When he was within thirty yards of that glittering line of bayonets and butternut gray uniforms, a lead .58-caliber bullet struck Otis in the right elbow. Somehow he remained oblivious to the pain as his men closed on the enemy. When they were just yards from engaging the Confederates in close-quarters combat, a bullet brought down his horse. As Howard was scrambling to his feet an instant later, a second ball shattered his right forearm just below the first wound.
With blood gushing from his flesh, Howard grew faint, stumbled, and collapsed, whereupon he turned over command of the brigade to another officer. Later that morning he was removed to a field hospital at the rear, where the surgeons explained the severity of his wounds, as well as the fact that there was little choice between gangrene—which would lead to a certain death—and amputation of the arm. By five o’clock that afternoon, the doctors went to work to save Howard’s life.
Fair Oaks had been Otis’s bravest hour.
Across these last few days, while panic spread like prairie fire across the countryside as word of the disaster at White Bird Canyon drifted in, townspeople, ranchers, and even the white missionaries from the nearby reservation had all streaked into Fort Lapwai, seeking the protection of its soldiers.
Now at last, five days after Perry’s debacle on the White Bird, his army was ready to move into the fray. While he was leaving Captain William H. Boyle and his G Company of the Twenty-first U.S. Infantry to garrison this small post, Howard would now be at the head of two companies of the First U. S. Cavalry, one battery of the Fourth U. S. Artillery, and five companies of the Twenty-first—a total of 227 officers and men. One hundred of these were horse soldiers, and once Howard had reunited with Perry and his sixty-six survivors of White Bird Canyon, Otis would be leading a force of some three hundred after the Non-Treaty bands.
Oliver Otis Howard had a territory and civilians to protect and a bloody uprising to put down. To his way of thinking, he had just been handed what might well prove to be something far more than even his bravest hour had been at Fair Oaks.
This war with the Nez Perce could well be the defining moment of his entire life and military career.
CHAPTER TWO
JUNE 24, 1877
BY TELEGRAPH
—
Indian Outbreak in Idaho.
—
Desperate Engagement With Serious Losses.
—
One Officer and Thirty-three Men Killed.
—
The Salmon River Valley Desolated.
—
IDAHO.
—
Indian Outbreak.
SAN FRANCISCO, June 22.—A press dispatch from Boise City confirms the report of the Indian outbreak on the Salmon river. The Indians didn’t kill women and children, but allowed them to be taken under an escort of friendly squaws to Slate creek, which has thus far been left undisturbed. At Slate creek the whites have fortified themselves in a stockade fort, into which has been received the wives and children of murdered men, with the families of men who escaped. A large number of families, women and children, are thus shut in in the midst of hostile Indians, without adequate means of defense and, without aid, they will certainly be overpowered and murdered. As the Indians declare the determination to take the fort and murder the men it can’t be hoped that the Indians will again spare the women and children after losses they must sustain in capturing the fort, as the men will fight to the last one. Our informant says he is reliably informed that the Indians did not burn the buildings or destroy property but cleaned out the country of stock which they have driven to the south side of the Salmon river where they seem to hope they will ultimately be the undisturbed proprietors of all the property the whites are now compelled to abandon. They think, not without reason, that before the country can be regained from them the army must be created and a long and doubtful campaign passed through. The Indians have now their camp and headquarters on Salmon river, where the stock stolen from the whites is gathered and pastured in an extensive triangular-shaped region formed by the Snake and Salmon rivers and a high mountain range lying about the sources of Fayette and Weaver rivers. Here there is abundant pasturage for summer and winter, and there they will doubtless make a final stand. In contradiction to previous reports that troops behaved badly, our informant says that by citizens, who were in the fight, he was assured that the troops, although they allowed themselves to be decoyed into ambush, displayed, throughout the action, the utmost gallantry, and fought like tigers. About twenty-five or thirty soldiers were killed in about the same number of minutes. The situation in northern Idaho far exceeds in gravity any Indian outbreak of our day, and it will tax the best resources of the government and of the people immediately interested, to subdue the Indians and restore peace to the country. The Indians know, that the army on this coast is but a skeleton, and the people helpless for want of arms, A special to the Portland Oregonian, just received from Lewiston, June 21st, 8 a.m., says: Sixty-five volunteers were to proceed from their defenses at Mount Idaho to reconnoiter the position of the Indians, who are supposed to be somewhere in the direction of the Salmon river. A steamer arrived this forenoon, having on board 107 troops. No extra arms came on the steamer. About fifty volunteers have arrived here. A few of them have no suitable arms, but are awaiting them from below.
“BESS!” EMILY FITZGERALD CRIED IN EXASPERATION, whirling on her seven-year-old daughter. “Take your little brother and go outside now while I am doing my best to finish this letter to your grandmother before the mail has to be posted.”
“Yes, Mamma,” responded young Elizabeth, immediately contrite at her mother’s sharp tone. She turned to her younger brother. “Come on, Bertie. Let’s find something to do outside with your toy horses until Mamma’s done with her letter.”
With a sigh not in the least born of relief, but more so the sound one makes when faced with an arduous task, Emily fixed her eyes on the small cabinet photo of her mother she cradled in her left hand. How she wished that dear Quaker were there to comfort her at that moment.
Ever since he had returned to the fort from Portland, her husband, Jenkins—but better known as John—FitzGerald, the man whom she more often called Doctor, had hardly experienced a moment’s rest, what with all the campaign preparations, all those duties laid about his shoulders now that General Howard had departed with his column to find the Nez Perce.
As she gazed at that sepia-toned memento of a visit to a Philadelphia photographer’s studio with her mother, Emily angrily scolded herself for being so selfish, then propped the photograph beside the letter she was crafting.
Why wasn’t she able to just accept how much better it was that Howard had decided to leave her husband behind at Fort Lapwai to see to supply-train and organizational matters for the time being? Far better than watching him ride off with the others that might not return! Dr. Jenkins A. FitzGerald, army surgeon, First U. S. Cavalry. A man of duty and honor …
In all their years together since the Civil War, she hadn’t addressed him as Jenkins more than two, perhaps three, times. Instead, she called him John or—mostly—Doctor.
He had been away from the post, visiting Portland on army business, when news of the murders first reached Fort Lapwai. How glad she had been that her John hadn’t been here when Colonel Perry marched off with his hundred men. There simply was no convincing Emily that John wouldn’t have been among all those dead left to rot on the White-Bird battlefield.
But when he did get back upriver, what a homecoming that had been! Even though they both knew it wasn’t for long. General Howard was gathering 227 men, a complement of eight companies, from nearby posts and tiny garrisons: two troops of cavalry, five companies of infantry, along with a company of artillery who were armed with two Gatling guns and a mountain howitzer. My, but how they would go to work on Joseph’s murderers now!
Fort Lapwa
June 24, 1877
Dear Mamma,
I have not been able to write or even to think
for a week, Such a confusion as our quiet little Lapwai has been in. When I can, I will write the particulars. Since the battle, we have all had a great deal to occupy us. Mrs. Boyle and I have been with Mrs. Theller … Then all week there have been troops passing through and we have entertained the officers … The parade ground is full of horses, the porches are full of trunks and blankets, everybody is rushing about, and everything is in confusion. My brain is in as much confusion as anything else. The army is so reduced, and none of the companies are full, and all the troops that can possibly be gathered from all this region only amount to three hundred. Those are now in the field, and it is a little handful! Oh, the government, I hate it! Much it respects and cares for the soldier who, at a moment’s notice, leaves his family and sacrifices his life for some mistaken Indian policy … I wish we were well out of it. The Nez Perce Indians are at war with the Whites. What a blow to the theories of Indian civilization. The whole tribe is wavering, and we don’t know when it will all end—
“Excuse me, Mrs. FitzGerald.”
Emily turned with a start, finding the slight woman framed by the open doorway leading onto the front porch, her pale hands clutched before her swollen belly like a pair of white doves that might take flight if she were not mindful of them. And those red, red eyes.
“Yes, Alice.”
The very-much pregnant Alice Hurlburt cleared her throat, took one step closer to the surgeon’s wife, then said, “If it’s fine by you, ma’am … can my young’uns play with your li’l ones?”
“I just sent Bessie outside with Bert.”
“Yes, I saw,” Mrs. Hurlburt replied, half-turning her head out the door, then back again. “They all play so well together.”
“It will be fine, Alice. Yes, quite fine.”
Those red-rimmed, cried-out eyes did their best to smile at Emily as Alice Hurlburt turned back through the open doorway, stepping into the shade of the porch, little protection from the growing heat of that summer afternoon.
Emily FitzGerald swatted at a fly, dipped her pen into the inkwell, and continued writing.
I have a sad, sad story to tell about the family of one of those who did not come home after Joseph’s murderers ambushed Colonel Perry’s men. It appears that William Hurlburt made a fine mess of his life as a civilian. Problem was, he had a wife and two children. With nowhere else to turn, and no other way to feed his family, Mr. Hurlburt joined the army and soon found himself transferred to Nez Perce country. Only recently did his wife and children come west to join him at Lapwai In such hardship cases with enlisted men, the government will pay the costs of transportation of a man’s family to his duty station, but a little is deducted from every paycheck until those costs are paid off.
And now it’s clear to see she is with child again, Mamma. Pitiful creature, poor Alice is, for she lost her husband to the Nez Perce last week on White Bird Creek. Now she finds herself without a husband, deeply in debt, and without any prospects on how to return east to her people. Not knowing what else to do, I performed on my Christian charity and took them in until their situation can be sorted through. She is a very nice little woman, and her children are as nice as I know. It does my heart good to have them under our roof instead of being left out in the cold now that the army will no longer provide for her, but comes demanding repayment on its transportation debt. The children play so well together.
She is left destitute. After her sickness,* we will all help her. A purse will be raised to take her back to her friends. She is a helpless sort of a little woman, and I never saw such a look of distress in my life as has taken possession of her face.
Outside, the children were shrieking with abandon and glee as they chased one another across the grass of the nearby parade. Emily went to the window, pushed aside the gauzy curtain, and peered into the unblemished June sunshine. It is a blessing, she thought, a blessing the children can play as if they haven’t a care in the world. As if one father isn’t dead, mortifying in this harsh sun on an abandoned battlefield, and the other father soon to be marching off with those who will make the Nez Perce pay for their bloody crimes.
Search as she may out the window, Emily didn’t catch a glimpse of the Doctor. So she returned to her letter, settling into the ladder-back chair at the small secretary once more, then dipped her pen into the inkwell
Soon enough their parting would come. In a war the soldiers needed their surgeons. All too soon Howard would summon John to the battlefront. Like other officers, dutiful and honor-bound, he would kiss his family farewell, mount up, and ride off to join the others.
She dragged the back of her left hand across both damp cheeks and continued writing.
This last week has been the most dreadful I have ever passed through. John came home, and I felt a little relieved of the horrors that hung over me when I heard he was not to go out with the first detachment. I heard General Howard say, when arranging his orders, that someone must, for the present, be left here to arrange supplies, medicines, etc., and Doctor had better be left here, as he belongs to the post … You can’t imagine how sad it all is here. Here are these nice fellows gathered around our table, all discussing the situation and all knowing they will never all come back.
One leaves his watch and little fixings and says, “If one of those bullets gets me, send this to my wife.” Another gave me his boy’s photograph to keep for him, as he could not take it. He kept his wife’s with him, and twice he came back to look at the boy’s before he started off. One officer left a sick child, very ill; another left a wife to be confined next month. What thanks do they all get for it? No pay, and abuse from the country that they risk their lives to protect…
Your loving daughter,
Emily F.
P. S. If John had been here, he would have gone with Colonel Perry and, in all probability, been killed. I am so thankful of that trip to Portland and hope and pray God will watch over the Doctor as wisely through all this horrible war. Even if he goes away from Lapwai, I shall be glad I am here, for we can hear from the troops in a few hours. We do hope this next fight will decide the matter forever.
Em.
*That peculiar nineteenth-century euphemism for pregnancy.
CHAPTER THREE
JUNE 24, 1877
BY TELEGRAPH
—
The Idaho Indian Troubles.
—
Attempted General Combination of all the Tribes.
—
IDAHO.
—
Latest from the Scene of Indian Disturbances.
BOISE CITY, June 23.—Hon. T. E. Logan, mayor of Boise City, and Bonin Costin, member of the legislative council, who left here on Wednesday for the purpose of visiting the Indians encamped on Great Camas prairie, twenty-five miles southeast of this place, returned at noon, accompanied by fourteen of the chiefs of the Indians there assembled. There are now encamped in that locality about 1,500 Indians of both sexes and all ages, embracing members of Bannacks, Shoshones and Yellowstone tribes. Logan and Costin went to Willow creek, forty miles distant, where they found a party of Indians. They made known their object, to obtain the disposition of the Indians and their intentions. The Indians were asked to send forward their best riders to the main camp, and request the principal chief to meet the commission at Willow creek. The Indians complied and soon the chiefs made their appearance and an interview took place which revealed the fact that these Indians had been visited by emissaries from the Nez Perces and other hostiles in the north, and a portion of them had been considering whether to remain friendly to the whites or to join the hostiles …
SAN FRANCISCO, June 23—A Portland press dispatch says General Howard telegraphs from Fort Laparoi, June 21 st: Captain Miller with 300 men leaves for the front this evening. The Indian prisoners state that the soldiers left wounded on the field were killed but not mutilated. A steamer arrived at Lewiston this morning with 125 troops and a large quantity of arms, etc.
CAPTAIN DAVID PERRY WASN’T SURE IF HE
READ DISAPPROVAL in General Howard’s eyes … or merely a deep, deep disappointment.
“Is that the extent of your report, Colonel?” Howard used Perry’s brevet rank.
The captain cleared his throat nervously. “Not exactly, sir. With your permission—”
“There’s more?”
“Not really any more to my report, General,” then Perry felt angry with himself for hemming and hawing. “Yes, sir. I have something to say.”
Howard shifted uneasily on the camp stool in front of his headquarters tent pitched near the base of one of the low hills here at the army’s camp surrounding the Norton ranch on Cottonwood Creek.
Back in those early days of this dirty little outbreak, Benjamin Norton and his family had been flushed from their home by renegade warriors, chased onto the Camas Prairie, and run down miles from succor or aid. While Norton and others in the same party had died of their bullet wounds, his wife, son, and niece had survived their hellish ordeal. Now the road ranch stood in shambles: Warriors had ransacked the house as they rummaged through the white family’s possessions, everything not taken or burned lay about in utter disorder, clothing cut or torn apart, drawers yanked out and dumped over, chairs chopped into kindling, sacks of sugar and salt strewn across the wood floors, an unrestrained victory riot gone completely mad.
The only signs that this had once been a peaceful setting might well have been the upturned milking pails still resting on their corral fenceposts, a few unfed chickens scratching in the yard, and a lonely pup that cowered in the shadows beneath the porch.
Arriving here yesterday, the twenty-third, at noon after a forty-three-mile march from Lapwai, the general had put his men into bivouac, intending to use this spot as his base of operations against the Non-Treaty Nez Perce who were surely still ravaging the surrounding countryside. While Howard’s eight companies established their perimeter, dug rifle pits, and organized a horse-guard, the general sent word to the nearby settlements of Grangeville and Mount Idaho with orders for Captain David Perry to report to his commanding officer at Cottonwood Station.
Lay the Mountains Low Page 4
