This page records part of the history of Iowa when citizens formed militias to protect them from renegade Indian tribes.

Please donate stories of pre Civil War battles in Iowa, especially stories about indians.

There was a "Border Brigade" of federal troops that was formed sometime after the Spirit Lake Massacre (March 1857) and 1862 whose purpose was to protect settlers and "chase Indians". Some soldiers were sent there instead of to the Civil War.  Marilyn Mugan Holmes

I believe the official name was the Northern Border Brigade.  I'm not sure if they were stationed out of Ft. Dodge, IA  or at Ft. Defiance in Estherville, IA, or maybe Ft. Belmond in Jackson, Mn. (which is just a few miles across the border from Spirit Lake.  Jackson, at that time was called Springfield, Mn, and there were many Indian problems. Supposedly, all Indians were to have been removed from the state in 1851, but there were many roving bands.  I grew up in Emmetsburg, IA (at that time it was called only "the Irish Colony") which was one of the stopping places of the soldiers from Ft. Dodge who went up to bury the dead in 1857.  As a child,  I heard many tales by the "old ones".  
There is a book that you may be able to find on e-bay or elsewhere called "The Northern Border Brigade".  I don't recall who wrote it.
Albert Lea and his Dragoon soldiers did camp at Emmetsburg at the site of Kearney State Park on one of their exploratory trips.     Marilyn Mugan Holmes