What these accounts describe is not a single dramatic nighttime breakout of nearly 300 people from a besieged camp.

It is something more complex: an initial escape by White Bird with a relatively small group, followed by a period in which other nimíipuu individuals and groups — some from the Bear Paw camp, some who had been in the surrounding area — made their way north across the Canadian border in separate movements.

The sources are not entirely consistent on the details of exactly who left when and in what groupings.

What is documented is: