The San Francisco call., 1897-02-14
Epei in WAn AnEady
Of Davis the eCoedn

and drink. They told General Dodge to
leave the place or they would kill him.
When matters became critical young
Augustus Dodge seized a sword and
thrusting it against. the throat of the
leader OF the band of savages threatened
to kill him unless he and his followers left
the house. The Indians left and their
leader after them.
There were many similar scenes through
which Mrs. Truett passed during those
alarming days of her girlhood.
Upon The breaking out of the Black Hawk
war, in 1892 his father was a colonel in
the Michigan territorial militia. On the
Sth of May of that year this intrepid pio-
neer, at the head of small band of his
neig bors and accom- panied by his sons,
Henry and Augustus, started on perilous
journey toward the Rock River. They
had not gone far when Colonel Dodge re-
ceived a message by runner notifying him
that the people OF Dodgeville and of all
the country in the immediate vicinity
were in immediate danger from the
Indians. Colonel Dodge and his COM
mand hurried back to Dodgeville and i'm
mediately began to erect additional stock
ade forts and to organize for defense.
He established his headquarters at Fort
Union, near his home at Dodgeville.
Then followed the outbreak, and for two
months the fiendish savages reveled in a
carnival of blood. Old men and women
and children, as we'll as the young and
strong of the whites, were cruelty butch
cred. Every schoolchild has read that
dark chapter in the history of the early
settlement of the West. The Indians
killed their victims in the most brutal
manner and often ate their flesh and
drank their blood. Mrs. Truett was in the
midst of it all at Dodgeville, and although
she was but young girl the scenes
she witnessed then made such terribly
vivid i'm preston upon her mind that she
now recalls them with horror as she sits,
so many years later, in her quiet home in
California, far removed from that bloody
battle ground of the early pioneer days.
Young Augustus was made lieutenant
of volunteers for home protection, and
with small body of valiant men guard ed
the women and children in the stockades
from bands of prowling Indians. And
Christiana Dodge, wife of General Henry
Dodge and mother of Mrs. Truett, with
her daughters, stayed in the fort and
cooked for the soldiers. Mrs. Truett is
very proud OF her mothers courage, and
from all accounts of those troublous times
she has cause to be.
Mrs. Truett recalls the battle of Bad Axe
and all the stirring incidents of the cam
| paign, including the final capture of Black
Hawk, and although her memory is some.
what dimmed by the flight of years, she
yet talks Interestingly of them.
| After Black Hawk was conquered Gen.
eral Dodge again interested himself IN
mining and the family home remained at
Dodgeville. About this time jeff Davis,
then young lieutenant of dragons, was
stationed at a post near Dodgeville, and
he, with other officers of the garrison, be-
came frequent visitors at the Dodge home.
In connection with these visits Mrs.
Truett tells little bit of unwritten his
tory which, had its finale been otherwise,
might have changed the course of the Civil
war. 1t appears from her narrative that
jeff Davis, the young subaltern, became
very attentive to Mrs. Truett's older sister,
Mary, and whenever he visited the Dodge
home showed decided preference for Miss
Mary's company, and the two would take
! long walks across the sun-kissed pfairie.