Historedia
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Battle of Lost River

When
1872-11-29
Where
Lost River near the California–Oregon border, about a mile above Emigrant Crossing (now Stone Bridge or Merrill, Oregon)
Part of
Modoc War begins with the Battle of Lost River

U.S. troops and citizen militia attempted to force a Modoc band back to the Klamath Reservation, triggering the first battle of the Modoc War near the Lost River.

On November 29, 1872, troops of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Regiment, reinforced by citizen militia from Linkville (now Klamath Falls, Oregon), reached Jack's camp on the Lost River about a mile above Emigrant Crossing. The operation sought to force the Modoc band to relocate back to the Klamath Reservation, which it had left in objection of its conditions. The Modocs scrambled for their weapons, briefly fought, and then fled toward California. The skirmish, fought near the Lost River along the California–Oregon border, was the first battle of the Modoc War.

Sources

  1. Battle of Lost River Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-07
  2. Modoc War Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-22

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.