Note 48 — III THE UNPROTECTED FRONTIER

“He [Secretary of State in Iowa, Geo. W. McCleary] also writes me that these Indians are manifestly making preparations for war, and have been and are now making great efforts to induce all the Mississippi River Sioux to unite with them in hostilities upon the whites. I hear from various sources that several runners have been sent by the Sioux west of the Missouri river, to those in this State, and in Minnesota, with war belts, urging the latter to make common cause with them. The result of all this is a great state of alarm along the whole frontier.”—Letter of Governor Grimes to President Pierce, December 3, 1855, in the Annals of Iowa (Third Series), Vol. III, p. 136. Charles Aldrich in an editorial in the Annals of Iowa (Third Series), Vol. III, p. 566, remarked that “Had the earnest appeals of Gov. Grimes been heeded, the Spirit Lake Massacre would not have occurred.”