California Volunteers March to the Bear River

California Volunteers March to the Bear River. Massacre at Bear River. The tensions between the Shoshone and the settlers eventually led to a call from Utah territorial leaders of help from the Army, but the Civil War was on and military resources were stretched thin. In 1861 the third California Volunteer Infantry has formed in Stockton under the command of Col. Patrick Edward Connor. To their dismay, the Volunteers were not assigned to serve in the war effort, but instead were called to protect the Overland Mail Route. In the summer of 1862, they marched from Stockton, California to Salt Lake City in the Utah Territory and established Fort Douglas. After reports of horses stolen by the Shoshone and skirmishes between Indians and miners in early 1863, Col. Connor saw his chance for a reprisal. A supply convoy left Salt Lake for the Bear River on January 21, followed three days later by 220 cavalry soldiers. A few days before, several bands of Shoshone had joined together here for a Warm Dance, a yearly time of prayer for renewal, fruitful growth, and the return of spring. One Shoshone medicine man had a vision of a great battle in which many of his people were killed prompting the visiting bands to pack up and move to other winter campgrounds. So on January 29, only 75 remaining lodges of the Northwest Band, under chief Bear Hunter, camped below near the bend of the Bear River