Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн

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When the remaining volunteers returned to Virginia City from the ambush at Pyramid Lake, they barricaded their houses and gathered their women and children into places of safety. They quickly dispatched couriers to California. In the meantime, Texas Ranger “Colonel” Jack C. Hayes organized his militia. His “Washoe Regiment” consisted of 500 volunteers, and they were soon joined by a detachment of US artillery and infantry from Fort Alcatraz, California. They met up with Numaga and perhaps as many as 600 Paiutes, first south of Pyramid Lake, and later in a skirmish northeast of the lake. Many of the Paiutes scattered, either east across the Great Basin or in the rugged terrain east and north of the lake to the Black Rock and Smoke Creek deserts. Indian sources say as few as four Paiutes were killed, while other “official” military reports claim 160 Paiutes were killed, with only four regiment members killed.71

While the casualty numbers were probably not large, the disruption of life at Pyramid Lake was great, especially food gathering activities and fishing. Starvation was the main problem for the remaining Paiutes that had not fled, although the non-Indian position was that the influx of whites who overran the country brought clothing and food that was an improvement on their previous habits of eating mice, ants, and grasshoppers.72


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