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Show Aear ffte Utah-Idaho border 'Greatest Indian disaster' recanted By QUIG NIELSEN On Jan. 29, 1863, "the greatest Indian In-dian disaster in the entire West" occurred just west of today's Preston, Idaho, near the Utah-Idaho border. Now historians are calling it "one of the most horrible battles in American Indian history" and the ' severest ever recorded. Because of the Civil War, in full fury at the time, the battle was almost unknown outside the area where it occurred. Newspapers of the day gave little space to the Indian In-dian battles in the West This was the January when President Abraham Lincoln issued the "Emancipation Proclamation" freeing "all slaves in areas still in rebellion." Patrick Edward Connor, a young, ambitious Irishman of 42, arrived in the Utah territory in 1862 with about 750 volunteer United States Army troops from California and Nevada. Disgruntled when he didn't receive an officer assignment to lead Union forces in Civil War battles, the disconsolate Connor established es-tablished a permanent United States Army post at Camp (now Fort) Douglas. The top objective of Connor s troops was to guard the Western mail routes and telegraph secondary purpose, but he fabricated an "assignment" of watching the activities ac-tivities of the Mormons. Connor's recorded correspondence cor-respondence shows that he felt "his duty of assuring Mormon loyalty was.. .as important as preventing Indian In-dian raids along the... mail and telegraph tel-egraph routes." Although the feisty Connor respected Brighara Young, he became defensive when his name was mentioned. Reporting to his superiors in Washington, Connor wrote that the Mormons were "a community of traitors, murderers, fanatics..." He apparently held that opinion most of his life. Aligning himself with non-Mormon non-Mormon businessmen, Connor " "promoted prospecting and mining. "He was involved in settling early-day early-day Corinne, a non-Mormon settlement west of Brigham City, which was for a time called Connor City after the strong-willed Irishman. Connor and his cohorts were desirous of making Corinne the "Chicago of the WesL" When railroad construction crews came and then left, Corinne 's future went with them. As a soldier, Connor was brave, able and determined. He was quick to snuff out Indian uprisings. When the Bear River trouble loomed, the ambitious Connor grabbed the chance to further build his reputation reputa-tion as a great military leader and to gain an army promotion. An affidavit signed by miner William Bevins, on Jan. 19, 1863, said that two days previously he and seven others on their way to Salt Lake City from the Grasshopper gold mines in Dakota were attacked by Indians, who killed one of them. Bevins also reported that another party of ten miners en route to Salt Lake City had been murdered by the same Indians. This was enough for Connor. Without further investigation, warrants for the arrest of three Shoshoni Indian chiefsBear Hunter, Sandpitch and Sagwitch-were Sagwitch-were given to U.S. Marshall Isaac L. Gibbs, who turned the matter over to Colonel Connor. Another miner from the Grasshopper mines traveling to Salt Lake City had spoken to some of the Cache Valley Shoshoni, who told him the Indians had nothing against the settlers but meant to continue to take revenge on white travelers for the injustices done them by Major Edward McGarry's troops. McGarry, charged by his men as "being drunk most of the time," was Connor's right hand man and a blood-thirsty, Indian-hating officer. He infuriated the Indians when he took four of their number hostage, tied their hands to a ferry rope and executed them, firing 5 1 shots. Connor sent word to Marshal Gibbs that his expedition against the Indians was ready and "that it was not my intention to take any prisoners." An observer of highly mysterious army preparations going on at Camp Douglas heard Connor's Con-nor's intention to "exterminate the Indians." Secrecy about Connor's troop movements was necessary to keep the Indians from moving before the troops arrived. Connor didn't want to deprive his soldiers of what he called a little "Indian killing." The colonel always considered winter the best time to attack an Indian village, because 'the warriors would be settled and encumbered with their wives and children." "The first month of 1863 opened fearfully cold and severe. Ice was everywhere," wrote Thomas Donaldson in his book Idaho of Yesterday, Yes-terday, "in fact, the marching possibilities were so bad that when the Indians were told that Connor's men were going to attack, they laughed and said, 'No! Too cold for soldiers. " On Jan. 25 Connor, with about 300 men from his detachment at Camp Douglas, three companies of cavalry and one company of infantry infan-try headed north. The infantry, first to leave the camp, was overtaken by the cavalry in Mendon. The infantry troops resumed their march and joined the cavalry at Franklin, Idaho, about 15 miles from the Indian In-dian encampment The Indians had prepared a position posi-tion of strong natural defense, almost inaccessible to troops. They were in a ravine from six to 12 feet deep and from 30 to 40 feet wide with very steep banks. On the level ground above the banks the Indians had constructed steps from which they could deliver their fire without exposing themselves. Artificial courses of willows, thickly woven together, were also constructed from which the Indians could fire without being observed. At 3 a.m. on Jan. 29, the infantry moved in and the battle began on a small tributary of the Bear River called Bear Creek. About an hour later the cavalry went into action, passing the plodding infantry just south of the river. Some historians have recorded that Chief Bear Hunter rode out in front of his lines and challenged the soldiers to fight. The cocky Connor, angry at Bear Hunter's arrogance, ordered his men to charge, a colossal mistake. His troops were easily thrown back by the Indians in their strong position. posi-tion. As he retreated, Connor devis ed another stratagem by dividing his troops into three divisions, with the infantry attacking from the front and the cavalry units striking from the flanks. Connor's description of the battle as recorded in Tullidge's History of Salt Lake City, reads, "...being exposed ex-posed on a level and open plain, while the Indians were under cover (gave them) the advantage, fighting with the ferocity of demons. My men fell thick and fast around me, but after flanking them we had the advantage and made good use of it I ordered a flanking party to advance ad-vance down the ravine or either side, which gave us the advantage of gunfire directed from either flank and caused some of the Indians to give way and run towards the mouth of the ravine. "...I had a company stationed who shot them as they ran out...Few tried to escape but continued fighting with unyielding obstinacy, frequently engaging hand to hand with the troops..." After about four hours of bloody battling on that bitter cold day, the U.S. troops, many killed, wounded or frozen, had almost completely annihilated the Indian encampment. A San Francisco Bulletin reporter described the battle scene: "The carnage presented in the ravine was horrible. Warrior piled on warrior, horses mangled and wounded in every conceivable form, with here and there a squaw and papoose, who had been accidentally ac-cidentally killed..." Connor's forces had killed between be-tween 250 and 300 Indians (Connor's (Con-nor's estimate) including chiefs Bear Hunter and Lehi I. Chiefs Sanpitch, Sagwitch and Pocatello escaped along with about 50 braves. Early journals have recorded many different numbers of Indians killed but it is now believed that Connor's figures are the most reliable. Donaldson records an incident from the fight. 4 ' Sag Witch (Sagwitch), one of the headmen, was shot through both legs. The intense in-tense cold, hovering below zero, congealed the blood and prevented him from bleeding to death. Under fire from the soldiers, Sag Witch dragged himself down to Bear Creek, jumped into the water, and swam for an eighth of a mile almost entirely submerged. Then he dragged his frozen body ashore and traveled by crawling and sliding, 20 miles across the snow to a friendly lodge, that of Chief Pocatello. Sag Witch remained on the Fort Hall Reservation until the day of his death, a badly crippled and deeply dejected red man." The bishop of Franklin sent William Head, captain of the local militia; William Hull, and one other to check the battlefield and discover if any Indians were still a live. James F. Varley wrote in his book Brigham and the Brigadier, "The men found bodies everywhere in several places, three to five deep. Two Indian women whose thighs had been broken by bullets were found alive, as well as two boys and one girl about three years old. The little girl had eight flesh wounds in her body. Hull and the others took them back to Franklin for care." Perhaps the only document that tells the Bear River story from the Indian point of view was written by Mae T. Parry, the great-granddaughter great-granddaughter of Chief Sagwitch and recorded in Newell Hart's, The Bear River Massacre. Parry places the entire blame for the confrontation on the white man, "except for a few Indian troublemakers." She cited two or three instances in which white men had been killed, but says that none of the Indian band on the Bear River had anything to do with it Chief Sagwitch 's son, Yeagah Timbimboo, was Parry's grandfather. grand-father. He was about 12 years old at the time of the massacre and had miraculously escaped death. Connor was not considered a great fighter nor a hero in the eyes of the Indians but an "unjust man and a coward. He was not fair in his dealings with the Indians," Parry said "He shot first and did not give the Indians a chance to explain. Perhaps his motto was, 'The only good Indian is a dead Indian.' All Colonel Connor wanted was promotion promo-tion after promotion and that is what he got Brigadier General Patrick E. Connor. ' In his official report to the War Department, Connor boasted that "I captured 175 horses, some arms. ..and a large quantity of wheat and other provisions which had been furnished them by the Mormons." Mor-mons." Early records show the Mormons had offered provisions and help to all travelers passing through the territory. ter-ritory. But Connor was not one to credit the Mormons with any assistance. He failed to acknowledge the food, clothing and places of shelter given by Mormons to his suffering and wounded soldiers in the northern Utah settlements of Logan, Wellsville and Brigham City. Luckily he had legendary Mormon scout Porter Rockwell as a guide who went among the Mormons acquiring ac-quiring 18 sleds to carry the dead and wounded back to Camp Douglas. Connor couldn't understand Brigham Young's philosophy that it was "better to feed the Indians than to fight them." Even the New York Times wondered if conciliation wasn't better than a fight. True, the troops did find a little plunder, a few wagon covers with their former owners names on them, but the slaughter of the Indian men, women and children was unwarranted, un-warranted, unnecessary, harsh, brutal and an inexcusable tragedy. "Had the (Indians) committed this deed," historian H.H. Bancroft wrote, "it would pass into history as a butchery, or massacre." And Connor. He was criticized for the number of soldiers who were killed and was relieved from his command in 1866. He retired from the service and spent the remainder of his days in Salt Lake City living among the Mormons where he became known as the father of mining min-ing in Utah. (Some of the information for this article was taken from Whitney, History of Utah; Roberts, History of the IDS Church; files of Deseret News, 1863; Madsen, The Shoshoni Frontier and the Bear River Massacre.) |