Snelling earned his greatest fame as a writer of short stories about his experiences on the American frontier. He realized that the lifestyle of the Plains Indians was under threat, and he deemed the popular characterization of Indians in American literature to be stereotyped and inaccurate. He thus tried for realism in his stories, making him one of the earliest American writers to do so. Modern ethnographers still recognize his works as the first accurate literary portrayal of the lifestyle of the Plains Indians. In "The Last of the Iron Hearts", Snelling wrote, " beg leave to assure our readers, that the Indian is not the ferocious brute of Hubbard and Mather, or the brilliant, romantic, half-French, half-Celtic Mohegan and Yemassee created by Symmes and Cooper." He further claimed that one "must live, emphatically, "live", with Indians; share with them their lodges, their food, and their blankets, for years, before he can comprehend their ideas, or enter into their feelings."