All of us who were living outside, had gone into the stone barracks with the refugees. That night we were all sitting huddled together trembling with fear. We had helped feed the hungry and cared for the wounded all day long and now were so fatigued we could hardly keep awake. I had brought my little kerosene lamp with me. I lit it and brought out of the darkness the sorrowful groups of women and children. Some one called "Lights out." I turned mine down and set it behind the door. We sat in darkness. A voice called, "Up stairs." I gathered my baby in my arms, told Walter to hold on to mother's dress on one side and Minnie on the other, and up stairs we went, all pushed from behind so we could not stop. We were pushed into a large room, dark as pitch. There we all stood panting through fear and exertion. How long, I do not know. A voice in the room kept calling, "Ota! Ota!" meaning "Many! Many!" We knew there were Indians with us, but not how many. I had the butcher knife sharpened when the first refugees came and covered with a piece of an old rubber. It was now sticking in my belt. I asked Mrs. Dunn what she had to protect herself with. She said she had nothing, but found her shears in her pocket. I told her to put out their eyes with them, while they were killing us, for we expected death every minute after hearing those Indian voices. I heard Jim Dunn's voice and called him and told him where my lamp was and asked him to bring it up. He brought it to me. This was the crucial moment of my life. I sat the lamp on the floor, and with one hand on the butcher knife, slowly turned up the light. I saw only three squaws and three half breed boys, instead of the large number of Indians I expected. Each declared "Me good Injin! Me good Injin!"
All was confusion. William Hawley was inside guard at the door of the room we were in upstairs. He was just out of the hospital and was very weak. In spite of this he had gone with the soldiers to Redwood and had just returned after crawling out from under his dead companions and creeping through the brush and long grass those dreadful miles. He was all in. His gun had a fixed bayonet.
My eyes never left those squaws for a moment. I was sure they were spies who would go to the devils outside and tell them of the weakness of the fort. Two of the squaws began to fight about a fine tooth comb. The more formidable of the two, with much vituperation, declared she would not stay where the other one was. Just at the height of the fight, a gun outside was fired. The minute it was fired, the squaw started for the door. I suspected that it was a signal for her to come outside, and tell what she knew. Hawley had left his post and come in among us. Our babies were on a field bed on the floor. Calling to Mrs. Dunn to look after them, I sprang to the door and grabbed the discarded gun. At that moment, the squaw tried to pass. I ordered her back. She called me a "Seechy doe squaw" meaning "mean squaw" and tried to push me back. I raised the bayonet saying, "Go back or I'll ram this through you." She went back growling and swearing in Sioux. Probably in half an hour I was relieved of my self-appointed task. Martin Tanner taking my place, I said to him, "Don't let that squaw get away." I sat down on a board over some chairs and made the squaw sit beside me. There we sat all that long night with my right hand hold of my knife and the other holding her blue petticoat. Didn't she talk to me and revile me? None of the others even tried to leave. At last we saw the dawn appear.
Have you ever been in great danger where all was darkness where that danger was? If so, you will know what an everlasting blessing that daylight was.
From our upper windows we could look out and see that our foes were not yet in sight. All night long among the refugees, praying, supplicating and wailing for the dead, was constant, but as the light came and we began to bestir ourselves among them, nursing the wounded and feeding the hungry, this ceased and only the crying of the hungry children was heard.
The Indians had driven away all the stock so there was no milk. My baby had just been weaned. All those ten days we stayed in the fort, I fed her hard tack and bacon; that was all we had. I chewed this for her. There were many nursing mothers, but all were sustaining more than their own.
There was no well or spring near the fort. All water had to be brought from the ravine by mule team. Early that morning, under an escort, with the cannon trained on them, the men drove the mule teams again and again for water. Busy as all the women who lived at the fort were, I never let that squaw out of my sight. I kept hold of a lock of her hair whenever I walked around. She swore volubly, but came along.
About ten o'clock in the morning Lieutenant Gere, a boy of nineteen, who was left in command when the senior officers were killed, called on me. On a hill to the northwest, a great body of Indians were assembled. He wanted me to look through the field piece and see if Little Crow was the leader. I knew him at once among the cavorting throng of challenging devils. I knew too, whose captive I would be if the fort fell, for he had offered to buy me from my husband for three ponies. He loved so to hear me sing. Mr. Gideon Pond had tried to teach him to sing. We watched them breathlessly as they sat in council knowing that if they came then we were lost. The council was long, but finally after giving the blood curdling war whoop, they rode away.
They were hardly out of sight before the soldiers who had been with us and had just left for Fort Ripley before the outbreak, filed in. Captain Marsh had sent for them just before leaving the fort for Redwood. Those noble fellows, nearly exhausted from the long march, with no sleep for thirty hours, immediately took their places with the defenders, without rest or sleep the night before. Gere had sent to St. Peter for the Renville Rangers and some of our own men. They came in the evening.
The prayers of thanksgiving that could be heard in many tongues from that mournful group of refugees, as they knew of the soldiers return, could never be forgotten. Mrs. Dunn and I had asked for guns to help fight, but there were none for us. There was little ammunition too. The blacksmith, John Resoft, made slugs by cutting iron rods into pieces. Mrs. Mueller, Mrs. Dunn and I worked a large share of that day making cartridges of these, or balls. We would take a piece of paper, give it a twist, drop in some powder and one of these, or a ball, and give it another twist. The soldiers could fire twice as fast with these as when they loaded themselves. All the women helped.