Mother Lambert was an interested and anxious spectator of the battle. In addition to having her own small family to care for, a Mrs. Haines, a neighbor, who was very ill, had been brought to her home to be nursed, her husband being absent from the city. During the bombardment, which continued for several days, some of the cannon balls fired by the mob passed close by, but none of them actually struck the house. In one instance an old gentleman, who felt too feeble to be among the city's defenders, but whose anxiety to see how the battle waged led him to ascend to the top of the roof of the Lambert house to get a good view, was so alarmed by a cannon ball passing close by his head, that he rolled from the roof to the ground. A flag of truce was finally raised by the mob and a treaty effected, one of the provisions of which was that the Saints would vacate the city within three days. Such of the household goods possessed by the Lambert family as could be, were loaded into a wagon box and an attempt made to remove across the river. As they approached the Mississippi, however, in the lower part of the town, so many other wagons were found to be ahead of theirs, waiting to be ferried over, that a temporary camp was made near an abandoned home. While on the way from their home to this point the family had been surrounded by a large posse of the mob and compelled to give up to them such fire arms as they possessed. Soon after reaching the temporary camp, and while Father Lambert was absent with his team for the purpose of hauling John Haines' wagon, with his household goods and his sick wife in it, down to the same point, a second mob appeared and demanded that Mother Lambert give up to them whatever fire arms were in the wagon. In vain she told them the weapons had already been surrendered, and that she did not have the keys to unlock the boxes in the wagon. They used a hammer to forcibly break open the boxes, and proceeded to ransack all that the wagon contained, with the result that they obtained possession of a sword and bowie knife. These they brandished before the frightened mother and panic-stricken children, accusing her of lying to them when she said she had no fire arms, and threatening to cut her head off. A sister of the Prophet Joseph Smith was a witness of this scene, she having proffered to remain with Mother Lambert for company while her husband was absent, and expressed regret that she didn't have some weapon to shoot the men with while threatening her friend. In course of time they succeeded in getting ferried over the river and formed a camp on the Iowa side until Father Lambert could fulfill his pledge to help the poor Saints who had no means of conveyance, across the river, where they would be free from the power of the mob.