[1][2] In 1857, President James Buchanan appointed Edward Fitzgerald Beale to survey and build a 1,000 mile (1,600 km) road from Fort Defiance in northern New Mexico Territory, to the Colorado River.

Chiefs Irataba, Cairook and Sickahot approached the American settlers and in a pow wow the Mohave asked the party's leader, L. J.

The settlers won the day by repulsing the Mohave attack but they lost most of their livestock and instead of crossing the border into California, they turned around and went back to New Mexico.

[1][3] News of the battle at Beale's Crossing reached the media quickly followed by the United States War Department and General Newman S. Clarke in Los Angeles.

The American camp was surrounded but accurate musket fire proved deadly for the Mohaves and ten to twelve were seen to fall according to Hoffman's account.

With thirty-eight men on camels and several wagons and mules, the column was met at Cave Canyon in the Mohave Desert by employees of the Central Overland Mail company and soon after by 1,500 warriors.

The Mohaves opened fire on the small troop of Americans but they reportedly missed their targets intentionally but later moved in closer for a deliberate attack.

Hoffman told the chiefs that if they would agree to not attack immigrants traveling through their land and not oppose the government's building of roads and forts in Mohave territory, then they would not be destroyed.

Hoffman then went to San Bernardino and left Captain Armistead of the 6th Infantry in charge of Fort Mohave with fifty men and a few artillery pieces.

Every day the prisoners were allowed to leave the cell for fresh air; and it was during one of these recesses in late June that the simple plan unfolded.

Captain Armstead and First Lieutenant Elisha Marshall led fifty men in an attack on over 200 Mohaves twelve miles south of the fort along the Colorado River.

When word of peace reached the Maricopa, they sent Chief Ahwantsevarih to Mohave territory to end their war, which was little more than minor raiding, with the exception of one engagement at Pima Butte in 1857.