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Post by WY Man on Jan 17, 2010 12:21:26 GMT -6
Living in Sheridan, Wyoming, I have become interested in the Indian Wars that occurred in and around this community. In particular, the ill-fated expeditions of Custer and Fetterman are well known, but there are a score of other more obscure expeditions and battles that occurred in this region. One was the 1865 Powder River Expedition, led by Patrick E. Connor. Connor was a friend and colleague of John M. Chivington, who commanded the notorious 1864 massacre of the Cheyenne village at Sand Creek, Colorado. Connor, in 1863, had led an attack upon an unsuspecting Shoshone village at Bear River, Idaho, killing more than Chivington at Sand Creek. They were mostly women and children. Connor returned to a hero's welcome in Colorado, and encouraged Chivington to catch the Indians and punish them in the same way. Chivington followed in Connor's footsteps at Sand Creek, butchering many women, children and little babies. Meanwhile, Connor made arrangements for another campaign, against the Sioux and Cheyenne off-reservation Indians, said to be prowling in the country between the Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountains. I became interested in this campaign after finding an unpublished account of it written by William Devine, who accompanied the expedition, and who lived in Sheridan, Wyoming in his later years. I also became interested in Devine, who is buried in our local cemetery. I included a photo of Devine's grave with this post, and I superimposed a portrait of Devine onto the headstone. William Devine was born on Halloween, in the year 1841, in Manchester, England. His father was Irish, his mother English. His family moved to Philadelphia while William was a small boy. Devine enlisted in the 71st Pennsylvania Infantry at the outbreak of the Civil War. He fought with the army of the Potomac, and was in some of the heaviest fighting at Gettysburg. He was described as having a "reckless and adventurous temperament." His service during the Civil War brought him to St. Louis, Missouri; and following the war, Devine was enlisted in Patrick Connor's "Powder River Expedition," in Omaha, Nebraska, organized to address the so-called "Indian problem," which had been developing in the Sioux and Cheyenne country farther west and north. Much of this problem had to do with the influx of civilian travel upon the newly developed "Bozeman Trail," through the heart of traditional Indian hunting lands in Wyoming and Montana. Attacks upon parties of travelers became frequent in 1864 and 1865, culminating in the Powder River expedition. Devine was a member of Col. Nelson Cole's column during this campaign. The men were ill-equipped, and suffered greatly during the 1,200 miles of marching, from scurvy and exposure. They would certainly have perished in their encounters with the Indians, were it not for the artillery they brought along. After the 1865 campaign, Devine continued service with the government fighting Indians in Kansas and present-day Oklahoma, fighting with George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Washita. Devine also knew and worked with Kit Carson and Jim Bridger. In 1876, Devine accompanied George Crook in his winter campaign. In later years, William Devine returned to the scene of his service with the Connor and Crook campaigns, and made his home in Sheridan, Wyoming. He died May 17, 1927. His obituary does not mention any family.
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Post by markland on Jan 17, 2010 13:00:12 GMT -6
<snip> Connor, in 1863, had led an attack upon an unsuspecting Shoshone village at Bear River, Idaho, killing more than Chivington at Sand Creek. They were mostly women and children. Connor returned to a hero's welcome in Colorado, and encouraged Chivington to catch the Indians and punish them in the same way. Chivington followed in Connor's footsteps at Sand Creek, butchering many women, children and little babies. Meanwhile, Connor made arrangements for another campaign, against the Sioux and Cheyenne off-reservation Indians, said to be prowling in the country between the Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountains. I became interested in this campaign after finding an unpublished account of it written by William Devine, who accompanied the expedition, and who lived in Sheridan, Wyoming in his later years. I also became interested in Devine, who is buried in our local cemetery. I included a photo of Devine's grave with this post, and I superimposed a portrait of Devine onto the headstone. <snip> His service during the Civil War brought him to St. Louis, Missouri; and following the war, Devine was enlisted in Patrick Connor's "Powder River Expedition," in Omaha, Nebraska, organized to address the so-called "Indian problem," which had been developing in the Sioux and Cheyenne country farther west and north. Much of this problem had to do with the influx of civilian travel upon the newly developed "Bozeman Trail," through the heart of traditional Indian hunting lands in Wyoming and Montana. Attacks upon parties of travelers became frequent in 1864 and 1865, culminating in the Powder River expedition. Devine was a member of Col. Nelson Cole's column during this campaign. The men were ill-equipped, and suffered greatly during the 1,200 miles of marching, from scurvy and exposure. They would certainly have perished in their encounters with the Indians, were it not for the artillery they brought along. After the 1865 campaign, Devine continued service with the government fighting Indians in Kansas and present-day Oklahoma, fighting with George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Washita. Devine also knew and worked with Kit Carson and Jim Bridger. In 1876, Devine accompanied George Crook in his winter campaign. In later years, William Devine returned to the scene of his service with the Connor and Crook campaigns, and made his home in Sheridan, Wyoming. He died May 17, 1927. His obituary does not mention any family. Per Thom Hatch's book about the Indian Wars during the Civil War, The Blue, the Gray, & the Red: Indian Campaigns of the Civil War, the Indians at Bear River not only knew of the soldiers' presence across the river, they already had trenches and pits dug to repel troops. Connor was nearly defeated and not until he got a force to outflank the Indians was the tide turned. Doubtless women & children were killed but Connor captured women & children and turned them loose after the battle, according to Michno, 160 women & children. I want to say that several captured wounded warriors were executed but I will have to dig that up again. Whether Denver or Colorado celebrated Bear River is unknown but Salt Lake City was pretty damned happy as the Indians had pretty much shut down the Overland Trail west to California. Connor's 1865 Powder River expedition was delayed due to transportation problems which caused supplies to be late in arriving. It was designed to drive the Indians off the Overland Trail & keep the telegraph line to California from constant depredations. While Bozeman's Trail had been blazed, it was not the important component that the Overland Trail & the telegraph line were-remember, the Overland telegraph line was the only one to California, otherwise information had to be sent via ship to California. Connor's three pronged campaign did suffer from supply shortages but more so from the late start of the campaign, practically non-existent maps and an early blizzard. Best of wishes, Billy
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Post by wolfgang911 on Jan 17, 2010 17:20:02 GMT -6
Billy before discussing any further read some more abour the bear river massacre for instance here www.lemhi-shoshone.com/northwest_band_shoshone.htmlthe nw shoshones were pretty much starving and most of the trouble was about some horse raiding just like with the piegans at maria river it is up to day the biggest massacre post 1850 with a grezat number of women & children butchered so please be kind and don't classify it so clumsily in the 'cool indians got punished for wrong doings' file
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Post by markland on Jan 20, 2010 9:19:41 GMT -6
Billy before discussing any further read some more abour the bear river massacre for instance here www.lemhi-shoshone.com/northwest_band_shoshone.htmlthe nw shoshones were pretty much starving and most of the trouble was about some horse raiding just like with the piegans at maria river it is up to day the biggest massacre post 1850 with a grezat number of women & children butchered so please be kind and don't classify it so clumsily in the 'cool indians got punished for wrong doings' file Whether they were starving, etc. is not the topic of the conversation. Connor was reacting to Indians committing depredations, however justified. As for women, etc., remember, this occurred in the dead of a western winter. People were so bundled up it was damned near impossible to distinguish one sex from another, especially if firing was from an almost impenetrable willow grove. Whether they could distinguish the difference when shooting at those trying to escape by swimming the river I have no idea. It was a battle in which there was unfortunate "collateral damage." Genocide, which you are implying, had no part in this as Connor released 160 captured women & children after supplying them with captured wheat; wheat, hmmm, never heard of the Shoshone or any other tribe cultivating wheat fields. Billy
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Post by wolfgang911 on Jan 20, 2010 17:41:04 GMT -6
yes it is the question if their depredations were justified : if you have thousands of mormons and miners (=outcast) settling on YOUR land, depleting it of it's natural resources of game, you can expect accidents to happen. In the whole period of 2 and a half years prior to the massacre only 2 "murders" of miners (who cares, they murdered themselves most of the times) are accounted for. the NW band of shoshones have not been proven related to the only real massacre at snake river with that story of that "VanOrnutsomething" white boy and that was more then 2 years before so no cause to effect. However 4 shoshone indians were murdered by Major Garry whilst being hold as hostage for horseraiding (who cares), common feature of '60 army practice. This caused the killing of the miners. The campaign by connor was incited by close to nothing depredations in a setting of sensation newspapers asking for blood. The shoshones could not expect any attack on their camp as nothing had occured justifying such gross violence. sagwitch expected to parley. The only goal of this campaign was opening all land to settling and to mining, depredations were peanuts compared to what they got. And if there had been any wrongs by shoshones the army should have adressed to the chiefs to get the guilty ones instead of going out to kill without distinction (this is exactly the Jacob Dunn way of viewing history in massacres of the mountains, it is not in the book by the way). You use the word genocide pretending I'm impliyng it. well on all accounts the rape torture and butchering of women and children happened after the shoshone men were killed out of amunition. it is in that degree probably the worst massacre with wounded knee. call it whatever you want it but your unfortunate colateral damage reminds of sir Conz as for casualties they go from 250 at the lowest to 493 at the highest : anyway can you give the book/page where michno cites 160 women turned back (where when to who)? it is a good thing though even if we don't agree to discuss this battle that turned to massacre here, mostly forgotten. thanks wyman for bringing it up by the way the wheat was from trading with settlers, i had to wikie that up. not sure if that was cultivated by indians to the south at that time, maybe az knows.
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Post by markland on Jan 21, 2010 8:44:09 GMT -6
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Post by wolfgang911 on Jan 21, 2010 17:42:01 GMT -6
this part of the post should be removed to a special bear river massacre topic : i think it is a rather important overlooked event in the indian wars; here it is drowned in the powder river. maybe diana can do this? eh billy can't you read in between the lines of this report? His Connor was a real bastard and proves it by his own lies, I hope you will change your mind. Open your eyes. lie 1 of Connor >300 warriors : the camp was known to behold 450-500 people. 300 warriors would be more close to a tribe of 1500 can't you see that the rest of his report is ridiculous after saying this, only to cover up the butchering and raise the fame to overwhelming forces (300 warriors vs 200 infantry) lie 2 >223 indians killed + "I was not able to examine the field" : he writes this further on not knowing we would be spelling it 145 years later. So if he was not able to do a bodycount whilst everybody was covering for frost bite his numbers are certainly incorrect. Settler who visited later on counted 350, piled up high. lie 3 >"160 captive squaws and children" : he states he "left" them there : is was one of the coldest winters ever in cache valley -20° !!! First he did not catch them, they escaped. Second if you take prisoners you don't leave them wounded in the freezing cold. Even Custer would have done better. Then : 160 is the total of men women and children that escape according to shoshone sources, much more reliable then officers that report for carreer to superiors, the most unreliable source of all. So according to connor we have a village of 300 warriors and 160 squaws. Weird village. Sounds more like a chiricahua war village in 1880. lie 4 connor states the shoshones were responsible for the attacks on the emigrants for the last 15 years : NO. they had not attacked for at least 2 years and a half and even this can be discussed as they are not proven linked with the only serious attack of 1860 as I stated above. but no cheyennesBr sioux were killed in wintercamps for depredatations 3 years earlier ; there is no relation, it is just complete BS. Connors correctly says that some miners (2) had been killed (again, who cares, outlaws that killed themselves daily in any saloon) but that was in retalitation by the shoshone of several warriors being killed by the army and settlers, see my post above. this does not justify a massacre of 300 people. By the way : some historians estimate the recorded death toll of emigrants by indians in the whole west at 250. at bear river we have more indians killed in 2 hours then in 30 years of passing on various tribe territory.... So stop that Ol'West attitude of punsihing the hostiles. It is a complete myth. He also states : ""i was able to catch 175 horses (that's a miserable state for a tribe! = starving) and a FEW arms"" : then writes, to stirr up his amazing deeds in his own report " that the shoshone men were heavily armed" >> as the shoshone men were all dead and captured, he had to have a lot arms...! The rest of the account suggests some links between mormons and shoshones, another hint for justifying the unjustifiable. His military account is like most of the rest of these sort of attacks and similar to washita : he runs into a winter village without connoitering or strategy, his men almost frozen, all goes wrong untill some lucky move happens which the military freaks call 'flanking' as they would call this a battle and not a massacre. I call it a complete mess military wise that resulted in a indistinictve butchering of civilians. When indians run into a fort and the cavalry had to defend also their children wives and grandpas that would change many outcomes. I would have loved to read the outcome of "connor meets 300 shoshones warriors in the field" without their families to defend till death : we would have another LBH in that case. So weird all you us army freaks allways see these stories as battles and military engagements with colateral damage; I view this as unprepared indigenous civilians massacred by carreer seeking fanatics, doing an easy bloody job you can hardly apply rules of decent military strategy too, you can't even call it warfare. WY man what do you think : you started it!
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Post by WY Man on Jan 22, 2010 2:05:50 GMT -6
I wrote the original post as a topic about William Devine and his participation in Connor's 1865 Powder River campaign. I mentioned the Bear River Massacre simply to give some background on Connor's previous record. It was the ensuing discussion that developed into a discussion on the Bear River massacre.
I am no authority on Bear River, or even Connor's 1865 campaign for that matter. However, I have studied the 1865 campaign quite a little bit. Markland may be correct in stating that the 1865 campaign was designed to keep the Indians away from the emigrants along the Overland Road, and also away from the telegraph line, but it was endorsed as a measure to make travel over the Bozeman route safe. As gold was being discovered in the Big Horn mountains, and elsewhere between there and into Montana, I suspect the protection of the gold seekers may have been an impetus behind the 1865 campaign and the construction of Fort Connor. (Later named Fort Reno)
As to whether the military actions at Bear River were an intentional massacre of women and children, I don't think it was overall, but as with other attacks upon other Indian villages, there were usually a few men who did this sort of thing. Often it was the Indian scouts for the military who did the worst of it. And, there was the sentiment at the time that, "Nits make lice," (a commonly used phrase) as a justification for the deaths of the little babies, whether intentional or not. And, the other point was that Connor knew this was a winter village, that there would be women and children present. In surrounding the village and killing all that tried to escape, there was bound to be many innocent lives taken. Warriors would stand and fight and maintain a position, while the women and children would attempt to flee. I think the officers of Connor's command knew this.
Anyway, as I said, I don't claim to be an authority, but I think the accounts written by the military participants tend to support a position of unintentional loss of life. And, the statements by Indian participants sometimes exaggerated their own losses and the intentional nature of the killing. However unintentional the deaths of women and children were, I believe the soldiers knew beforehand that they were bound to occur.
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Post by markland on Jan 22, 2010 6:23:45 GMT -6
Wyoming, good points and my apologies for inadvertently hi-jacking the thread. Although it did have the benefit of making me get off my butt and order Hafen's The Powder River Expedition through inter-library loan.
Billy
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Post by WY Man on Jan 22, 2010 20:38:25 GMT -6
Hey Billy, you made some good points also, and no problem about discussing Bear River. These threads branch out sometimes; that keeps them interesting. I just don't know much about the Bear River Massacre. I have the book, "The Shoshoni Frontier and the Bear River Massacre," by Brigham D. Madsen. I don't know what other books there are on the subject, and I have only read portions from this one, so I don't know how it rates among the Bear River Massacre scholars. I suspect they are a small group.
Speaking of Hafen's book on the Powder River Campaign, that is one I need to get also. It regards the 1865 campaign, correct? Sometimes Crook's 1876 late summer/autumn campaign to Slim Buttes is also called the Powder River Campaign. There is a very good book about the Cole Column division of the 1865 campaign, that just came out last year. It is called, "Powder River Odyssey," by David E. Wagner, and it is published by the Arthur H. Clark company. It consists of the journals of Lyman G. Bennett, and portions of other journals from other participants in the Cole column of the campaign. There don't seem to be very many accounts of Connor's column, but there are a few. And I have never seen any accounts of Walker's column during that campaign, but surely there must be some. If you get Hafen's book, you ought to also get Wagner's book. It has good maps of the Cole march.
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Post by markland on Jan 23, 2010 11:09:30 GMT -6
Yes, the Hafen book is about the 1865 Powder River campaign; the complete title is Powder River campaigns and Sawyers Expedition of 1865. The below link has the table of contents for the book which is helpful. openlibrary.org/b/OL5820494M/Powder_River_campaigns_and_Sawyers_Expedition_of_1865I read a few excerpts of Madsen's book and while I'll likely add it to my library at some point, I'll probably start out with Brigham and the Brigadier: General Patrick Connor and His California Volunteers in Utah and Along the Overland Trail by James F. Varley. The excerpts I've read from his book seem to indicate that he is a bit more open-minded in his treatment of Connor than I detect in Madsen's book. The Wagner book will also go on my "to buy" list. Be good, Billy
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Post by WY Man on Jan 23, 2010 11:31:01 GMT -6
Billy,
Thanks for the informagtion about Varley's book. I didn't know about it. I am going by the library this afternoon. Will have to see if they can get it on inter-library loan. Maybe they will already have it, but I doubt it.
Scott
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Post by stevewilk on Jan 23, 2010 22:11:03 GMT -6
Billy and Scott,
I can vouch for the Varley book being a good read. I checked it out of the library after my Ft. Ruby dig which tweaked my curiosity on Connor and Overland Route.
You're correct that it is less biased than Brigham Madsen's work. By the way, Madsen wrote a biography of Connor, employing a title familiar to those of us who study Custeriana: Glory Hunter. The most recent book on Bear River is by Rod Miller, a local author here in Salt Lake; Massacre at Bear River: First, Worst and Forgotten.
Varley's book gives an insight into territorial politics in 1860s Utah. Connor established Camp (later Fort) Douglas on a plateau overlooking Salt Lake City in 1862, signaling a permanent Federal presence in Utah. Connor and Brigham Young were political adversaries and frequently locked horns. Connor kept artillery trained on Young's mansion below and Young supposedly had a telescope on his roof to monitor the activities of the garrison. When Connor was promoted to Brigadier General, the troops fired an artillery salute, which caused panic among the Mormons who thought the city under attack. Connor's troops marched through my town, perhaps right down Main Street, on their way to Bear River.
Unlike Albert Sidney Johnston, who led the first Federal army to "invade" Utah, Connor stayed in Salt Lake after leaving military service. He promoted mining in the territory as a means to attract "Gentiles" (non Mormons) in order to dilute the Mormon stranglehold in Utah. He established the first non-Mormon newspaper in Utah at Camp Douglas and is known as the "First Gentile" of the Beehive State. He passed away in 1891 and there was quite a funeral for him in Salt Lake City. He is interred at the Ft. Douglas post cemetery; I've been meaning to visit his grave. (Incidentally, William Gentles or "Gentiles" who supposedly was the soldier who bayoneted Crazy Horse, lies buried there as well. The 1996 Greasy Grass contains an article by Ephriam Dickson, now the curator at Ft. Douglas Museum, casting much doubt on the bayoneting story).
Rod Miller's book states that in 1992, (on the heels of the Custer Battlefield name change) the U.S. Army officially termed Bear River a "massacre". There were, however, no U.S. Army troops engaged there, the battle being fought by California Volunteers.
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Post by AZ Ranger on Jan 24, 2010 9:10:17 GMT -6
Wolfie in the southwest the Indians grew corn. I see drawings on the rocks near Wapatki of corn.
I believe wheat like the horse is introduced.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jan 25, 2010 23:55:06 GMT -6
Vaguely relevant, but a cause of much annoyance to me.
British and some Canadian areas refer to our corn as 'maize' and to our wheat as 'corn.' When you read about the corn laws of Thomas Hardy's England, they're about wheat. This may bleed over into other European nations' usage as well.
I can only say it provided no end of mystification and high octane aggravation to this English major at one time.
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