In 1863, Rufus Henry Ingram met George Baker from San Jose, California, who had just come east to join the Confederate Army.
Ingram claimed to have been with Quantrill's Raiders during the Lawrence Massacre and became interested in going back with Baker to recruit soldiers for the Southern cause.
In early 1864, Rufus Henry Ingram arrived in Santa Clara County with a Confederate commission as captain and with a former undersheriff of Monterey County, Tom Poole, organized about fifty local Knights of the Golden Circle and commanded them in what became known as Captain Ingram's Partisan Rangers.
On June 30, Ingram, along with a small detachment, robbed two stagecoaches eleven miles east of Placerville of their gold and silver, leaving a letter explaining they were not bandits but carrying out a military operation to raise funds for the Confederacy.
[2] On July 15, an attempt by Ingram to rob the New Almaden Quicksilver Mine payroll failed, ending in a shootout with the posse of Santa Clara County Sheriff John Hicks Adams a mile and a half outside San Jose on the Almaden road.