Wagon Train Attacked by Indians (1858)

[BullFrogTango]

This is where I get suspicious and have to ask a logistics question. When attacked by Indians, why further diminish your defensive power by tasking people to bury your gold and silver? If you win the battle, you still have it. If you lose the battle, it doesn't matter. Plus, the manpower needed to bury the gold and silver increases proportionally to how much gold and silver there is. And if the Indians are attacking in the desert near Las Vegas, wouldn't they see the people who are digging the hole for the gold and silver, kill them after the battle and investigate the hole?

I'm not saying it didn't happen. I just try to put myself in that situation and reason out what I would do. And with, "Don't get dead" being the primary rule I would either fight if I thought I could win, or cut the gold and silver loose and hightail it out of there if I thought I could get away. As a last resort you fight to the death if your chances are slim, but slightly better than escaping. The last thing I would do it lower my chances of winning or escaping even further by expending manpower to bury gold and silver.

One other thing to consider is what was the outcome of the Indian attack? If the Mormons won, chances are they did the Jen Psaki thing and circled back at some point to retrieve the cache. If the Mormons were wiped out and no one survived, there is still a chance the cache is still there if it existed and was buried. But if even one Mormon survived, we circle back to the circle back thing.

My thoughts exactly, I kinda use it as a lay of the land.
Wagons full of gold very heavy, slow and no mobilit.y.
Terrain from a position and plus or minus advantage of its use
Time, fighting, splitting up, unloading and transporting while being attacked is a lot different than engaged and evaded . Now x time to hide extreme physical endeavor as fast and safe as possible
It would be impossible to begin to speculate with any degree regardless of the Cache to attempt to find with such general knowledge.
just my two sense…. Which is now worth only a 1/2 a penny

 

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