Massacre and Actions of U.S. Soldiers
As the Shoshone used tomahawks and bows and arrows for defense, the soldiers appeared to lose control. After killing most of the men and many of the children, they raped and assaulted the women. In some cases, soldiers held the feet of infants by the heel and "beat their brains out on any hard substance they could find." Women who resisted the soldiers were shot and killed. One local resident, Alexander Stalker, noted that many soldiers pulled out their pistols and shot several Shoshone at point blank range. The soldiers burned the Shoshone dwellings and supplies; they killed anyone they found in the shelters.
Read more about this topic: Bear River Massacre
Famous quotes containing the words massacre, actions and/or soldiers:
“It is hard, I submit, to loathe bloodshed, including war, more than I do, but it is still harder to exceed my loathing of the very nature of totalitarian states in which massacre is only an administrative detail.”
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