Government relations with Indians soured in January 1870 after the U.S. cavalry under Major Eugene M. Baker massacred 173 Piegan Blackfeet in the Montana Territory, the vast majority of them women, children, and the elderly. Many were roasted alive when their tepees were set ablaze or hacked apart with axes. Sheridan had likely contributed to the ferocity by hectoring Baker to “strike them hard!” and he blithely characterized the massacre as “well-merited punishment.”27 The episode mocked Grant’s Peace Policy and prompted a congressional backlash against the army’s handling of Indian
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