Battles and massacres are intimate affairs for combatants and others involved, their physical and emotional violence often stemming from fervor and fear. Although mass killing characterizes both battles and massacres, the two are profoundly different. Battles take place between armed forces; massacres are one-sided events in which most of the dead are innocent victims. Yet the fog of war shrouds both in a funcitonal amnesia. Participants remember what happened only imperfectly, and later clarity cannot always rectify accounts. This unique study centers on four critical engagements between 'Anglo-Americans' and American Indians on the southwestern frontier : the Battle of Cieneguila (1854), the Battle of Adobe Walls (1864), the Sand Creek Massacre (1864), and the Mountain Meadows Massacre (1857). Here is juxtaposed historical and archaeological perspectives on each event to untangle the ambiguity and controversy that surround both historical and more contemporary accounts of each of these violnet outbreaks. Both disciplines, the contritutors make clear, yield surprisingly similar narratives and interpretive agreement.

Includes bibliographical references and index

The battle of Cieneguilla -- The Battle of Adobe Walls -- The Sand Creek Massacre -- The Mountain Meadows Massacre. The Battle of Cieneguilla : commentary / Frances Levine -- The Battle of Cieneguilla : the historical record / Will Gorenfeld -- The Battle of Cieneguilla : the archaeological record / David M. Johnson -- The Battle of Adobe Walls : commentary / Ronald K. Wetherington -- The Battle of Adobe Walls : historical perspectives / T. Lindsay Baker -- The Battle of Adobe Walls : archaeology at Adobe Walls / J. Brett Cruse -- The Sand Creek Massacre : commentary / Frances Levine -- The Sand Creek Massacre : what's in a name? the fight to call Sand Creek a battle or a massacre / Ari Kelman -- The Sand Creek Massacre : reassessing the meaning of artifact patterning / Douglas D. Scott -- The Mountain Meadows Massacre : commentary / Ronald K. Wetherington -- The Mountain Meadows Massacre : understanding the Mountain Meadows massacre / Glenn M. Leonard -- The Mountain Meadows Massacre : placing the dead at Mountain Meadows / Lars Rodseth and Shannon A. Novak -- Afterword : American Indians and the formalities of history / Joe Watkins.