In regard to Joseph’s retreat from the Big Hole battle, General Howard wrote these words in generous praise:
After Gibbon’s battle, Joseph showed his influence over the Indians by rallying them on a height, just beyond the reach of the long-range rifles. He gathered the warriors, recovered lost ground, and recaptured his numerous herd of ponies, which had already been cut off by Gibbon’s men, buried the most of his dead, and make good his retreat before the force with me was near enough to harm him. Few military commanders, with good troops, could better have recovered after so fearful a surprise.33
Although Howard credits Joseph with being the mastermind, the Indian testimony contradicts this. Joseph himself makes no mention of his battle deeds in his own story. But some of his personal activities right after the surprise attack have been reported by Black Eagle, who states:
“Chief Joseph’s horses with many others were on the open hillside to the west. The herd was back of and above the soldiers when they first charged the camp. I saw Chief Joseph and No Heart, a young man, up the hillside, going afoot after the horses. Both were barefooted, and Joseph had no leggings. Only shirt and blanket. Reaching their own horses, they mounted and drove the herd farther up the hill. Out of sight of soldiers and the fighting. . . . The horses were brought to camp by Joseph and others after the soldiers were driven to the timber flat, where they dug holes for hiding. . . . Chief Joseph and Chief White Bird went with the families”34 (during the retreat from the battlefield).
This rescue of the horses indicates Joseph’s great presence of mind and ability to think and act in an emergency, for, had Gibbon’s men captured the herd of Indian ponies, the Nez Perces could have been defeated.
Another warrior, Two Moons, reported he met Joseph during the battle holding his baby girl in his arms because her mother had been wounded (not slain as the whites believed). The chief told his friend he had no gun with which to defend himself. Most of the warriors found themselves in the same predicament in the early part of the assault. Two Moons advised Joseph to “skip for his life” and “save the child.”35
Joseph heeded his friend’s counsel for he and White Bird, who was too old to do much fighting, left with the families, accompanied by an escort of warriors, about noon of the first day’s fighting, Joseph “in his usual role of protector of the women and children.”36
His brother, Alokut, though, remained as leader of the young men acting as a rear guard to keep the soldiers besieged in the trenches after the families and pony herd retreated from the battle scene. Near dawn of the second day, Yellow Wolf relates, Alokut proposed to break off the fighting and rejoin their tribespeople. This they did after giving the troops “two volleys as a ‘Goodby!’”
18
The Camas Meadows Raid
Howard’s command again took up pursuit of the Nez Perces, who had retreated in a southeasterly direction. The remainder of the general’s force had reached the Big Hole battleground on the night of August 12. The next day with his column reunited, the indefatigable general, reenforced by Captain Browning’s fifty men of the Seventh Infantry, continued the chase. Howard hoped to catch the Indians before they left the Big Hole Basin. At the first night’s camp Captain Wells and Lieutenant Humphrey’s company of infantrymen in wagons joined the command.
The Indians left an easy trail, 150 feet wide, to follow, as the grass had been beaten down by hundreds of pony hoofs and furrowed by dragging travois poles. The troops found the carcasses of many cattle owned by settlers which the Indians had slaughtered for food.
Howard’s scouts informed him that the Nez Perces had passed through a gap across a ridge dividing Horse Prairie from the Grasshopper Creek Valley, in which the mining camp of Bannack was located. Farther on the Indians had then turned right out of a ravine called “Bloody Dick” Canyon and marched south through Stevensons Canyon toward its junction with Lemhi Canyon. “Bloody Dick” was the nickname of an English settler.
This route back into Idaho again would indicate the Indians intended to return to, and fight for, the land of their ancestors. White Bird held a council with the Nez Perces’ hereditary enemies, the Shoshones, and endeavored to enlist their aid. But that attempt at a coalition failed. Had that tribe agreed to become the ally of the Nez Perces, it is possible Howard might have been ambushed in the mountains of Idaho.
Upon being turned down by the Shoshones, however, the Nez Perces again headed east, urged on by Poker Joe as leader and guide. They made peace with the fortified settlers at Lemhi and proceeded through that valley after bypassing the whites’ barricade.
Reports, meanwhile, had been coming to Howard that the Indians were raiding and pillaging the ranches they passed. Their anger over the deaths of their women and children at the Big Hole battle probably explains their wanton attack, three days later, on eight white men at Horse Prairie Creek. Alexander Cruikshank, a scout engaged by Howard, recounts in his manuscript1 that a foraging party of Nez Perces surrounded the ranch, and since the whites put up resistance, all were slaughtered. The braves then proceeded to round up the horses and drive them away. Not only did they want remounts for their tribesmen, but they intended to prevent Howard’s pursuing force from getting any fresh animals.
After the Indians had crossed back into Idaho and proceeded up the Lemhi Valley, they overtook a party of teamsters hauling supplies for Colonel Shoup and his volunteer company. J. P. Clough, in a manuscript reminiscence,2 accuses members of White Bird’s band, who, he declares, massacred all the freighters. It must be remembered that Indians did not believe in majority rule, and often the reckless young bloods would disobey the orders of their chiefs. Regarding this attack on the freighters, the Nez Perces claim they had no intention of killing them until the whites tried to escape. Besides, the teamsters had given the young braves a keg of whiskey, and many had become intoxicated. Two of the drunken Indians, Yellow Wolf recalls, shot at each other; another was stabbed; and a sober warrior was fatally wounded by a “mad drunk” because he deliberately poured whiskey on the ground. This massacre of the freighters took place on the Salmon River, according to Citizen Volunteer Henry C. Johnson,3 about twenty-five miles from the main camp of the Nez Perces.
Howard hoped to head off the Indians, whom he suspected were moving toward Yellowstone Park, by pushing to their left at “some point along the stage-road from Deer Lodge to Corinne [Utah] or at Henry Lake.”4 Upon learning from the settlers at Lemhi that the Nez Perces had passed them by without harm, the general continued his march toward the stage road, hoping to reach that point first where the Indians were bound to cross it. At Junction Station on August 17, Howard detached Lieutenant George Bacon with forty cavalrymen to intercept the Nez Perces at Tacher’s Pass (now called Targhee), the western entrance into Yellowstone, two miles east of Henrys Lake. This force was ordered to blockade the Indians should they attempt to enter the park from that direction.
Captain Calloway’s volunteers from Virginia City joined Howard’s command at Junction camp, and materially added to his reserves. A company of cavalry under Captain Randolph Norwood also reenforced the general’s column at Pleasant Valley. They came from Fort Ellis by way of Virginia City.
The Nez Perces, however, crossed the stage road ahead of the troops at Dry Creek Station beyond Pleasant Valley. When Howard learned of it, he hastened his command thither and pushed on to Camas Meadows, there to rest his exhausted men and horses. He went into camp at “a strong, natural position on the first elevated ground which overlooks the meadows toward the west and some lavabeds toward the north and east.”5 It was a beautiful region, abounding in lush grass for the stock, and plenteous shade from cottonwoods and willows along the banks of a clear stream for the tired soldiers. As the waters of the creek fairly teemed with gamy trout, a part of the command spent the time in fishing.
The general had the foresight to post the cavalry in line of battle in order to protect the camp. Captain Wells’s forty infantrymen bivouacked near the creek in reserve formatio
n, while Major Edwin Mason, Twenty-first Infantry, posted pickets in every direction. Captain Calloway’s volunteers pitched their tents one hundred yards from the headquarters camp located on a knoll across the stream from them. This placed the citizens between two creeks with willow-fringed banks.
Just before dark Howard’s scouts saw two or three Nez Perces hovering about the camp, but that was an ordinary occurrence and so caused no comment. At night every horse and mule was brought within the enclosure. The cavalry stock were tied to picket ropes, the team animals to their wagons, and the bell mares belonging to the mule packtrains were hobbled. Howard wrote to the Secretary of War:
An unusual feeling of security pervaded the camp. My command, with Lieutenant Bacon’s detachment absent, did not at this time exceed in effectiveness one hundred cavalry and fifty infantry. This was, however, sufficient for any defensive purpose.6
“Well,” said Lieutenant C. E. S. Wood, aide-de-camp, as he and the general were preparing for bed, “I’ll take off my pants to-night; it is so safe a place.” The soldiers, expecting to be attacked at each campsite, had slept in boots and belts for seven nights.
Lieutenant Guy Howard, the general’s son and aide-de-camp, laughed and remarked, “I’ve loaned my pistol to a scout for to-night, so think likely the Indians will come back.”7
The Nez Perces likewise had gone into camp on the Camas Meadows, but they were a day’s march of sixteen or eighteen miles ahead of the troops toward Henrys Lake. Wary from the lesson taught them at the Big Hole, the Indians now maintained a vigilant guard. Scouts apprised the chiefs of Bacon’s mission and of Howard’s layover. Before the lieutenant’s return to the command, they held a council and talked over plans for a surprise attack, inspired by a vision of the wounded brave, Black Hair.
Indian testimony differs as to who planned the Camas Meadows raid. Samuel Tilden states that White Bird did. Yellow Bull intimates Looking Glass was responsible. However, both Yellow Wolf and Wottolen, tribal historian, declare the older men did the planning. The raiding party was divided into three companies, led by Chiefs Alokut, Looking Glass, Tuhulhutsut, Espowyes, and Teeweeyownah. Others mentioned as members of the group were White Bull, Two Moons, Peopeo Tholekt, and Wottolen. Joseph was not along, according to Yellow Wolf, himself a participant. As usual, Looking Glass’s idea for the plan of attack prevailed—it was his decision to go mounted. The Indians declared this chief always opposed any plan not first thought of by himself.
Nez Perce scouts had been watching the troops all day, and soon after sunset the raiding party of thirty or more warriors started on the eighteen-mile trip to Howard’s command. Under cover of darkness, just before reaching the encampment, they paused to hold their final council. After Looking Glass’s plan was agreed on, some active young men dismounted, silently worked their way around the sleeping enemy, and stealthily crept between the picket lines. These scouts succeeded in getting among the mules (mistaking them for horses) to cut their hobbles and remove the bells from the lead mares. The mounted Indians remained waiting for the signal shot before advancing.
According to Howard’s account, upon hearing the clip-clop of horses’ hoofs and seeing the dark forms of men and mounts dimly outlined in the starlit night, the sentry thought them Bacon’s detachment returning. He allowed them to approach very close before he issued the challenge. As he did not receive the correct answer, he fired. But the Indians assert the premature shot came from Otskai, one of their “nervous” members, and was the prearranged signal for the raiders to charge.
At once the Nez Perces replied with a war whoop, deployed, and dashed among the mule herd—about 150 in number. Fortunately for the troops the scouts did not have time to locate and cut the picket ropes of the horses. Thus the Indians only stampeded the pack mules by waving buffalo robes in their faces. As they did so, other braves poured a melting fire into the camp. Several warriors rode ahead of the mules, ringing the bells to direct the stampeding herd toward the Indian village.
For a while the army camp was a scene of confusion—rifles firing, horses neighing, Indians shouting war whoops, and bewildered soldiers hunting for pants and guns and cartridge belts in the darkness. Howard issued immediate orders for three troops of cavalry to give chase and recapture the mules.
The men quickly recovered from their surprise and dressed hastily. In obedience to the “Boots and Saddles” call of the bugle they were soon ready to mount, but had to wait for dawn. Then, in the chilly air of early morning, the orderly gallop shortly turned into a race for half an hour between the companies of Captains Carr, Norwood, and Jackson.
As the troops approached the first ridge of some foothills, they could dimly make out the Indians and the stolen herd four or five miles ahead. Captain Carr, leading the advance, charged the warriors who were driving the mules.
But the leaders were forewarned by scouts of the pursuit and they prepared for it. Eight miles from the army camp they divided their forces, one group galloping ahead with the mules, another company dismounting as skirmishers. These stood behind their ponies to check the cavalry’s advance and attacked on three sides among the lava beds. A flanking party of Indian riflemen crouched behind the rocks where they did “good shooting.” Peopeo Tholekt, one of the flankers, explained that in battles each warrior “watched and fought” wherever the most harm could be done to the enemy.
As the head of Carr’s company dashed up, his men received a hot fire from a thousand yards and were forced to pull up their horses. Norwood, immediately behind Carr, “went into position nearly abreast [of him] . . . while Jackson with his company came up on the right.”8 The cavalrymen dismounted and deployed along the ridge, exchanging shots for twenty minutes. Lieutenant Benson stood up for a moment and received a bullet that entered his hip pocket and passed entirely through both buttocks.
When the skirmish became general, Major Sanford’s left flank was turned by the Nez Perces. To protect himself, he ordered retreat. Warriors soon completely surrounded Captain Norwood’s company, which had become separated from the others. The Indians next turned Sanford’s right flank, and threatened to cut him off from camp. Not knowing the fate of Norwood and his men, the other troops promptly retreated after losing possession of the mules once more to the Indians. The animals had been captured in Carr’s first charge.
According to Howard’s report, Norwood “began to fulfill the order simultaneously with the rest, when, finding himself pressed too hard to do it with safety, he selected a defensive position and remained, repelling the enemy from every side.”9 The captain himself admits in his report to the Secretary of War of having received the order to withdraw. But he refused to obey because, as he explains: “My company would have been slaughtered from my first position, an exposed one, if, as it proved, the enemy moved around my flanks.”10
Norwood’s men quickly realized that they had “no ordinary Indians to deal with, for, while we had been frolicking with the skirmishers in front,” writes Sergeant H. J. Davis, Second Cavalry, “Chief Joseph had engineered as neat a double flank movement as could be imagined, and we were exposed to a raking fire coming from right and left.”11
Captain Norwood had then ordered his trumpeter to blow “Recall.” When the men had dismounted in the beginning of the fight, the horses had been taken into a grove of cottonwoods, five hundred yards away. Now, as the soldiers began to retreat they could not see their steeds, and for a time panic seized them. Davis relates:
The race to that thicket was something never to be forgotten, for a cavalryman is not trained for a five hundred yard sprint. Luck was with us, however, and no man was hit in that mad race for safety. . . .
We all reached the horses and found the place an admirable one for defense; it was a sort of basin an acre or so in extent, with a rim high enough to protect our horses, and filled with young cottonwoods in full leaf. It was oval in shape, and we deployed in all directions around the rim. For two hours it was a sniping game and our casualties were eight. The Indian
s crawled very close, one shooting Harry Trevor in the back at about fifteen feet, as we knew by the moccasin tracks and empty shells found behind a rock after the engagement. Poor Trevor’s wound was mortal as was that of Sam Glass, who was shot through the bladder; a bullet hit Sergeant Garland’s cartridge-belt and drove two cartridges from it clear through his body; his wound never healed and he blew out his brains a few years later. Will Clark had his shoulder partly torn away by an explosive ball; Sergeant Wilkins, a head wound, and Farrier Jones, a “busted” knee; a citizen attache, a bullet through the foot, and the lieutenant [Benson], wounded as told above. This was the amount of damage done to us, and what we did to the Indians we never knew, as they retreated in good order taking their dead or injured with them, after they found they could not dislodge us. Three dead ponies and some pools of blood were all the records we found of their casualties.12
Sergeant Hugh McCafferty proved the hero of this skirmish. Within close range of the Indians he concealed himself in the foliage of a cottonwood tree, and kept Norwood posted on the Nez Perces’ movements “by passing the word to a man stationed under the tree.”13 For this daring act he received a certificate of merit and a medal from Congress.
While Norwood’s men continued to put up a gallant fight, Howard had been receiving messages from the front. He, with Captain Wells’s company of infantry, Wagner’s cavalry, and the howitzer battery under Lieutenant Otis pushed out to reenforce the troops in action. The general met Major Sanford’s retiring cavalry and at once noted the absence of Norwood’s company. Howard asked the captain’s whereabouts, and Sanford admitted that he didn’t know. So the general ordered the combined force, with the infantry column on the right, to move slowly forward to locate Norwood’s position. The cracking of rifles soon led them to the beleaguered captain, from whom the Indians had recently withdrawn. Scouts had probably warned them of the approaching reenforcements.
Saga of Chief Joseph Page 24
