Wild West – June 2019

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Paiute Perspective

Right: Paiute Chief Numaga told his people, “We must

prepare for war, for the soldiers will now come here to

fight us.” Below right: Sarah Winnemucca recalled her

people’s desperate decision to fight rather than starve.

More snow fell overnight, and not until 11 a.m.

on May 12 did the major resume the pursuit, his

men advancing a few miles down the right bank

of the snowmelt-swollen Truckee to where the river

squeezed between two ranges of brown hills. A

natural terrace in the foothills along the river pro-

vided the only reasonable avenue of advance. The

Indian trail went straight down it. The white men

followed the trail along the terrace for 2 miles to

a point where the hills again receded from the river.

A commanding view stretched north to the shore

of Pyramid Lake, some 3½ miles distant. About

halfway to the lake the trail dropped 60 to 80 feet

into a bottomland at river level, bounded on the

east by the edge of an ancient floodplain.

Ormsby’s men had just reached this flat when

a line of mounted Indians appeared atop a rise little

more than a mile ahead. Shrill war whoops sounded

across the intervening distance.

The Indians—mostly Paiutes with a handful of

warriors from other Great Basin tribes—presented

just the sort of force the whites had hoped to pun-

ish. Ormsby’s force advanced apace. Cottonwoods

and underbrush lined the river about 200 yards

to their left. A steep rise to the edge of the ancient

floodplain loomed over their right flank. The Indi-

ans on the rise remained conspicuously visible.

Some 600 yards from their quarry Ormsby called

a halt. One of his lieutenants suggested they anchor

a flank in the stand of cottonwoods along the river

and shoot across open ground. Ormsby called for

a charge. As his men advanced, they soon found

their horses struggling through fetlock-deep sand.

About 30 white volunteers spurred ahead, racing

for a wash that rose gently to a plateau to the right

of the Indian position. While a few impulsively fired

their weapons, most held fire, hoping for closer

range. (Reloading muzzleloading rifles or revolvers

with black powder and ball from horseback was no

simple matter.) Wary of the developing situation,

at least five whites turned tail and galloped for the

bench leading from the valley.

The advancing whites gained the top of the pla-

teau to find the Indians had vanished—into an open

landscape. Lacking targets, or even a terrain feature

worthy of capture, the vigilantes stalled in confu-

sion. A few thought they’d managed to scare off the

warriors. Suddenly, rifle fire erupted on their flanks,

as clumps of sagebrush resolved into dismounted

Indian marksmen bearing rifles and bows.

Ormsby had led his men straight into a perfectly

sprung ambush.

By some miracle none of the whites took

wounds in the initial fusillade. Their horses and

mules weren’t as fortunate. Arrows and bullets

thwacked into the animals’ flanks. Riders struggling

to control panicked animals were unable to return

fire. Many dropped their weapons to avoid being

thrown. Some three hours remained until sunset,

and the chances of surviving a night surrounded

by aggressive, sniping Indian warriors seemed dim.

Ormsby ordered his men to fall back, ceding the

high bench in hopes of gaining shelter among

the cottonwoods on the riverbank, now some 200

yards to the rear. Indians concealed in the trees

shattered their hopes. Pursued by remounted Indi-

ans astride rested, recently fed horses, the whites

fled on their exhausted mounts, aiming for a copse

of trees three-quarters of a mile to the south.

About 300 yards short of the timber, the whites

rallied a brief stand, then panicked and again fled

south. Meredith and a few others who had assumed

battlefield command organized a shaky perimeter

in the cottonwoods about 250 yards from the slope

that rose out of the south end of the valley. A sav-

age fight developed in the undergrowth. Warriors

appeared on the edge of the plateau above the

battlefield, sniping at the whites below. A number

of men took wounds, including Meredith. His mule

was also struck and bolted without its rider. The

mule’s mad flight in turn unhinged the whites, who

ran southward, toward the rise out of the valley

bottom. As the whites cleared out, one rider offered

Meredith a spot up behind him on his mule. “No,

sir, it would endanger your life,” the footbound

leader nobly replied.

Another man who’d lost his mount vaulted onto

the back of 16-year-old Joseph Baldwin’s mule and

spurred the animal south without letting the teen-

ager mount behind him. Like Meredith, Baldwin

ran after his departing fellows on foot.

As the wounded Meredith trailed behind the

fleeing whites, some 50 howling Indians charged

down on him. Another projectile—either bullet

or arrow—soon struck him, and he fell, clutch-

ing his shotgun. Raising himself on one elbow,

he deliberately aimed and fired each barrel of his

shotgun at the onrushing Paiutes. Meredith then

reached for his pistol, only to discover it had fall-

en from its holster. The front-running Paiutes cut

him to pieces.

Young Baldwin seemed certain to fall next, but

the same brave man who’d tried to rescue Mere-

dith swept the lad onto the back of his mule. The

vanguard of the rout soon ran up against Indians

blocking the rise to the plateau—the whites’ only