Another event prior to the Lawson incident (sometime between 1857 and 1859) was the murder of two pack train operators, John McMarlin and James Williams, in the high Sierra above Lake Tahoe. Arrows had been carefully placed in the bullet wounds. When the Pyramid Lake leaders were taken to task by their Comstock neighbors, they identified the arrows as Washo. The Washo chieftain was then ordered to bring in the culprits. Three Washo men were brought in to be interrogated, but on their way to prison they broke from their captors and ran. Frontier justice was immediately realized when their captors shot the three dead.63 Later on, according to the testimony of Sarah Winnemucca, the actual culprits were two white men who were found with the money that had been stolen from McMarlin and Williams. They had planted the arrows so as to redirect the blame toward the Washo Indians.64 In any case, it was just one more misplaced event that added to the increasing war fever of the Comstock crowd.
The final outrage of a series of transgressions by whites against Indians, including squatting on Paiute lands, stealing fish from Pyramid Lake, hunting and destroying their forests and game, and rape and murder, led to a retaliation known as the Williams Station Massacre of May 7, 1860. In this instance two brothers who ran Williams Station, a combination saloon and general store on the Carson River northeast of Carson City, kidnapped two 12-year old Paiute girls who had been out digging roots for food. They were taken back to Williams Station, held prisoner in a cellar hole, their mouths gagged with rags, and forcibly raped. Just before dark a party of nine Paiutes, including the father and brother of one of the girls, discovered the girls alive in the cellar. In their anger the Numu killed the two brothers and three other men at the station, and then burned the place down.65 This was the Williams Station Massacre that led to the Pyramid Lake War that started on May 12 of that year.66
Within three days news of the “massacre” reached Carson City and Virginia City. The person who had discovered the burnt bodies, a third Williams’s brother, anxiously proclaimed that at least 500 Indian warriors were on the warpath.67 Sarcastically telling the white viewpoint, Sarah Winnemucca said, “The bloodthirsty savages had murdered two innocent, hardworking, industrious, kind-hearted settlers.”68 “Doctor” Henry DeGroot, the Comstock romantic and correspondent, reported that the Virginia City citizens were in agreement that the Paiutes should be punished. Describing the armed force that would be sent against the Indians, he noted, however, a few men “… of ruffian proclivities, who believing that an Indian war would furnish them employment at public expense, and possibly afford opportunities for securing Pah Ute ponies at a cheap rate, did all that lay in their power to promote a scrimmage of this kind.”69
So a militia of about 750 vigilantes composed of volunteers from Virginia City, Silver City, Carson City, and Genoa was quickly formed with Carson City’s most prominent citizen, Major William Ormsby, as their nominal leader, and the troops—rascals and professionals—marched toward Pyramid Lake by way of Williams Station and the Truckee River. Some of the volunteers, unorganized and poorly armed, stupidly followed a small party of Paiutes up a ravine. Once in the ravine a few hundred Paiutes appeared and, closing off any escape routes, proceeded to kill 76 of the 105 members of the vigilante army, including Major Ormsby.70
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
The federal forces returned to the Carson River near the site of Williams Station and constructed what became Fort Churchill in 1861. The desert outpost was designed to curtail hostile Paiutes at the Pyramid Lake and Walker River areas, as well as protect the Pony Express and other mail routes.73 When the “Washoe Regiment” returned to California, and the regulars withdrew to the Carson River, Old Winnemucca’s people, mostly peaceful, returned to Pyramid Lake. Other returnees were not so placid and would continue depredations for the next few years. The arrival of new farmers along the Truckee River and near Pyramid Lake only aggravated their situation. Along with the squatters, vigilantes, fishermen and miners, the army at Fort Churchill would now be a permanent feature in the lives of Pyramid Lake Paiutes.
By October 1860, the month when Chief Truckee died in the Pine Nut Mountains southeast of Carson City, the Pyramid Lake War of eastern Nevada was over. But other skirmishes and battles were to continue through 1865. During May 1861 over 1,500 Paiutes assembled at the mouth of the Walker River. They were led by Wahe, who claimed to be spirit chief of all Paiutes and the brother of Old Winnemucca. A spirit chief was a leader who was believed by his followers to be immune to the white man’s bullets.
Wahe and others conspired for several months. Their plan was to gain entry to Fort Churchill posing as friends of the white man, and then at a signal they would slaughter the small garrison of about forty men. The planned conspiracy was discovered by the Walker River Indian Agent, and Wahe was forced to flee to Oregon. He died upon his return to Nevada in May 1862.74
Other Indian troubles occurred in 1863 when E-zed-wa, chief of the Walker River Indians was killed, along with his horse, by a drunken white man outside of Fort Churchill. His body was later found in the Carson River by members of his band. Several prospectors were killed in Humboldt County in 1864 (although Indian responsibility has never been proven). Two other gold hunters were murdered by Paiutes near Walker Lake in the early months of 1865. In this instance the Indians were taking revenge on people who had recently flogged them. But the most grievous of events took place on March 14, 1865. This is known to history as the Mud Lake massacre.75
The killings at Walker Lake led the territorial governor, following the hysteria of Honey Lake residents who called for “exterminating the whole race,” to send for the troops. Answering the call, the Fort Churchill commanders sent the young and inexperienced Captain Almond B. Wells, and a contingent of Nevada volunteers, to Mud Lake (known as Lake Winnemucca today), where it was reported that Indian cattle thieves were camped. Unaware of any danger, 30 or more Kuyuidokado were camped east of Pyramid Lake at Mud Lake.
At the site Captain Wells divided his forces into three squads and attacked the Paiute encampment. At least 29 Paiutes were killed (other sources reported 32 Indian dead). Well’s report described hand-to-hand combat with no casualties among the volunteers.76 While the annals of the Civil War called the action a “skirmish,” it was reported by the leaders at Fort Churchill as an “Expedition to Pyramid Lake.”77 Only in hindsight has it been named a “massacre.”
The Paiute perspective of the event, as told by Sarah Winnemucca, differs from the official explanation. Her account was later substantiated by Numaga at a peace conference at Fort Churchill. First, as Numaga reported, with the exception of three or four men in the camp, all the dead were women and children. The cattle thieves had evidently left before the arrival of Well’s volunteers. Some women who tried to escape jumped into the water and were drowned, while others were shot while in the lake. The infants and babies that were still tied up in their baskets were burned alive as the camp was set on fire. At least two of Old Winnemucca’s wives were killed, including Sarah Winnemucca’s mother, Tuboitony.78