But with the families which had been shattered by the savages, which had lost father or mother or sons or daughters struck down in the slaughter, the case was far different. And many, alas, were in this condition, for more than one thousand white people had fallen victims to the Indians along the desolated Minnesota frontier during those few mid-August days. Where the head of a family had been lost, his widow and children must either undertake to eke out a precarious existence on the devastated claim from which they had been driven, surrounded by the hard conditions of pioneer life, or they must return to the older parts of the country whence they had originally come, and there seek the aid and protection of relatives or friends. The first arrangement was often impossible, for not many a widow with a family of small children could hope to sustain herself in such a country, beautiful and fertile but at that time wild and practically unbroken. For these reasons there was a long and doleful procession of destitute people passing through St. Paul, Winona, and the other towns along the Mississippi River on their way back to the more easterly States during the days of late August and early September, 1862. They came from Fort Ridgely, from New Ulm, from Acton and Forest City and Hutchinson and a score of other little settlements along the border. Among these unfortunate people were to be found the survivors of the Briscoe family, bound for St. Louis, Missouri. How they had finally come to decide upon this course will require some explanation.