Webster City), July 30, 1857; Mrs. Sharp’s History of the Spirit Lake Massacre (1902 edition), pp. 102-104.
203 Charles Aldrich in an address at the unveiling of a commemorative tablet in the Hamilton County Court House in Webster City, Iowa, on August 12, 1887, states that they started about midnight. It does not seem, however, that such a late hour could have been possible under the circumstances.—See the Annals of Iowa (Third Series), Vol. III, p. 548.
204 Palmer’s Incidents of the Late Indian Outrages in the Hamilton Freeman (Webster City), July 30, 1857.
205 Palmer’s Incidents of the Late Indian Outrages in the Hamilton Freeman (Webster City), July 30, 1857; Hubbard and Holcombe’s Minnesota in Three Centuries, Vol. III, p. 233. For a wholly different view of Dr. Strong see Gue’s History of Iowa, Vol. I, pp. 307, 308.
206 One version of the flight of these refugees tells us that Smith and Henderson were not, at first, left behind but were taken for some distance on hand sleds. This proved impracticable and the men were abandoned. Miss Agnes C. Laut has this plainly in mind when she refers to Mrs. Smith as the “one dame, who abandoned an injured husband on a hand sleigh” and hence does not need to “be preserved as a heroine of the West.” This, however, is unfair to Mrs. Smith.—See Miss Laut’s Heroines of Spirit Lake in the Outing Magazine, Vol. LI, p. 692.
207 For varied versions of the flight of the Wheeler refugees see Mrs. Sharp’s History of the Spirit Lake Massacre (1902 edition), pp. 109, 110; Gue’s History of Iowa, Vol. I, pp. 307, 308; Hubbard and Holcombe’s Minnesota in Three Centuries, Vol. III, p. 234.