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| Captain Augustus Washington Starr was born in Ohio in 1834. He came to California during the Gold Rush where he first operated his own store, then later served as a clerk in another retail establishment in Sacramento. At the start of the Civil War, Starr helped raise a cavalry company and was commissioned second lieutenant in Company F, 2nd California Cavalry. During the war, he fought the Maidu Indians. After the war, he remained in the cavalry, serving with the 8th U.S. Cavalry until 1871. Capt. Starr then supervised a flour mill in Vallejo. Capt. Starr died in Napa in 1907 and is buried in the St. Helena Public Cemetery. Photo from the Richard K. Tibbals Collection at the United States Army Military History Institute |
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Captain Augustus Starr, 2nd California Cavalry
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I am a greatgrandson of George Franklin Starr, a brother of Augustus Washington Starr. A. W. Starr also suppressed Confederate sympathizers during the war, (arresting the Colusa newspaper editor and others for celebratong the death of Abraham Lincoln) and defended indians who worked for valley landowners from anti-indian vigilantes. The death of half the people on the Maidu Trail.of Tears is more complex than described. In part the indians were pawns in an effort by southern sympathizers to destabilize California.The Butte County vigilantes had promissed to kill every indian.in Butte County and got the army to agree to convey them to the Nome Cult reservation, once rounded up by the vigilantes. The army reports reflect that all of the indians were " tame indians, working for or owned by" valley farmers and presented no threat. The officers got to the eastern slope of the Coast Range determined that half the indians were too sick to make the walk, and left half of them.there. my best guess is the the people left were aware of the vigilantes promisses, and tried to follow the others. They all died on the trail. Starr got the others to Nome Cult alive. There was an investigation and a Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs report, as well as published military reports- i found them on Google books searching for " Nome Cult," "A. W. Starr," etc.
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