Edwin Otway Burnham's cabin was burned down by a Sioux war party, warriors from a North American Native American tribe.
Gathering up baby Fred, she realized she could not escape while carrying him, so she hid her baby in a stack of green corn shocks, running fast and deceptively to evade the Sioux war party. She reached a friendly homestead six miles away in time to see the smoke of her cabin. While he was in Mankato, Minnesota procuring lead and powder, his wife Rebecca (Elizabeth) Russell Burnham was left alone in the cabin with Fred, the couple's not quite two-year-old boy. He was carrying the logs from the ruins of his former cabin to build a barn when he slipped on an ice patch. The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin (/su/; Dakota: Ochethi Sakowi /oteti akowi/) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations peoples in North America. Returning the next morning with armed neighbors, Rebecca saw her burned-down cabin and she found her baby Fred still in the corn husks and still alive. 
