As a result of their actions under fire, Sergeant Benjamin Brown and Corporal Isaiah Mays were awarded the Medal of Honor while eight other soldiers received a Certificate of Merit.

[6] Decades of hostilities between Washington and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints left hard feelings among the territory's Mormon population.

This led to a situation where some area residents could have rationalized that the payroll would have been better spent supporting the local communities instead of in the hands of black soldiers, who were seen as likely to spend it on immoral pursuits.

[7] The road to Fort Thomas went southwest to the town of Bonita before turning north and following the western side of Mount Graham.

Wham's convoy reached Cedar Springs, in the pass, around noon and swapped their mules for a fresh set that were waiting at the NN ranch.

Campbell, whose horse was faster than Wham's wagons, waited at a stagecoach half-way station a short distance further down the road.

[11] In an apparent attempt to make the fortifications appear more daunting, yucca stalks were fashioned to look like rifle barrels and positioned in the breastworks.

Campbell, who was in the lead, was attempting to guide her horse around a boulder that was blocking the road as the rest of the party crested a hill.

[18] The bandits apparently held a condescending opinion of the Buffalo Soldiers' fighting ability and thought they could be easily defeated.

[13] This likely played a part in the opening moments of the battle with the attackers firing mostly over the heads of the Buffalo Soldiers in an effort to scare them away.

[19] The remaining draft animals panicked at the sound of the gunfire and dragged both wagons off the west side of the road, damaging their harnesses in the process.

Sergeant Brown and one other man were deemed too severely injured to move and were tended by Campbell until the surgeon from Fort Thomas could be dispatched to retrieve them.

[27] As the convoy was preparing to leave, rancher Barney Norton, who had also heard the sounds of the battle, arrived with a group of his ranch hands.

A valise containing the major's personal items, which had been stored in the strongbox, had been cut open, but the robbers had left the contents undamaged.

[4] At about 10:00 AM on May 12, Graham County Sheriff Billy Whelan Sr., accompanied by several deputies and a group of Buffalo Soldiers, attempted to follow the bandits' trail.

Local lore claims the robbers fled southward until they passed through a herd of horses several miles from the attack site.

"[29] Meanwhile, the valise containing the payroll receipts was located about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the ambush site with the pay stubs covered in blood.

[11] Based upon this evidence and reports by Campbell and Wham's clerk that the bandits had carried away what had appeared to be a man's body on a mule, it was assumed that one or two of the attackers had been killed during the battle.

"[32] The opposition even accused deputy marshals of planting gold coins found in the possession of prominent church members and making indiscriminate arrests in an effort to collect reward money.

Enough visitors came to see him that he began charging a fee for the viewings of "the raw head and bloody bones of the Gila Valley" and claimed he "could make enough money to pay all my expenses in this damn trial".

[35] The suspected ringleader was Gilbert Webb, who was also the serving mayor of Pima and a leading member of the Graham County Democratic party.

[36] Non-Mormon neighbors of Webb had a less generous view of the man, noting he had left Utah a decade earlier to avoid charges of grand larceny.

During the six years preceding the robbery, Webb had experienced some financial setbacks that had forced him to close his store and sell his stagecoach line.

He had recently obtained a contract to provide straw and grain to Fort Thomas and San Carlos but may have lacked the needed financial resources to raise these crops.

Upon learning of the telegram, Judge Barnes dismissed the grand jury, calling them "a band of character assassins, unworthy to sit in any court of justice".

Finally, the Solomonville district court clerk and former Graham County sheriff, Ben M. Crawford, was forced to resign.

[44] During his testimony, Wham identified three of the defendants, Gilbert Webb, Warren Follett, and David Rodgers, as being among the attackers who performed the robbery.

This, combined with a reluctance by many area residents to condemn a man based upon the word of a former slave, may have caused the jury to minimize the validity of the prosecution's case.

Smith also claimed the government officials who arrested his clients were more interested in the reward money for capturing the robbers than in finding the people who actually committed the crime.

[58] In recognition for their actions during the robbery, Sergeant Benjamin Brown and Corporal Isaiah Mays were awarded the Medal of Honor.