General Jubal Early, following a series of unsuccessful Union attacks on his flanks, decides on July 19, to withdraw from his precarious position at Berryville to a more secure position near Strasburg.

During the evacuation of the military hospitals and storage depots at Winchester, Union forces under Brigadier General William W. Averell win a rare victory over Confederate forces under Major General Stephen D. Ramseur at the Battle of Rutherford's Farm.

The poor Confederate performance at the battle, as well as a series of small cavalry engagements south of Winchester the following day, lead Union commanders George Crook and Horatio G. Wright to conclude the Confederates are merely fighting a rearguard action and that Early is leaving the Valley and heading for Richmond to reinforce the Army of Northern Virginia.

With the threat to Washington, D.C., seemingly over, Wright withdraws the VI Corps and XIX Corp from the valley to return to the aid of Grant's siege of Petersburg, Virginia, on July 20, leaving only the three-division strong Army of West Virginia in the Valley.

The following two days are relatively quiet with both armies resting in their camps some fifteen miles (twenty-four kilometers) from each other.

On July 23, Confederate cavalry attack the Union advanced picket line at Kernstown, leading to a sharp cavalry skirmish.

From prisoners caught in the skirmish Early learns of Wright's departure.

In order to continue to be of service to Lee in the Valley, Early realizes he has to attack the diminished force in front of him to ensure that Grant's force at Petersburg will not be reinforced.

Early marches his army north against Crook on the morning of July 24.

Confederate cavalry encounters its Union counterpart south of Kernstown in the morning and heavy skirmishing broke out.

Couriers alert Crook to the attack.

Crook still believes Early's infantry had left the Valley and sent only two of his division with cavalry support to meet the attack.

In the early afternoon, the infantry of both armies had arrived on the field.

The Confederate position extends well to each side of the Valley pike south of Kernstown, anchored on each flank on high ground and screened by cavalry.

Major General John B. Gordon's division forms the Confederate center along the Valley Turnpike.

Ramseur's division forms on his left with its flank resting on Sandy Ridge to the west of Kernstown, screened by Col. William "Mudwall" Jackson's cavalry.

Brigadier General Gabriel C. Wharton's division, led by Major General John C. Breckinridge, forms the Confederate right, with its flank screened by Brigadier General John C. Vaughn's cavalry.

Early initially conceals his infantry in a woods, sending out his cavalry and skirmish line of sharpshooters to draw the Federals into battle, thus playing into Crook's misconception that the Confederate infantry has left the Valley.

The Union infantry position remains clustered around the Valley Pike in Kernstown anchored by Colonel James A. Mulligan's division on Pritchard's Hill, one of the keys to the Union success at the First Battle of Kernstown in 1862.

To his right, Colonel Joseph Thoburn's division forms on Sandy Ridge.

To his left, future president Rutherford B. Hayes's brigade forms east of the Valley turnpike.

Crook dispatches cavalry under Averell to ride around the Confederate right flank and get in its rear.

As the two armies skirmishers encounter one another the battle gets under way.

It soon becomes apparent to the Federal divisional commanders that they are facing a superior Confederate force which they are hesitant to attack and relay the information to Crook.

Crook quickly becomes impatient by the lack of his divisional commanders to attack the Confederate position, and distrusts their report of the Confederate strength.

He orders Mulligan to attack the Confederates with Hayes's division in support.

At 1 p.m., the Union infantry reluctantly moves out, abandoning Pritchard's Hill.

Mulligan's division bitterly holds its ground at Opequon Church where its advance is halted by Gordon's men.

As Hayes's brigade advances in support, Breckinridge marches Wharton's division to the northeast into a deep ravine that runs perpendicular to the Valley Turnpike.

He turns the division into the ravine, which screens his movement from the Federals on the turnpike.

As Hayes comes up the road past the ravine, Breckinridge orders a charge and the Confederates assault Hayes's exposed flank and send his division reeling in retreat, taking many casualties.

Thoburn is supposed to support Mulligan's right flank in the attack, but because of the topography of the battlefield, he becomes separated from Mulligan and sees little action during the battle.

Gordon's Confederates exploit the gap in the Union line to get on Mulligan's right and when Hayes's division breaks, Mulligan finds himself caught between two Confederate divisions.

Mulligan immediately orders a withdrawal, and is mortally wounded as he tries to rally his troops and prevent a full rout during the retreat.

The Confederate infantry presses the fleeing Federals all the way back through Winchester and the cavalry keep at their heels well into West Virginia.

Averell's cavalry had attempted to flank the Confederates as ordered but had runs headlong into Vaughn's cavalry on the Front Royal Pike.

The shock of the unexpected Confederate cavalry attack sends the Federal cavalry racing towards Martinsburg.

When the fleeing cavalry encounter the retreating wagon and artillery trains north of Winchester, it incites a panic among the Federal teamsters, causing many to abandoned their charges as they get caught up in retreat.

Many of the wagons have to be burned to prevent them from falling into Confederate hands.

As night falls, the Confederate cavalry sweeps the countryside looking for Federals who had become lost from their units in retreat.

Most of the Federals spend the night out in the rain, scattered across countryside, trying to evade capture.

The victory marks the high-water point for the Confederacy in the Valley in 1864.

Crook's broken army retreats to the Potomac River and crosses near Williamsport, Maryland, on July 26.

With the Shenandoah Valley clear of Union forces, Early launches a raid into northern territory, the last made by a substantial Confederate force during the war, burning Chambersburg, Pennsylvania as retribution for David Hunter's burning of civilian houses and farms earlier in the campaign. (Hunter had also burned the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, but Early's orders to his cavalry under John McCausland did not mention this as a justification.)

They also attack Union garrisons protecting the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad near Cumberland, Maryland.

As a result of this defeat and McCausland's burning of Chambersburg on July 30, Grant returns the VI and XIX Corps to the Valley and appoints Major General Philip Sheridan as commander of Union forces here, turning the tide once and for all against the Confederates in the Valley.

Sheridan, after his victory at Fisher's Hill, pursues Early's Confederate army up the Shenandoah Valley to near Staunton.

He begins withdrawing on October 6, as his cavalry burns everything that can be deemed of military significance, including barns and mills.

Reinforced by Major General Joseph B. Kershaw's division, Early follows.

Major General Thomas L. Rosser arrives from Petersburg to take command of Major General Fitzhugh Lee's Confederate cavalry division and harasses the retreating Federals.

On October 9, Brigadier General Alfred Torbert's Union troopers turn on their pursuers, routing the divisions of Rosser and Lunsford L. Lomax at Tom's Brook.

With this victory, the Union cavalry attains overwhelming superiority in the Valley.

The capital of Idaho Territory is moved on November 7, 1864, from Lewiston to ...

The Snake War, which is not defined by one large battle, is a series of guerrilla skirmishes by natives nd American patrols from many small camps, that take place across California, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, and Idaho.

The conflict is a result of increasing tension over several years between the native tribes and the white settlers who are encroaching on their lands, and competing for game and water.

Explorers' passing through had had minimal effect.

In October 1851, Shoshone Indians had killed eight men in Fort Hall Idaho.

From the time of the Clark Massacre, in 1851, the region's natives, commonly called the "Snakes" by the white settlers, have harassed and sometimes attacked emigrant parties crossing the Snake River Valley.

Settlers had retaliated by attacking native villages.

In September 1852, Ben Wright and a group of miners had responded to a native raid by attacking the Modoc village near Black Bluff in Oregon, killing about forty-one Modoc.

Similar attacks and retaliations had taken place in the years leading up to the Snake War.

In August 1854, native attacks on several pioneer trains along the Snake River had culminated in the Ward Massacre on August 20, 1854, in which twenty-one emigrants were killed.

The following year, the U.S. Army mounted the punitive Winnas Expedition.

From 1858, at the end of the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War, the US Army had protected the migration to Oregon by sending out escorts each spring.

Natives had continued to attack migrant trains, especially stragglers such as the Myers party, killed in the Salmon Falls Massacre of September 13, 1860.

As Federal troops had withdrawn in 1861 to return east for engagements of the American Civil War, California Volunteers had provided protection to the emigrants.

Later, the Volunteer Regiment of Washington and the 1st Oregon Cavalry had replaced Army escorts on the emigrant trails.

As settlers searching for gold start to move west, they compete more for resources with the Native Americans, living on the land longer and consuming more game and water.

Many isolated occurrences have resulted in violence, with the result that both sides are taking to arms.

The influx of miners into the Nez Perce reservation during the Clearwater Gold Rush had raised tensions among all the tribes.

The Nez Perce had been divided when some chiefs agreed to a new treaty that permitted the intrusion.

As miners had developed new locations near Boise in 1862 and in the Owyhee Canyonlands in 1863, an influx of white settlers had descended on the area.

Western Shoshone, Paiute and other local Indians had resisted the encroachment, fighting what will be called the Snake War from 1864 to 1868.

...Boise.

The Walker party's discovery of gold in Lynx Creek (near present-day Prescott, Arizona) in early 1863 had set off a chain of events that would have white settlements along the Hassayampa and Agua Fria Rivers, the nearby valleys, as well as in Prescott, and Fort Whipple would be built, all by the end of the year, and all in traditional Yavapai territory.

With the Mohave people's power greatly diminished, the Tolkepaya branch of the Yavapai had seen that they need to make new alliances to protect their safety.

In April 1863, Quashackama, a well-known Tolkepaya, had met with Arizona Territory superintendent of Indian affairs Charles Poston, along with representatives of the Pimas, Mohaves, Maricopas and Chemehuevis, at Fort Yuma, to sign an agreement intended "to promote the commerce in safety between the before mentioned tribes and the Americans."

However, the agreement was not an official treaty, so therefore not legally binding in any way. (Braatz, Timothy (2003). Surviving Conquest: a history of the Yavapai peoples. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.p. 87)

Despite this, the growing numbers of settlers (very quickly outnumbering Yavapai) have begun to call for the government to do something about the people occupying the land that they wanted to occupy and exploit themselves.

The editor of a local newspaper, the Arizona Miner, said "Extermination is our only hope, and the sooner it is accomplished the better." (Braatz, p. 89) Early in January 1864, the Yavapai raid a number of ranches that supply cattle to the miners in the Prescott and Agua Fria area.

As a result of this and a series of recent killings, a preemptive attack is organized to discourage future depredations.

Therefore, a group of well-armed volunteers are quickly outfitted with King S. Woolsey as their leader.

Their mission is to track the raiding party back to their ranchería.

What follows is an infamous footnote in Arizona history known today as the Bloody Tanks incident.

According to Braatz, "In December 1864, soldiers from Fort Whipple attacked two nearby Yavapé camps, killing 14 and wounding seven."

The following month, Fort Whipple soldiers attack another group of Yavapé, this time killing twenty-eight people, including their headman, Hoseckrua.

Included in the group are employees of Prescott's US Indian agent John Dunn.

In 1864, Arizona Territory Governor John Goodwin advises the territorial legislature that all tribes be subdued and sent to reservations. (Campbell, Julie A. (1998). Studies in Arizona History. Tucson, Arizona: Arizona Historical Society.

p 104) The same year, a dispatch from the US Army states "All Apache [Yavapai are routinely lumped in with their neighboring Apache] Indians in that territory are hostile, and all Apache men large enough to bear arms who may be encountered in Arizona will be slain whenever met, unless they give themselves up as prisoners.” (Gifford, Edward (1936).

Northeastern and Western Yavapai.

Berkeley, California: University of California Press.

p. 265-26) Not long after, in retaliation for the murder of a Pai headman by Americans, a group of Pai attacks some wagon trains, and closes the road between Prescott and Fort Mohave to all traffic.

In response, the US Army declares all Indians in lands beyond 75 miles (121 km) east of the Colorado River (the great majority of traditional Yavapai territory) to be "hostile" and "subject to extermination".

(Braatz, pg.

92)