The settlement at Medium Lake comprised about twelve or fifteen Irish families who had come from Illinois in the fall of 1856. They had selected claims along the Des Moines River, but had made no permanent improvements. Instead, they had built temporary cabins in a grove at the southwest corner of Medium Lake where they planned to spend the winter.[246] In time this temporary settlement developed into the town of Emmetsburg, which to the present day has retained a large percentage of people of Irish nativity. Here also were many people who had fled from the perils of an Indian attack and had come together for the winter. They were found living in rudely constructed cabin shelters or in dugouts.[247] Destitute of provisions, they were as far as possible being supported from the slender stores of their Irish neighbors upon whose pity they had thrown themselves. While here the expeditionary force was augmented by new recruits: thereafter it comprised one hundred and twenty-five men. Since most of these persons did not formally enlist their names do not appear upon the official muster roll of the battalion. Not only did the companies receive recruits at Medium Lake, but it was here that they were able to exchange their worn out oxen for fresh teams. They were also able to replenish somewhat their commissary department, for the new members brought with them as much food as the settlement was able to spare. XXIII FROM MEDIUM LAKE TO GRANGER’S POINT On Monday morning the expedition set out very much refreshed; for the men had not only feasted the evening before but that morning they “butchered a cow that had been wintered on prairie hay. The beef was not exactly porterhouse steak, but it was food for hungry men.”[248] The day’s march was a hard one, and when Big Island Grove near the Mud Lakes was reached the men were so exhausted that they threw themselves on the ground, rolled up in their blankets, and went to sleep without supper. Ex-Governor Carpenter, in relating his experiences as a member of the expedition, says that there was after the lapse of forty-one years a picture before him “of Capt. Charles B. Richards and Lieutenant F. A. Stratton ... with two or three of the men, cutting wood, punching the fire, and baking pancakes, until long after midnight; and as they would get enough baked for a meal they would waken some tired and hungry man and give him his supper: and the exercises in Company A were but a sample of what was in progress in each of the companies.”[249] Thus the greater portion of the night was spent by the solicitous officers in caring for their men.