Schumann famously rescued her children from violence during the May Uprising in Dresden in 1849. On the evening of 3 May, Robert and Clara heard that the revolution against King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony for not accepting the "constitution for a German Confederation" had arrived in Dresden. Most family members left and hid in a "neighbourhood security brigade", but on 7 May, she bravely walked back to Dresden to rescue her three children who had been left with a maid, defying a pack of armed men who confronted her, then walked back out of the city through the dangerous areas again.