As a result of the military expedition, the Mariposa Battalion became the first non-indigenous group to enter Yosemite Valley and the Nelder Grove.

The Ahwahnechee, led by their chief Tenaya, fought back against the miners resulting in a series of skirmishes that escalated into a full-scale war.

The California state government, under Governor John McDougall, raised the Mariposa Battalion led by Sheriff James D. Savage to subdue the indigenous people.

The war resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of Ahwahnechee and several miners, and the displacement of the indigenous people from their ancestral lands.

[4] Mariposa County Sheriff James Burney and Savage led a militia of seventy four men in a retaliatory attack against a Chowchilla camp on the Fresno River near present-day Oakhurst on January 11, 1851.

Surprised and unprepared, Savage's forces staggered and dispersed, resulting in a victory for the Native Americans who killed several and wounded militia members in what would become known as the first battle of the Mariposa War.

[5] Sheriff James Burney made an appeal to John McDougal, the second Governor of California, which led to the creation of the Mariposa Battalion.

They entered Yosemite Valley, systematically burned villages and food supplies and forced men, women, and children away from their homes.

[6] Under "Major" James D. Savage, at least one-fifth of the volunteers were Texans and had served previously under Colonel Jack Hays during the Mexican-American War.

Meanwhile, in their first campaign, the companies B and C of Boling and Dill had pursued Native Americans into the mountains where the units often forced to march through rain, sleet and deep snow drifts.