About 140 Arkansas emigrants from respectable families were in the caravan that arrived at Mountain Meadows in early September 1857. About 10 people were murdered in the initial attack and siege, and about 110 were murdered in the final massacre. Of those 110, 35 were children age 17 and younger, including at least 20 age 12 and younger; 13 were women age 18 and older, 11 of them mothers; and 33 were men age 18 and older, while the identities of the others are uncertain or unknown. Seventeen children age 6 and younger survived and were distributed among local Mormon families, including families of some of the men who had carried out the massacre, and they remained with those families until 1859, when the United States government returned them to relatives in Arkansas.