AUGUST 18:

August 18, 1854:  Captain Jesse Walker attacks the Modocs on Tule Lake. Several minor engagements continue until the peace treaty is reached on September 4, 1854.

August 18, 1863:  As part of the Canyon de Chelly Campaign, Kit Carson and General James Charlatan tried to starve the Navajo into submission.  On this date General Charlatan put a bounty on Navajo livestock:  every good horse or mule would bring $20 (quite a good sum for those days) and each sheep would bring $1.
 

BACKGROUND:
 

An excerpt from Cheewa James' words at http://www.cheewa.com/modocart.htm
 

The Modoc Indians: A Native American Saga
by Cheewa James
The frozen lava stretches unrelieved under the northern California sun. An occasional cluster of sagebrush breaks through, but mostly there is tortured black rock and silence.

This was the battlefield more than a century ago as the Modoc Indians fought U.S. government troops in a final desperate effort to avoid being sent back to the Klamath Reservation in Oregon. These warriors have long since been gone. Some rest in Oregon and California, but most lie in a tiny cemetery in northern Oklahoma. A strange set of circumstances took these people nearly 2,000 miles from their homeland.

The Modocs were never a large group. They did not, in fact, live as a tribe but in many small bands. Before 1800 they numbered only 400 to 800 people, occupying an area known as the Lakes District that covered portions of Oregon and California. Using obsidian, or "volcanic glass," to tip their arrows, they hunted and lived off game they found in their 5,000 square miles of hunting range.

The seeds of the wocus, a pond lily, were ground in mortar stones make of lava, and the resulting food was one of their primary staples. Another water plant, the tule, provided material for the skillful hands of the Modoc basket weavers. Wickiups, inverted, bowl-shaped earthen structures entered through a hole in the top, afforded shelter. This, then, was the life of the Modoc people prior to 1880.

The influx of the white man had a monumental impact on the culture of the Modocs, and the Modoc adopted many of the white man's ways. Mingling with the white people of Yreka, California, at the southern end of their hunting range, they began to wear clothing patterned after that of the white man. The white man's religion upset their code of ethics -- challenging, for example, the custom of killing a medicine man who allowed his patient to die. What had once been law to the Indian was regarded by the non-Indian as murder.
 

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From http://www.usgennet.org/usa/or/county/wallowa/1889volumeIpage427-430.htm
 

.... The remaining incidents of 1854 are connected with the expedition of Captain Jesse Walker to assist the incoming immigration by the southern route in that year. On July 17, 1854, Governor Davis of Oregon, at the request of the citizens of Jackson county, issued an order authorizing John E. Ross, as colonel of the militia, to call into service a company of volunteers for that purpose, if he should deem it necessary. The governor also directed a communication to General Wool, commanding the Department of the Pacific, requesting his attention to our Indian relations in that direction. General Wool, although deeply impressed with the necessity of such an expedition, had no force of regular troops which could be spared for such service. Colonel Ross, who by his former experience was fully aware of the necessity of such protection, on the third day of August issued a call for a company of volunteers, to serve for the term of three months. The company, consisting of seventy-one men rank and file, was promptly enlisted. The officers were Captain Jesse Walker, Lieutenant C. Westfeldt and Isaac Miller, Sergeants William G. Hill, R.E. Miller and Andrew J. Long. The instructions of Colonel Ross to Captain Walker were to proceed at once to some suitable point near Clear Lake, in the vicinity of Bloody Point, and protect the trains. the treatment of the Indians was left to the discretion of Captain Walker, but concluded with the following terms: "If possible, cultivate their friendship; but, if necessary for the safety of the lives and property of the immigration, whip and drive them from the road."

About the same time that the company of Captain Walker left Jacksonville, a party of experienced mountaineers, fifteen in number, left Yreka with the same object. The Yreka company struck the Indians on the north side of Tule Lake, and were met with a shower of arrows. Their force being insufficient to withstand the charge, they fell back to await the arrival of the Oregon company. When Captain Walker arrived, he sent forty men of his company, with five Californians, to attack the Indian village, which was situated in the marsh three hundred yards from where the attack had been made. The Indians fled, the village was destroyed, and all the men returned to camp at the mouth of Lost river. The headquarters of both companies was established at Clear Lake. Owing to these precautions, the immigrants arrived with few accidents, except the stealing of their stock by the Indians.

On the third of October, Captain Walker determined to punish these thieves, and with sixteen men started north in pursuit of them. North of Goose Lake, he met a band of Indians which he followed the whole day. On the next he came upon them, and found them fortified upon the top of a huge rock, when he named Warner's Rock in remembrance of Captain Warner, who was killed there in 1849. He immediately charged their stronghold, but was repulsed with the loss of one man, John Low, wounded. Returning to Goose Lake, the company met and killed two Indians. The captain again set out with twenty-five men, and, by traveling in the night, succeeded in reaching Warner's Rock without being discovered by the Indians, who had retired from the rock and were encamped on the bank of a creek. The company formed a semi-circle around the camp, and at daybreak commenced firing. The Indians being completely surprised took to the brush; but many were killed. The only white man injured was Sergeant William G. Hill, who was severely wounded in the arm and face by the accidental discharge of a gun in the hands of one of his comrades. Returning to Goose Lake, they were ordered home, and were mustered out of service at Jacksonville November 6, 1854, having served ninety-six days. When it is considered that these men volunteered with no hope of reward beyond the consciousness of the performance of a duty, it will not be denied that they deserved well of their country.