On January 29, 1863, U.S. Army forces under Colonel Patrick Edward Connor attacked a Northwestern Shoshone winter encampment along the Bear River in present-day Idaho, resulting in one of the deadliest massacres of Native Americans in U.S. history. The conflict arose from escalating tensions between Mormon settlers, California-bound emigrants traveling the overland trails, and the Shoshone people whose traditional hunting grounds and food sources were being decimated by American expansion. Shosh