The Wiseman massacre was an incident that led to the deaths of five children allegedly at the hands of Native Americans on the morning of July 24, 1863, in what is now Cedar County, Nebraska.
[4] In 1862, the children's father, Henson Wiseman, a native of what is now West Virginia, enlisted in Company I, of the 2nd Nebraska Cavalry.
Their alleged orders were to connect with another military force moving West out of Minnesota under the direction of General Sibley.
The uprising alleges the Dakota tribes burned farms and tortured and/or killed an estimated 1,000 white settlers.
President Lincoln ordered the Union Army General Pope to oversee the Indian trouble.
Pope sent both General Sibley and Sully to push all bands of Dakota to the west side of the Missouri River.
In light of the uprising that had occurred in Minnesota and with the Eastern tribes of Sioux having joined white-friendly bands in the Dakota Territory, settlers living in Nebraska's Dixon and Cedar counties expressed considerable concern to military authorities that the absence of their men would leave their families vulnerable to attack.
The children's mother, Pheobe Cross Wiseman, left their home on July 21 to purchase supplies in the town of Yankton, DT.
She spent the night at the George Hall residence and the next morning crossed the river to Yankton, made her purchases, and returned to Elm Grove in the evening.
When Pheobe came close to the twin log cabins, she saw books on the ground in front of her home and then noticed blood on the door latch.
Frightened, thinking natives could still be around, Pheobe fled the scene and returned to St. James through bushes and muddy vales.
Hannah was lying on the bed in the main cabin and had suffered from a musket black powder cartridge ignited in her mouth.
Eight days prior to getting the news, Henson Wiseman encountered a Native American woman/girl wearing the shoes, of his wife Pheobe, stolen from the massacre site.
Sergeant John Hewitt of E Company, 6th Iowa Cavalry—then at Fort Randall with his regiment preparing for transfer upriver—recorded in his diary that a soldier of the 2nd Nebraska had passed through on his way home, where his family had been massacred, having ridden non-stop all the way.