Lay the Mountains Low

by Terry C. Johnston

  Taking the better part of two hours on the morning of the twenty-fourth, Perry had detailed every step of his march from Fort Lapwai, his approach to the seat of the troubles, along with a studied emphasis on the testimony of the local civilians that the Indians were sure to flee, certain to throw down their arms without a fight at the first sign of the soldiers, that Perry was convinced he must act quickly before the thieves escaped across the Salmon with their stolen horses and cattle.

  At that point the captain explained his march across the White Bird divide, awaiting dawn when they could march down into the canyon for the attack.

  “You had all your men deployed before they began falling back?” Howard had asked more than once.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “With none of your elements held in reserve?”

  “No, General.”

  Howard brooded at that. “But you chose to place the civilians on your far left, at a critical place along your line.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And that’s where the Nez Perce rolled up your line, beginning with those untrained civilians.”

  The captain reluctantly nodded. “That appears to be exactly what happened.”

  It was a painful two hours—some of the hardest Perry had ever endured in the army. But these next few minutes, and what more he had to tell General O. O. Howard, might well be the most painful of all, or this might be just what saved his hash in this man’s army.

  “Well, Colonel,” Howard said wearily as he tossed out the cold dregs from his tin coffee cup. “You said you had one thing more to report.”

  “I have a concern as to Major Trimble.” He spoke in little above a harsh whisper, his heart thumping in his chest as he struggled to control his anger, an anger at the mere mention of the man’s name,

  Captain Joel G. Trimble, brevet major, commander of H Company, First U. S. Cavalry—and Perry’s subordinate at Fort Lapwai—had ridden into the valley of the White Bird with David Perry … but had been the first to race back out in the retreat.

  “Trimble failed to acknowledge your orders for him to halt and assist in your orderly retreat?” Howard asked, dumbfounded.

  “Lieutenant Parnell will back me up, General,” Perry asserted. “We both saw Major Trimble stop at the top of the divide, turn, and look back down at us as we closed the file. He had to have seen us calling for his assistance, seen us waving him back to cover our retreat.”

  “What did the major do?”

  “We watched him turn away and disappear at the top,” the captain explained. “I didn’t see him again until I reached the Grangeville settlement—”

  “Have you confronted Trimble with your accusations?”

  Perry could no longer peer into Howard’s eyes. He dropped his gaze to the thick grass beneath his boots. “More times than I care to count, sir—I’ve asked myself why I didn’t upbraid him there and then.”

  Howard clinked down the empty coffee cup and asked, “You didn’t state your charges against him?”

  Still unable to look the general in the eye, Perry said, “No. The only reason I have been able to figure out for my failure to demand an explanation of him is that I found myself barely able to throttle back my anger whenever I’m around Trimble. I’m certain that if I ever got started on this topic in his presence, I might not be responsible for my actions—”

  “Are you charging him with insubordination?”

  It took a few moments before the captain finally raised his eyes to look at Howard’s face, then nodded. “Yes, General.”

  “And dereliction of duty?”

  “That too, yes, sir. In my opinion, the battle was lost when his left side of the line disintegrated. He could have held—even after the civilians were rolled up. But within minutes he had abandoned me. Major Trimble abandoned everyone who was behind him in the retreat.”

  “How many men was that, Colonel?”

  Perry straightened and brought his shoulders but. “I doubt there was any more than a handful of soldiers in front of Trimble in their retreat out of the canyon.”

  Howard wagged his head and stared into the fire. “He was out ahead of all the rest?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “These … are serious charges.” For a long time Howard continued to stare at the nearby fire. When he finally spoke, it was to call out to his dog-robber, who was perched on a canvas stool just out of earshot from that quiet discussion the two officers had been having. “Orderly, pour me some more coffee.”

  Perry watched the young private hurry over and drag the coffeepot off the coals with a greasy towel. These orderlies, who worked as servants for their superior officers, had been given that appellation commonly used by the army of that day: dog-robber. With the coffee poured and handed to the general, the private again retreated out of hearing.

  “Colonel Perry,” Howard sighed with finality. “We’ve got a war exploding around us at this moment.”

  “Sir?”

  Howard took a long sip of the coffee, then continued without looking across at the captain. “For the moment, I don’t dare sacrifice a single one of my officers through disciplinary action.”

  That stunning admission caught Perry by surprise. “B-But, General. I wasn’t considering bringing Major Trimble up on charges. No disciplinary action. Perhaps an official reprimand from you was all that I could expect. If his offense goes without notice, it serves to show a bad example to the enlisted men who all witnessed his dereliction—”

  “Colonel,” Howard interrupted him. “For me to take any action against the major would be to relieve him of duty, sending him back to Fort Lapwai under escort until an official inquiry is made, and I determine if a court should be called. I’d be taken up with having to prefer charges and you taken up along with me. We simply don’t have the time for that right now. Instead, we’ve got a war to fight.”

  Perry kept staring at Howard’s bearded face, wondering when the general would look up from his coffee tin, when Howard would take his eyes off that smoky fire. While he hadn’t graduated near the top of his class, David Perry was nonetheless slowly realizing that he had this situation sorted out for what it was. There would be no arguing with the general’s decision.

  “Very good, sir,” he said with a somber note of regret. “I understand this matter of preferring charges against Major Trimble will only be delayed for the time being?”

  “Yes, by all means. Just for the time being.”

  He dragged his heels together, straightened, and saluted his commanding officer. “Very good, General. For the time being. … After all, we do have a war to fight.”

  Fort Lapwai

  June 25, 1877

  Dear Aunt Annie,

  Your nice letter came this morning and decided me to write to you.

  You ask about the Indians. They are devils, and I will not feel easy again until we are safely out of the country they claim as theirs. Joseph’s Non-Treaty band was given thirty days to come onto the reservation. On the last day of the thirty, when everybody was comfortably settled and never dreaming of trouble, they began to murder the settlers.

  Doctor was away in Portland. He came hurrying home horrified. He had heard this post was burned and all sorts of alarming rumors. I felt all my calmness and bravery departing when he came home, as he only came in the morning and expected to move out with the troops in the evening, but the General found it necessary to leave someone to forward supplies and look after the troops that are passing through here and left Dr. F. for the present. Dr. Alexander … is the chief medical officer in the field. Dr. Sternberg … was also with us last week and has moved on to the front. We have been busy entertaining the officers who are passing through, with our hearts aching, knowing they will never all come back, and fearing, too, all the time, an attack on the post.

  We had one horrible false alarm of an Indian attack last week. The long roll was sounded, the men were all under arms, and the women and children all gathered into one house around which there
are breastworks … Poor Mrs. Theller joined Mrs. Boyle and me. She had strapped on her dead husband’s cartridge belt and was carrying his carbine and looked every bit as if she were ready to avenge her husband’s brutal murder.

  We fear there will be a horrible battle within the next few days. Everybody here is busy day and night. My poor John! I have not had five minutes to talk with him since he came home …

  Doctor wanted to send us right home, but I can’t leave him or leave here, even when he goes to join the troops that are in the front, as I can hear of him so often and so immediately here. If I should lose him (I hope and pray he will be spared to me) I would, of course, come right home to you all and expect you to take care of me, at least until I could think what I could do with my helpless little babies … Doctor says he thinks us safe here, or he would not let us stay. We are all well, only nearly worn out by the excitement and constant strain. I start at every unusual sound and feel the strength departing from my knees and elbows. John declares I have lost ten pounds. Everybody feels blue and anxious for the result. Another victory for Joseph would bring to his standard all the disaffected Indians in the Department, and the whole Nez Perces tribe is wavering.

  After Lunch

  The Nez Perce Agent lunched with us. He says he learns from friendly Indians that Joseph’s command is not a large one, does not number much over a hundred, but that hundred is prepared to fight to the death. The Indians say they know they will be hung if taken, and they mean to kill as many soldiers as they can first and then die themselves. Our officers going through here think the campaign will be a short but severe one. I wish all the Indians in the country were at the bottom of the Red Sea. I suppose the country will have trouble until they are exterminated.

  Your affectionate niece,

  Emily FitzGerald

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JUNE 25, 1877

  BY TELEGRAPH

  —

  Great Storm in the West.

  —

  Extending Over a Large Portion of the West.

  —

  OMAHA, June 25.—The storm, very general throughout the west, was first heard of at Cheyenne yesterday evening. Heavy hail and wind extended north of Sioux City, south of Kansas City, and over the state of Iowa.

  FROM THE EDGE OF THE TREE LINE, FIRST SERGEANT Michael McCarthy turned in his saddle and looked back at the Camas Prairie laid out behind them like a soggy, rumpled bedcloth. Their bivouac on Cottonwood Creek was back there some fourteen miles or so through the sheets of sleety rain and wet snow.

  H Company had followed Captain Joel G. Trimble and a Nez Perce tracker away from the Nortons’ road ranch an hour after sunrise that morning, the twenty-fifth of June. While the general himself would be coming along at a much slower pace this Monday, Howard had ordered Trimble and his men to make a reconnaissance in force toward Slate Creek and relieve the citizens under seige at the settlement. In addition, Company H should be prepared to turn the Nez Perce when Howard’s column flushed the enemy from their Salmon River hiding places.

  With that last look over his shoulder, McCarthy still couldn’t spot any signs of the general’s column moving away from Cottonwood in the dance of those intermittent but heavy and wet snowflakes. Plans were that the rest of Howard’s men would march for Grangeville and Mount Idaho, halting briefly to reassure the frightened settlers taking refuge there. Then the column would push on over the divide for Perry’s battlefield, where they would bury the dead before pursuing the Non-Treaty bands up the Salmon. That should give Trimble’s H enough time to be in position at the Slate Creek barricades, where they could stem the red tide Howard’s column was sure to stir into motion.

  “Sounds to me we got the darty duty again, Major,” McCarthy had growled to Second Lieutenant William R. Parnell earlier that morning as they were forming up their company, using the officer’s brevet rank.

  The tall and fleshy fellow Irishman’s eyes darted over the ten new men who had arrived at Cottonwood two days before behind Second Lieutenant Thomas T. Knox, on detached duty from Fort Walla Walla. “Not all the luftenant’s men are proper sojers, Sergeant dear,” he replied guardedly.

  “Must’ve picked up them recruits down at Walla Walla,” McCarthy assessed the newcomers. “Them weeds look green as grass.”

  Parnell nodded. “But we’ll take them shavetail boyos because you and me need ’em so bad. Ain’t that right, Sergeant?”

  True enough: Lieutenant Knox and his ten recruits bolstered the company roster at a most crucial time. Eleven men would go far to replacing the thirteen dead and one wounded ripped from the rolls of H Company on the seventeenth of June at White Bird. Their recent arrival brought Trimble’s command up to some thirty men. Not a full company, but a damn sight better than a puny scouting patrol now that they were riding off against the red hellions who had butchered so many of McCarthy’s friends eight days before.

  Still, to get to Slate Creek, Trimble’s men had to make sure they avoided any roving war parties and gave the Non-Treaty bands a wide berth. To accomplish that, H Company would take a circuitous route, following an abandoned and little-used trail through the high country to reach the mining camp of Florence. From there they would double back several miles, staying behind the ridges, angling down to reach the civilians who had gathered behind their barricades on the east side of the Salmon, at the mouth of Slate Creek.

  There … in the distance, for a brief moment before he could no longer see the Camas Prairie laid out beneath the low-slung clouds, Sergeant McCarthy thought he saw the first dark figures snaking onto the grassy, rolling plains. Emerging from Cottonwood Station, as the locals called Norton’s road ranch.

  He turned around and settled himself miserably into that damp McClellan saddle again. It made him feel a little better diving into these forested hills and the unknown, realizing that Howard’s column actually would be somewhere at their rear.

  It was for sure that Colonel Perry was no fighting man. By the same token, neither was McCarthy’s own company commander, Captain Trimble. He, even before the colonel, had turned tail and scampered away when things got warm. So it sure as hell didn’t give a man a secure feeling to go traipsing off behind a man who had shown the white feather to those red heathens.

  McCarthy quickly shot another glance at Knox’s ten new recruits up from Walla Walla. Then his eyes continued down the column to those battle-weary survivors of the White Bird fray. And finally to the broad back of that fleshy Irishman, Parnell.

  If the red buggers jumped H Company somewhere in these hills, at least the two of them would manage to hurl profane Irish curses at the red buggers until they got down to their last bullet. The one a man always saved for himself.

  OLIVER Otis Howard was more than startled.

  He had been shaken to his core to look over the men of Perry’s command who had remained behind at the settlements while the captain rode to meet Howard at Cottonwood.

  How different they are in numbers, different in their appearance, not the brisk and hearty troopers that left Fort Lapwai the week previous, he thought as his horse slowly moved toward the barricades.

  Now the look on their faces, the studied horror in their eyes, reminded him of the war-weary, frightened soldiers he had seen every day, every campaign, in their war against the rebellious Southern states. Although those survivors of the White Bird fight cheered the general’s arrival with the rest of the cavalry now placed under Perry’s command, Howard realized those survivors had nonetheless been changed for all time.

  At a parting of the roads on the outskirts of Grangeville, Howard had sent his infantry—B, D, E, H, and I Companies of the Twenty-first, as well as E Company of the Fourth Artillery—on ahead, with orders to make camp at Johnson’s ranch near the base of the White Bird divide. The general would continue on with Captain David Perry, who was now leading a new battalion of horse soldiers: E and L Companies of the First U. S. Cavalry companies.

  After an hour’s layover in tiny Grangeville, d
uring which time he gathered intelligence on the Non-Treaty bands from the locals and inspected those supplies, J. W. “John” Crooks was making available to the column, Howard resumed his march for Mount Idaho. With cheering, exuberant citizens swarming around him in that neighboring community, the general examined the hastily built fortress with former British officer H. W. Croasdaile before he walked down the main street to reach Loyal P. Brown’s Mount Idaho House.

  “Quiet! Quiet!” Brown shouted above the noisy throng of more than 250 settlers, ranchers, and soldiers, too. “I’ve prevailed upon General Howard to say a few words before he rejoins his column at Johnson’s ranch. Ladies and gentlemen—I give you the man who will right the wrongs done us. The man who will recapture our stock and property from the red thieves. The man who will quickly put down this uprising and punish the Nez Perce. … I give you General Howard!”

  He couldn’t remember when he had been given such a splendid ovation. Surely not since those days of the Freedmen’s Bureau, before the scandals, before he was forever tainted with the vicious slander that had almost ruined his career, almost ruined the work of a lifetime. How that raucous applause and hearty huzzahs thundered in his ears and refreshed his flagging spirit here as he set about snuffing out the first flames of a territory-wide war.

  But as he self-consciously cleared his throat, Otis promised himself he would make it a short speech. Just the way he was going to make this a short war. “Ladies and gentlemen. Friends, and fellow countrymen. We have now taken the field in good earnest. More troops are on the way to join us.”