The Plumas Rangers, Sixth Division, First Brigade were a militia group in California, United States, founded November 24, 1855 under the seal of Judge W.T. Ward. Officers were elected at a meeting at the Saloon of Flournoy & Company in
Elizabethtown on Saturday December 1, 1855.
The Rangers participated in no action other than parades and drills until conflict arose between white settlers and
Pit River Indians
The Pit River Tribe is a federally recognized tribe of eleven bands of indigenous peoples of California. They primarily live along the Pit River in the northeast corner of California.[Honey Lake
Honey Lake is an endorheic basin, endorheic sink (geography), sink in the Honey Lake Valley in northeastern California, near the Nevada border. Summer evaporation reduces the lake to a lower level of and creates an alkali flat. Honey Lake dries ...]
region in 1857. With food in short supply, the local Indians harvested three acres of potatoes belonging to local rancher William Morehead. The resulting conflict became known as the Potato War. The Plumas Rangers marched to the aid of the settlers, but found the conflict already quelled by United States Army troops under Captain William Weatherlow and
Chief Winnemucca
Winnemucca ( – 1882) (also called Wobitsawahkah, Bad Face, Winnemucca the Younger, Mubetawaka, and PoitoOntko, Gale. ''Thunder Over the Ochoco,'' Volume I: ''The Gathering Storm''. Bend, OR: Maverick Publications, Inc., 1997.) was a Northern P ...
and the
Paiutes, who assisted in tracking the Pit River Indians involved.
The group remained in being until at least 1861. The exact date on which the militia was dissolved is not known.
References
Plumas Rangers The California State Military Museum
Fariss and Smith's History of Plumas County California 1882
Military units and formations established in 1855
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