Saga of Chief Joseph

by Helen Addison Howard

  The Indians, believing themselves far in advance of Howard’s troops, crossed the Continental Divide into the Big Hole Valley, still traveling leisurely to take advantage of the nutritious forage. Looking Glass guided the Nez Perces through the Bitterroot, then the chiefs replaced him with Poker Joe after the disastrous Big Hole battle.

  That Joseph sincerely intended to leave a clean trail by a strict adherence to his promise of peace to the Montana people, there can be no doubt. But if he were attacked by the “Bostons,”13 who could blame him for fighting in self-defense? Joseph cherished the hope in his heart that he could yet win back by negotiation his native Wallowa Valley. Failing in that, he thought he might be able to secure a home among Charlot’s people in the Bitterroot, known to the Flatheads as “the land of shining mountains.”

  “We understood that there was to be no war,” Joseph said later. “We intended to go peaceably to the buffalo country, and leave the question of returning to our country to be settled afterward.”14

  17

  The Battle of the Big Hole

  The Big Hole Valley was a beautiful prairie basin of rolling hills and meadowland, intersected by numerous streams and woods, and encircled by precipitous, forest-clad mountains. In a grassy meadow on the banks of Ruby Creek near its confluence with Trail Creek, the Indians erected their tepee village of some ninety lodges, arranging them in the form of an irregular V with the apex upstream. Here the nutritious grass of the basin afforded excellent forage for their herd of some two thousand ponies. The river and its tributary streams supplied an abundance of fish for the people, while pine thickets on the hillslope west of the village would furnish them with a plenteous supply of lodgepoles. These would be used when they reached the treeless plains of the buffalo country. The young men formed gay parties and roamed far afield to hunt the fleet antelope. Is it any wonder that Chief Looking Glass ordered his people to make a rest camp in such a favored spot? He felt so secure in the friendship of the Montana people that he even refused to scout the back trail.

  White Bird, though, haunted by his guilty conscience since he had been the leading spirit to favor war with the whites, opposed this rest halt. He urged haste, well knowing it was the murders committed by three young men of his band which fomented the war.

  Already the coming tragic event began to cast its ominous shadow, for, on the eve of the Big Hole battle, one of the medicine men, Pile of Clouds, warned that “death is on our trail!” He asked the chiefs assembled in council:

  What are we doing here? While I slept, my medicine told me to move on; that death is approaching us. Chiefs, I only tell you this for the good of our people. If you take my advice you can avoid death, and that advice is to speed through this country. If we do not there will be tears in our eyes.1

  Of a surety there were to be “tears in their eyes,” for instead of heeding the warning, the chiefs ordered a feast and celebrated with a war dance, and then retired to their lodges to fall into the sleep of security.

  Samuel Tilden,2 a Nez Perce formerly employed by the government on the Flathead Reservation in Montana, recalls:

  There was a lot of fun going on at night, and there was a stick game and other amusements such as the Indians used to have when they camped long ago—footraces and horse races.

  That last night there was a lot going on, singing until late. Along about twelve or one or two o’clock they quieted down and went to sleep.3

  How could they know that General Howard had telegraphed Colonel John Gibbon at Fort Shaw, apprising him of the situation? Nor did they suspect that Gibbon had hastily collected 146 men, comprising six companies of the Seventh Infantry, a wagon train, and thirty-four citizen volunteers, and already had started in pursuit several days before from Helena. Gibbon marched the 150 miles from Fort Shaw, just east of the Rocky Mountains, to Missoula in seven days. Here he was reenforced by Rawn’s command and additional volunteers from Missoula and the Bitterroot, which brought his total force to 191 men.

  Regarding the difficulties of the march from Ross Hole to the Continental Divide, Thomas Sherrill, a volunteer member of Gibbon’s command, relates:

  The next morning we started up again at 5 o’clock and started to climb the steep barrier, and the traveling was much more difficult on account of the fallen timber which had to be removed or climbed over, but our wagons were lightly loaded and by doubling our teams and using the men to help drag the wagons, we finally reached the summit, making only two miles in six hours.4

  Although Gibbon’s advance was considerably delayed by the rough, mountainous country he had to cross with his wagons, he was already within a few hours’ march of the Nez Perce village that night. So certain of their safety did the Indians feel that they had neglected to post sentinels, or to send out scouts, although that very day Lieutenant James H. Bradley5 and a small detachment had been sent to reconnoiter their position. Bradley had offered to try and stampede the Indians’ herd of ponies. He had pushed forward the night before with a force of sixty men in the hopes of striking the camp before daylight. If he could succeed in doing this and put the Nez Perces on foot, their defeat would be assured. But the village was farther away than he had supposed, and dawn overtook him before he reached it.

  About noon of August 8, Corporal Drummond reported to the lieutenant that he had found plenty of fresh signs of Indians. Bradley, the corporal, and Lieutenant J. W. Jacobs, regimental quartermaster of the Seventh Infantry, then set out to determine the exact location of the village. The officers proceeded with stealthy caution and heard at a distance the clear, ringing tones of axes as the Indian women chopped the lodgepole pines. They veered in that direction and soon could hear the choppers’ voices very distinctly.

  Fearing detection, Lieutenants Bradley and Jacobs climbed a tall tree. From its topmost branches the officers could see hundreds of Indian ponies grazing in a meadow almost beneath them. Small boys on horseback were wandering in and about the herd, while others were lazily stretched on the ground in the shade of nearby trees. Several hundred yards away across the river was the Indian village, partially screened by alder and willow thickets. Many of the lodges were just being set up by the women, others of whom were engaged in carrying more lodgepoles, making the beds, and cooking the midday meal. Scores of warriors lounged about the tepees already pitched.

  One glance was sufficient. The officers made their silent way back to their concealed camp, and immediately sent off a dispatch to Gibbon.

  When the colonel received it, he gave orders for each man to be supplied with ninety rounds of ammunition and one day’s rations, and for twenty men to guard the wagon train, as he intended to push ahead on foot. His command marched forward as rapidly as possible over a terrain choked with fallen timber. The main force reached Bradley’s camp at sundown, at approximately the same time, perhaps, as the Nez Perces were feasting.

  The soldiers broke ranks in a gulch to eat a scanty supper of hardtack and raw pork, and then lay down to rest without fires or blankets. The colonel himself lay under a pine tree and slept until the officer of the guard awoke him. It was Gibbon’s intention to make a surprise attack on the Indian camp at dawn.

  Quietly each man was awakened, and orders were whispered to form into a line of march. Guided by Joe Blodgett, citizen scout, and Lieutenant Bradley, the troops, as silently as possible, followed through the tangled underbrush, over rocky ledges, up and down numerous ravines, across washouts, waded waist deep in the icy waters of the stream, and floundered in the oozy mire of the swamps. The starry August night was cold with the chill air of the mountains, but no moon betrayed their presence.

  After five miles of marching, the soldiers saw the campfires of the Indian village glowing in the dark. They could hear the barking of dogs answering the howls of coyotes. Now and again a blaze would flare up, disclosing smoky lodges. A few hundred yards from the camp the troops again forded the stream, and upon ascending the bluff ran into a herd of ponies. Some of them neighed and snorted at the strang
e invasion, but fortunately the animals did not stampede. The soldiers continued to pick their way cautiously through the brush and over rocks to halt at a point overlooking the village, not more than 150 yards from the nearest tepees. It was then two o’clock in the morning. The men lay down beside their rifles to shiver in the chilly air until daylight. They watched the Indians’ smoldering campfires flicker occasionally—a scene fantastic and weird in the waning light of the stars.

  Bostwick, a half-breed scout, told Colonel Gibbon, “They have no idea of our presence. . . . After a while you’ll see some fires built up if we remain undiscovered.”6

  Within the hour several Indian women emerged from their lodges and threw fresh fuel on the smoldering fires. As the wood flared up the troops could see them turning before the blaze to warm themselves, and could hear them chattering between yawns. Gradually they all drifted back to their beds of buffalo and bear robes. The doomed village slept on. Sam Tilden says:

  About three o’clock, a woman went down to get a bucket of water, and she heard a crackling in the bushes—heard something like a gun rattling as it was carried through the brush. She told her man, but he told her she didn’t know what it was.7

  In the weird, gray light of dawn, acting under whispered orders, the troops deployed in line of battle and moved forward in an eerie silence. Ahead went the skirmishers, Captain Sanno’s and Comba’s companies, stealthily descending the slope to feel their way across the icy river, the water nearly reaching their armpits. The companies of Captains Logan, Williams, and Rawn, and Lieutenant Bradley’s men stole quietly forward, the first three going to the extreme right of the camp to attack the Indians’ left flank near Ruby Creek. Bradley’s platoon with the citizen scouts had been ordered to go left downstream and strike the lower end. A dense growth of willows extended from the slope to the village. Herds of ponies grazed in grassy spaces among the brush. Gibbon reports: “A deep slough with water in places waist-deep wound through this bottom from right to left, and had to be crossed before the stream itself could be reached.”8

  Dawn comes quickly in the mountains, spreading across the eastern sky with a halo of rosy light. As it appeared on that morning of August 9 a mounted Indian rode out of the willows, going toward the pony herd on the slope above. In such silence had the advance of the soldiers been made that the Indian nearly collided with Bradley’s men. Before he had time to raise a gun or shout a cry of alarm, both he and his horse were shot down.

  That was the signal for the battle to start, for Gibbon’s order had been: “When the first shot is fired, charge the camp with the whole line.” Instantly a barrage of rifle fire saluted the dawn. With loud yells the line of infantrymen surged forward. Like the terrific rush of a tidal wave they swept into the midst of the slumbering village.

  Panic-stricken Indians dashed from their lodges, heavy-lidded from sleep, and ran for the shelter of the riverbank and thickets of alder and willow. Most of the warriors were naked. Almost in an instant the peaceful village became a scene of confusion—women yelling, children screaming, papooses crying, dogs barking, ponies neighing, many of them breaking their tethers and stampeding in fright. A few warriors had had the presence of mind to seize their guns, but at first were too dazed to use them. Others who had madly raced away returned to their lodges under the soldiers’ galling fire to get their weapons. The braves then took cover under the riverbanks and in the stream bed itself.

  Amid this mad scene the troops remained cool and shot to kill. In the first confusion it was inevitable that women and children should be injured. But there is evidence the whites fired on these noncombatants later in the fighting as well. However, instead of fleeing in terror far from the camp, the Indians soon rallied and began to lay down a telling fire on the soldiers.

  Lieutenant Bradley and his handful of men were the first to assault the village. His orders from Colonel Gibbon had been to exercise great care in entering the brush, and to keep under cover as much as possible. But his was a fearless soul, and he waved on his men to charge, himself in the lead. He plunged into a thicket to drive out a group of Indians supposedly lurking therein, as a soldier cried out, “Hold on, Lieutenant; don’t go in there; it’s sure death.” With the reckless abandon of fighting courage he dashed in. Suddenly an Indian raised out of the brush and fired, instantly killing the officer. Bradley’s men immediately retaliated by riddling the warrior with bullets. With maddened courage then, they too charged into the midst of the Indians, dealing death on all sides in their fury.

  Captain Logan’s men crossed the stream and came upon the rear of a force of Indians hidden in the willows. The warriors turned on the soldiers, cutting them down with a melting fire. It was here the greatest slaughter took place. The whites claim a powerful brave rushed upon Captain Logan, and that he took deliberate aim with his revolver and killed the Indian. But the Nez Perces declare the warrior was lying in a shallow depression behind a small pine log. The warrior’s woman, thought by the troops to be his sister, but who, the Indians affirm, was his pregnant wife, leaped to the side of her fallen mate. She wrenched his smoking rifle from his dead hand and fired it point-blank at Logan’s head. The gallant captain fell with a mortal wound.9

  At the sight Logan’s men went mad and riddled the Indian girl with bullets. She collapsed across her young husband’s body. Heedless of their own lives, the soldiers ran wildly among the Indians, using the butts of their rifles to club to death all who came within reach. The battle had become “an eye for an eye,” with no quarter asked or given on either side.

  But the courage of the Indians ran high also, and they fought as savagely as the whites, giving blow for blow. Many a warrior and soldier fell dead or wounded into the river and were carried away together by its blood-reddened current.

  Comba’s and Sanno’s companies struck the camp at the apex of the V and poured their fire at close range into the lodges and the Indians as they emerged from the tepees. It was here, near the upper end of the village, Yellow Wolf recalls, that Chief Joseph’s lodge was located.

  One brave, Grizzly Bear Youth, worked his way behind the soldiers, firing right and left and exacting heavy toll. Suddenly a huge, ugly-looking rancher, a citizen volunteer, turned around. With an oath he raced toward the Indian, swinging his gun over his head by the barrel. The red man met the charge with the same kind of defense. Each delivered the other a terrific blow at the same time. The white man fell, and the Indian leaped on top, but the volunteer recovered from his daze and grappled with his adversary. Locked in a deadly clinch, they rolled and tossed. The white finally got on top and choked the red into unconsciousness.

  Then along came the son of Red Owl. Thrusting the muzzle of his gun into the white man’s side, he pulled the trigger. The ball passed through the volunteer’s body, killing him and breaking the arm of Grizzly Bear Youth.

  Within twenty minutes the soldiers had captured the village. They had been given orders to destroy it. So, lighting torches, they set the lodges on fire, but the night’s heavy dew made them too damp, and the skin tepees would not burn at all.

  Seeing their homes and possessions on fire, Chiefs Joseph, White Bird, and Looking Glass rallied their warriors to renewed courage. Their voices could be heard above the noise of battle. Very plainly the troops heard White Bird, his words translated by the friendly Nez Perce scouts, challenging the braves:

  Why are we retreating? Since the world was made, brave men have fought for their women and children. Shall we run into the mountains and let these white dogs kill our women and children before our eyes? It is better that we should be killed fighting. Now is our time to fight. These soldiers cannot fight harder than the ones we defeated on Salmon River and White Bird Canon. Fight! Shoot them down! We can shoot as well as any of these soldiers.10

  The voice of Looking Glass at the other end of the camp could be heard shouting the names of the three Indians who brought on the war by the killing of white settlers:

  Wal-lit-ze! Tap-sis-il-pilp! Um-
til-ilp-cown! This is battle! These men are not asleep as those you murdered in Idaho. These soldiers mean battle. You tried to break my promise at Lolo. You wanted to fire at the fortified place. Now is the time to show your courage and fight. You can kill right and left. I would rather see you killed than the rest, for you commenced the war. It was you who murdered the settlers in Idaho. Now fight!11

  These “pep” talks bore psychological fruit, for the Indians made a concerted charge to regain their camp, and fought like demons in hand-to-hand encounters. The force of their savage onslaught lasted but a few minutes, when they again retired to the riverbank. From there they poured a cool, deadly fire into the unprotected troops, for the Nez Perces were the straightest-shooting Indians in North America! Two of the braves named by Looking Glass were soon killed, and the third one was reported by the Nez Perces to have died some time later in a skirmish.12

  Meanwhile, the onslaught of the troops raged fiercely. They were subjected to a cross fire not only by the sharpshooters in the hills, thickets, and riverbanks, but even by boys and Indian women who exercised a deadly aim. It was at this time that a touching sight attracted Colonel Gibbon’s attention. Some of the women, carrying their babies in their arms, waded into deep water to avoid the firing. Upon spying the white soldier-chief they held out their papooses at arm’s length, looking “as pleasant and wistful as they could” for his protection.

  Soon the colonel’s horse was shot under him, and he received a flesh wound in the leg. Then Lieutenant Woodruff’s horse went down, and he, too, received a wound. Lieutenant Coolidge was struck by a ball that pierced both thighs. Two brother officers carried him to a sheltered spot near the body of Captain Logan. Gibbon formed his men into a double line, back to back, and repeatedly charged the Indians through the brush in opposite directions, only to have them retreat more deeply into the willows.