Fact vs. Fiction
Though I Will Die With You is based on the real events of the Dakota War of 1862, it should not be construed as an accurate historical account. History is necessarily more complex and harder to follow than fiction, so for the sake of clarity and the drama and flow of the story, I invented scenes from pure imagination or logical speculation, combined the experiences of several people into one character, and eliminated other personalities entirely. While most of the characters are real people who wrote memoirs about their experiences during the war, those accounts were often written years after the fact and sometimes appeared to be inaccurate or self-serving or both. Even contemporaneously written diaries often left out important details or revealed little about the personalities and motivations of the writer, leaving them up to my own imagination. The following will help the reader sort out what is fact and fiction in the novel and learn more about fates of the historical figures.
Timothy Sheehan served as commander of Company C, Fifth Regiment throughout the Civil War, and it is certainly true that no single individual did more to protect the lives and property of American citizens during the Dakota conflict than Sheehan. His defense of Fort Ridgley is well documented, while his diary entries made it possible for me to reconstruct the events at the agency prior to the Acton murders. Though loaded with facts, Sheehan’s writing revealed little about his personal opinions or relationships with other people, so these are almost entirely my own invention. Furthermore, I used Sheehan to introduce the reader to many real people whom he did not actually meet, including Reverend Stephan Riggs, Bishop Henry Whipple, Reverend Williamson and Major General John Pope. Sheehan’s birth and enlistment records give different numbers, 27 and 24 respectively, for his age at the time of the novel. I chose to go with the latter. After the war he spent time as a sheriff, Indian agent to the Chippewa, and finally deputy U.S. Marshall in St. Paul.
Little Crow (Taoyateduta, His Red Nation) The background information in the novel about Little Crow is factual, and his activities during the conflict come from the observations of others. Some of their accounts were conflicting and I had to choose among them, because unfortunately Little Crow did not live to write his own version of events. The text of his speech which set off the war was recounted by Wowinape, though my description of his decision to lead the braves as being spur-of-the-moment was only a reasonable surmise based on his previous behavior. Chauncey Lamson did not realize that he had killed Little Crow. Though many people thought the man he shot looked like the chief, no conclusive identification was made until Wowinape was captured by soldiers after making it back to Devil’s Lake and told the story of how his father died. Wowinape was sentenced to death for his part in the war but received a reprieve and later a pardon. He died at age 40 after founding the first Dakota YMCA.
Thomas Gere was First Lieutenant of Company B, Fifth Regiment, and his role in the story is mostly historical. However, he did not accompany the relief force at Birch Coulee or fight in the battle of Wood Lake, so his exploits in those two encounters are totally fictional as is his close relationship with Tim Sheehan, although they certainly were well acquainted. He was eventually promoted to Adjutant General of the regiment and received the Medal of Honor for his gallantry in the Battle of Nashville, where he was wounded.
Lorenzo Lawrence (Towanetaton, Face Of The Village)
John Otherday (Ampatutokacha, Good Sounding Voice)
The descriptions of the lives of both Lawrence and Otherday prior to 1862 are factual, but their relationships with each other and with Lieutenant Sheehan are invented. The story of Lawrence’s rescue of Janette De Camp and the others was taken, with some modification, from his memoir, Story of Lorenzo Lawrence. Otherday’s rescue of the agency workers at Yellow Medicine, for which he received a $2500 reward, is accurate as well. Both men scouted for Sibley’s army at the Battle of Wood Lake, and there is even mention of Otherday having his horse stolen on the march there, though the way this occurs in the novel is fictional. The ruse Lawrence and Otherday use to force a confrontation at Wood Lake is also an invention of my own, and there is no record of Lawrence or Otherday aiding the soldiers at the Upper Agency in the weeks leading up to the conflict. In fact, when Strike The Pawnee’s braves attempted to break into the warehouse, it was actually James Gorman of the Renville Rangers who stopped a brave from disarming one of the soldiers, thus avoiding disaster.
Tom Barnes, Sam Clark and Ben Vials were privates in Company C, Sixth Regiment. All three volunteered to join the burial detail and as a result ended up fighting in the Battle of Birch Coulee. Tom Barnes was my great-grandfather, and it was his memoir which sparked my interest in these events. Though he names Clark and Vials as his fellow volunteers, their personalities and everything about their relationships is fictional. Barnes did have to return to the enlistment office twice because the first recruitment officer refused to accept him without a letter from his father, but he made his second attempt without the benefit of Vials’ forgery. My great-grandfather describes Vials’ injury at Birch Coulee, and records show that Vials was discharged soon after the battle, likely because of its severity. After the war, Barnes returned to Glencoe and married Nellie Smith, who unfortunately died of disease along with two of their infant children, while another of their children died as a teenager in a house fire. Only one of Barnes’ children from that first marriage survived into adulthood, my Great-Aunt Grace, who lived with my family when I was a child. Barnes remarried and had three more children, including my maternal grandmother, Cleo. Unsurprisingly, he was very active in the temperance movement and the Boy Scouts.
Brown Wing (Sungigidan), Breaking Up (Kaomdeiyeyedon), Killing Ghost (Nagwicakte), and Runs Into Things (Pazoiyopa) were the names of the four Acton murderers, and there is no doubt that they fired the first shots of the war, but their reasons are unclear. There was, apparently, an argument among them over some eggs, which I used a sibling rivalry to help explain. The sequence of events at the farmhouse and upon their return to Rice Creek essentially follows eyewitness accounts. However, what happened to them during and after the war is unknown. I invented the family relationships between the young men, as well as everything about their personalities and activities during the conflict. A brave did intercede to save the Brown family from being shot, but that brave was not Brown Wing.
Cut Nose (Marpiya Okinajin) did receive his disfigurement at the hands of John Otherday, and he captured the Brown family as described. The rest of his exploits in the novel are fictional, though he admitted to killing over twenty settlers and made no bones about his guilt at his trial. He was hung with the others at Mankato, and all their bodies were buried at a secret location. However, the night after the execution a group of local doctors dug up some of the bodies to use for anatomy study. Dr. William Mayo took the body of Cut Nose, and his sons later founded the famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where Cut Nose’s skeleton remained on display for years. The remains were returned to Cut Nose’s family in 1990 and the Mayo Clinic made a formal apology to the tribe and his family in 2018, as reported in the Omaha World Herald.
Inkpaduta (Scarlet Point) Timothy Sheehan did really take a group of men to find this renegade chief who was wanted for killing settlers in Iowa, though Lorenzo Lawrence was not among the search party. Inkpaduta was never captured. His band joined the Teton Dakota, who participated in many major battles against the whites led by famous chiefs like Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull, including The Battle of Little Big Horn. Inkpaduta reportedly died of pneumonia in Canada.
Thomas Galbraith, who eventually moved west and became a federal district judge, was suspected of some illegal dealings with the traders but was never charged with any wrongdoing. In 1863 he submitted a long, self-serving report of the Sioux Uprising to Commissioner Clark Thompson in which he absolved himself of any role in causing the conflict. He also stated that all Indians in Minnesota would have to be removed because they could not live peacefully with white people. Though the interactions between Sheehan and Galbraith in the novel are fictional, it is documented that the two men butted heads over how to deal with the Dakota and that Sheehan considered Galbraith a drunk. Whether his assessment was accurate, however, is up for debate.
Andrew and Nathan Myrick had trading posts at both agencies, and many suspected them of cheating the Dakota but nothing was ever proven. There are several different accounts of how and when Andrew Myrick made the statement “Let them eat grass.” I picked the most dramatic of them. Andrew’s death, and the manner in which his body was discovered, are accurate.
Henry Sibley’s actions and decisions during the conflict and the following trials are mostly historical, as are the criticisms he received for them at the time. However, his conflict with Sheehan is fictional. He did order Sheehan’s company to return to Fort Ripley before the Battle of Wood Lake, which left me with the problem of my main character disappearing from the novel before its end. Rather than insert Sheehan into the scene, however, I decided to come up with an explanation for why Sibley would choose not to use the lieutenant’s talents there. Sibley led two more major military expeditions against the Dakota, in the summers of 1863 and 1864. Neither produced a decisive victory, and he and Major General John Pope continued to be criticized for their inability to stop the raiders, though they did prevent the Dakota from organizing any more major attacks and kept them on the run until they could no longer continue the struggle. He was discharged from the army in 1866 and moved to St. Paul, where he dabbled in several financial ventures and made an unsuccessful run for the legislature. He served as president of the Minnesota Historical Society from 1879 until his death in 1891.
Grant, McPhail, Anderson and Crooks are all historical figures who mostly served in the army as described in the novel, and who are also all linked by real controversies over the Battle of Birch Coulee. In his memoir, as well as letters to newspapers, Hiram P. Grant asserted that he was in full command at Birch Coulee, not Joseph Brown, and that this was made explicit when he received his orders from Colonel Crooks. He also all but accused McPhail of cowardice for not coming to their aid sooner. Joseph Anderson, in accordance with the report submitted by Henry Sibley, stated emphatically in his own letter that he understood Brown to be in command. However, most other first-hand accounts, as well as the monument at the battle site, say it was Grant. I chose to go with the latter and used Sibley’s desire to avoid criticism and his close friendship with Brown (he gave the eulogy at Brown’s funeral) to try to explain why his account diverged from the others. There is no record of what William Crook’s understanding of the situation was; therefore, his interactions in the novel with both Sibley and Grant about the matter are fictional. As for Samuel McPhail, he was actually older and, as a veteran of the Mexican War, also more experienced than he is portrayed in the novel. He published his own letter defending his actions in response to Grant’s criticism, insisting that given the unknowns of the situation it was necessary to be cautious. McPhail did command the relief force for Fort Ridgley, as well as Birch Coulee, and was in command of the mounted troops at Wood Lake. However, he did not replace Sheehan as post commander nor was he in charge of the military prison at Mankato. McPhail later founded the town of Redwood Falls and practiced law there for many years.
Lightning Blanket did fight in both the attacks on Fort Ridgely but did not really die at Wood Lake. He was among the men who surrendered at Camp Release and were convicted and sentenced to death, but fortunately not among the 39 who were actually hanged. He served three years in prison in Davenport, Iowa and eventually married Little Crow’s youngest widow and settled in Morton, Minnesota, near Birch Coulee. He wrote about the Fort Ridgely battles in his memoirs which he dictated to Joseph Coursolle. His relationship with Brown Wing as well as his adventures as a scout, however, are all fictional, including his partner, Spotted Dog, and his theft of John Otherday’s horse.
White Dog was hung at Mankato, though he always claimed that he had been forced to be at the Battle of the Redwood Ferry and that he was trying to warn the soldiers when he shot his gun. I chose to believe him. Whatever the truth, it is hard to understand why Lincoln approved of White Dog’s death sentence since he was never accused of killing civilians. Other than his hanging, White Dog’s activities after the Redwood battle are fictional.
Wakinyatawa (His Thunder) did save George Spencer. His family was awarded $250 for this rescue on behalf of Wakinyatawa because unfortunately, after scouting for Sibley in 1863, he died of an accidental poisoning.
Chaska and Sarah Wakefield The scene in which Chaska stops a drunken Hapa from killing Wakefield and her children closely matches her own account in her memoir, Six Weeks in the Sioux Tepees. Wakefield’s family remained under the protection of Chaska during their captivity, and she defended him so strongly after their release that people started to suspect, quite unfairly, that there was a love affair between them. Wakefield did speak at Chaska’s trial, and though there is no transcript of the proceeding, her words in the novel closely match sentiments she expressed elsewhere. She was shocked by the outcome, but according to her memoir she was later assured by Captain Grant that Chaska’s sentence had been commuted to five years. Why Chaska was hung anyway remains unclear. For drama’s sake I had the commutation arrive too late, but in a letter to Wakefield, Reverend Riggs suggested that Chaska was confused with another man to be hung named Chaskadon. Whatever the cause, Wakefield firmly believed that it had been done intentionally.
Snana and Mary Schwandt The story of Snana’s protection of Mary Schwandt is also factual. Snana’s remaining children died soon after the end of the conflict and she and Good Thunder eventually parted ways. However, she remarried and had more children while living at the Santee Reservation in Nebraska. In 1899, Schwandt published an account of her experience, and she and Snana were reunited soon after. Snana died less than a year after their meeting.
Justina Krieger’s amazing tale of survival is true. She and seven of her children were the only ones to survive the massacre at Sacred Heart. During her recovery she met John Jacob Meyer, who had lost his family in the war, and they married that winter. Justina wrote a memoir of her experience. Janette De Camp also married a fellow survivor, Reverend Joshua Sweet, whom she became reacquainted with in St. Paul after he became a widower. Her role in the novel is also factual.
Tom Robertson did not work at the Myricks’ store, but he did often work as an interpreter and did act as a go-between for Little Crow and Sibley. His partner on that adventure was a man named Tom Robinson, whom I renamed Edgar Branch to avoid confusion. Robertson worked as a scout for Sibley and moved to Redwood Falls, where he developed a friendship with Samuel McPhail. He later moved to the Sisseton Reservation and wrote his memoirs in 1917.
Joseph Brown really was a larger-than-life character—a soldier, trader, politician, newspaperman, and inventor—who greatly influenced Minnesota’s progress from frontier to statehood and was heavily involved with the Dakota people through his three marriages, all Dakota women, and his work on the treaties. His activities in the novel are factual. Most of the material about Samuel and Susan Brown also came from their own writings. The Brown family were captured by Cut Nose and Little Shakopee, and there was a brave who intervened on their behalf, though it was not Brown Wing. They were subsequently saved by Akipa as described and joined the Peace Party. Samuel Brown served as a scout for Sibley until he got caught in a winter storm in 1866 and became seriously ill. He wrote extensively about his experiences before his death in 1925.
Gabrielle Renville (Tiwkan, Sacred Lodge), along with Solomon Two Stars, did steer the war council toward fighting in the daytime at the Battle of Wood Lake as described in my story. He also formed and led the group of Dakota scouts who worked with General Sibley during the expeditions of 1863 and 1864. After these campaigns, Renville set about organizing the Sisseton Reservation and negotiated and signed the Treaty of 1867. Though he never learned English, he dictated a narrative of his experiences during the war to Samuel Brown and Tom Robertson. He died while visiting the Brown family nearly 30 years to the date of the start of the war.
De Grove Kimball was a private in Company G, Third Regiment, but his relationship with his comrades and his commander, Lieutenant Olin, are fictional. There is no evidence that he was more of a scrounger than others in his company, but he was one of the men who went out to dig vegetables at Wood Lake and was killed in the ambush. There is also no evidence that Lawrence or anyone else gave them the idea in order to force a confrontation.
Running Walker is one of the few characters in the story who is entirely my own invention, and perhaps that is why he is one of my favorites. I would have included him in more of the story if I could have figured out how.
Otherwise, most of the chiefs and named fighters and settlers in the story were generally present at the events as described. There are too many characters to list them all here, but feel free to contact me if you would like more information about any person or incident in the story. Also, see my Bonus Materials for suggestions for further reading about these events and for scenes that I cut from the final draft of the book.
