In January 1860, Governor Isaac Roop wrote a letter to General Clarke of the US Army, Pacific Department: “We are about to be plunged into a bloody and protracted war with the Pah-Utah Indians.”
On February 18, 1860, the Territorial Enterprise published another letter written by Governor Roop. “Citizens of Nevada Territory: Finding that we of Honey Lake Valley are unavoidably about to be plunged into a war with the Pah-Utahs, you are requested to prepare yourselves with arms and ammunition …”
The Enterprise also published letters from other settlers and they wrote that no such thing was about to happen. Some of them felt that incidents with Native Americans were due to traders along the Humboldt River giving them rifles so they could steal horses from emigrants and allow the traders to recover abandoned wagons and their contents.
Others explained that starving Native Americans were afraid to accept food from the settlers because they feared it was poisoned.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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