Talk:Bear River Expedition

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[edit] Request for details

This is an interesting piece of American History that seems so out of place, and I can't seem to find other historical references to this military incursion.

It seems to me that this is more a part of what Gen. Connor did at the Bear River Massacre as one of the battles of this expedition, but perhaps I'm seriously mistaken and this is actually an earlier visit by the U.S. Army to the Bear River region.

There is one note that a military unit from Fort Hall went to Cache Valley during the winter of 1849-1850 to provide foraging for horses and cattle from the main post. Still, that doesn't seem like a major miltary expedition that should be placed side by side with the Utah War or even the Whisky Rebellion.

There is another reference about a minor disturbance when some horses were taken from pioneer wagon trains in the vicinity of Brigham City, Utah, where soldiers from Fort Hall were also dispatched in order to investigate what was going on. This happened in the rough time period mentioned on the U.S. Army website. Again, this was such a minor affair that it hardly has even a footnote in any historical books about the area, much less being considered a major military expedition.

While the Bear River Wikipedia page offers several alternatives as for a location of Bear River, given the time period and Army attention, it seems as though the Utah river is a very likely spot for such a military campaign. The problem is that I can't seem to find any mention of this expedition in local histories.

This just seems a little bit weird that other than a mere mention from what I've seen to be copies of the same list of battles and military expeditions to the west, this engagement doesn't appear to even exist. Even more notable is that the 1863 expedition by Connor from Fort Douglas to the Bear River basin is conspicously missing from any of these lists, making me think there was some confusion on the part of somebody trying to put the list of these battles together. If there is any reference to the 1859 expedition outside of general lists of U.S. military actions, and I mean any at all, please make note of it here. --Robert Horning 20:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)