Archeological Investigations: Bear River Massacre National Landmark, Franklin County, Idaho

Abstract

In 2013, the sesquicentennial year of both the Bear River campaign and the establishment of Idaho
Territory, the Idaho State Historical Society (ISHS) applied to the American Battlefield Protection
Program (ABPP) for funding to survey, map, and evaluate the condition of selected parcels of the Bear
River Massacre National Historic Landmark. One of four western Civil War battlefields recognized by
the ABPP, the Bear River Massacre NHL was the site of an attack by Federal forces under Colonel
Patrick Connor against a large Shoshone village in the winter of 1863. The engagement occurred during
the height of the Civil War, and at a low point in Shoshone fortunes.
During the forty years preceding the attack, the Cache Valley Shoshone had undergone a population
reduction of almost two-thirds, from 1,400 to 500. The bison, pronghorn, bighorn, elk and deer formerly
so abundant in the region were largely gone by 1863. The Shoshones subsisted on smaller game, Mormon
charity, and emigrant plunder. Conflicts escalated, culminating in Connor’s attack. Four hours of fighting
in bitterly cold conditions left the village sacked and burned, at least 250 of the inhabitants slain, and a
third of the 200 attacking soldiers dead or wounded.
Although sometimes described as the least known military atrocity in American history, the details of the
Bear River engagement are relatively well documented and have been told repeatedly over the past eighty
years. Nevertheless, though locally commemorated since 1931 as an important historical site, and placed
on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990, little
was known of the property’s archeological record or its landscape integrity when we began this project.
Most of the many available narratives agree on the sequence of events, the numbers involved, and the
outcome. However, none of these accounts have attempted to place the fixed historical facts within the
dynamic geomorphology of the Landmark. This level of understanding is key to using the property for
interpretation, visitation, public education, and management.
We sought answers to four questions:
1. Where was the Shoshone village?
2. Where was the core area of combat?
3. What are the boundaries of the battlefield, and what impacts have affected it since 1863?
4. What evidence survives for earlier occupations within the Landmark?
Prior to and continuing into the fieldwork phase, we reviewed the archeological, historic, ethnographic
and ethnohistoric context for the study area, and evaluated evidence for the engagement from written,
graphic, oral, and cartographic sources. To the extent feasible, we followed ABPP guidelines in analyzing
the order of battle for both sides, while not neglecting tribal interpretations of the attack and its
aftermath. A standard KOCOA analysis (key terrain, observation and fields of fire, cover and
concealment, obstacles, and avenues of approach and withdrawal) broke the Landmark down into 15
elements. Parts of seven of them were examined during the field investigations reported here: East Plain,
Cedar Point, Upper Ravine, West Bluff, Middle Ravine, Lower Ravine, and West Plain.
ISHS contracted with Utah State University Archeological Services (USUAS) to conduct a close-interval
pedestrian survey of selected parcels of the Landmark, followed by metal detection survey transects of
selected units, and geophysical survey of up to ten 20 x 20 m blocks. Fieldwork was restricted to
properties where we had obtained landowner permissions. The objectives were to locate structures and
features associated with the Shoshone village, and evidence for artifact patterning related to the battle.
The pedestrian survey covered six acres (2.4 ha) in the north pasture of the East Plain. Geophysical and
metal detector survey examined just under 15,000 m2 (1.5 ha or 3.7 acres), a small fraction of the
Landmark’s total area (1,691 acres or 684 ha). Nevertheless, the area examined included parts of seven of
the 15 KOCOA elements defined for the battlefield. Finally, results of the fieldwork have been
noninvasive and nonintrusive.
The historic background research suggested that Landmark surface features have undergone considerable
change since 1863. Support from the Idaho Heritage Trust allowed us to retain a geologist from Utah
State University (USU) to map relevant Quaternary sediments and develop a radiocarbon chronology for
the inset terrace sequence within Battle Creek ravine. The resulting map positions the battlefield within
the unstable deltaic sediments of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville. Many surfaces have been continuously
reworked by channel meanders, floods, slope failures and landslides.
Analysis of three historic maps, two drafted by soldiers in 1863 and one with the help of witness
testimony in 1926, and comparisons of these maps with the current USGS 7.5’ Banida quadrangle,
Google Earth imagery, and finally with our project-related map of Quaternary sediments, allowed us to
model the 1863 channel positions of both Bear River and Battle Creek. These adjustments led us to
reposition the Shoshone village and the core area of combat. One unexpected outcome of this analysis
suggests that the area of the Landmark could be reduced in size by eliminating the area south of Bear
River and west of Highway 91 without compromising historic interpretation.
The field investigations found no unambiguous evidence of the Shoshone village or the battle or
massacre. Nor did we find much evidence of earlier occupation within the study area. A single lithic
scatter was recorded but could not be dated, while a hearth remnant had a corrected calendar date of
A.D. 922 ± 32. Nevertheless, both the historic background research and the field survey turned up
evidence of significant post-1863 activity within the Landmark. Between 1877 and the present, the
property has experienced homesteading, farming, and ranching, canal irrigation, a narrow-gauge railway
and support community, and a paved and embanked highway, together with catastrophic flooding,
landslides and slope failures, and channel changes to Bear River and Battle Creek. During the course of
fieldwork and report preparation, plans were advanced by a local canal company, and then set aside by
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, for a major wetland restoration initiative that would have
threatened large parts of the Landmark.
The critical era in the battlefield’s history occurred between 1863 and completion of the first upstream
hydropower facilities in 1927. These 64 years saw major surface changes within the battlefield. The
confluence of Bear River and Battle Creek shifted several hundred meters to the south, and construction
of the West Cache Canal, Utah and Northern Railway, the support hamlet of Battle Creek, and the Old
Yellowstone Highway destroyed parts of both the Shoshone village and remnant battlefield patterning of
artifacts, and deeply buried other parts.
Intact remnants of the 1863 surface probably survive within the Battle Creek ravine, where geophysical
signals may mark village features. However, we believe the largest undisturbed portion of the battlefield
lies on the South Terrace, where Connor’s force bivouacked on the night following the attack. This is
also the area least likely to contain archeological traces of the Shoshone dead and their belongings. We
recommend that intensive survey and ground-truthing be focused here in the future.
Despite our failure to find unambiguous traces of either the Shoshone village or the battlefield,
considerable tribal and public interest now exists in how the Landmark is managed and interpreted. While
the artifact signature of this tragedy is still almost nonexistent, our integration of historic maps and
contemporary data has clarified our understanding of the battlefield, avoided inadvertent impacts to
human remains, and sparked public and media interest (field tours, newspaper and television coverage,
academic research, lectures and presentations) at the local, regional, national, and even international level.