Frances Grummond, now a widow due to the horrific massacre outside Fort Phil Kearny, stood holding her newborn son, as she looked Eastward. Finally, Colonel Henry B. Carrington had been able to take them from the fort. The bravery of John (Portuguese) Phillips on his long ride south to get help, had made the way for their leaving. They had come as far as Fort Sedgwick in the Nebraskan Territory. She wanted to leave. Thoughts of her home in Tennessee and the loved ones who awaited her there, drew her. Yet, should she stay in the West, where she and George had planned such a happy lifetime together? No, for baby Johnny's sake, she would return home where he could have the guidance of her family, especially her father, who was a renown physician in Franklin, Tennessee.