Saga of Chief Joseph

by Helen Addison Howard

  The chief admitted, however, that he and his people had watched the cavalry drill “and they could maneuvre as the white troops did in time of peace.”17 This keen observation, intelligently applied, enabled the Nez Perces to use “every obstructive and offensive device known” to the science of military tactics. From his conversations with Joseph, McLaughlin brought out that in each engagement the chief knew accurately the number of troops opposing him until the final battle. Had the Indians spread a chain of scouts, they might have avoided the last fight.

  Both Howard and Miles paid admiring tribute to the great chieftain. In his report to the Secretary of War, Miles states:

  The Nez Perces are the boldest men and best marksmen of any Indians I have ever encountered, and Chief Joseph is a man of more sagacity and intelligence than any Indian I have ever met; he counseled against the war, and against the usual cruelities practiced by Indians, and is far more humane than such Indians as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.18

  Probably because Joseph had struggled through diplomacy and arms for thirty-three years for his Wal-lam-wat-kin’s tribal liberty, and because he was the only head chief of the original five warring bands to surrender, the whites’ legend grew around him as having been the supreme military leader who planned the campaign and masterminded the retreat. As the Nez Perce evidence clearly shows, though, Looking Glass and Poker Joe (Lean Elk) served as war chiefs on most of the march. The Indians had no overall plan of campaign and they fought a defensive war. Their strategy and tactics on the retreat were worked out in numerous councils of the chiefs to suit the immediate exigencies as they arose. Yet Joseph became the symbol of the fighting Nez Perces’ skill and courage, and through no overt act on his part. Although not a military genius, Joseph is still outstanding as a peace chief, as a great diplomat among warriors, as a guardian of his people, and he is distinguished for his Lincoln-type humanity toward friend and foe as well as for his integrity of character.

  Part IV

  Later History

  24

  Prisoners of War

  After Joseph’s surrender on October 5, the troops were busy stacking the Indians’ guns, burying the dead, and preparing the wounded for their long journey to the fort hospital. General Howard left Miles at the battlefield on October 7, and rejoined him on the thirteenth at the Missouri River for a conference at the colonel’s request.

  Miles took charge of the Nez Perces, now prisoners of war. The officers agreed they should be taken to the colonel’s headquarters post on Tongue River. On the seventh his command began its slow march over the snow-covered plains to the Missouri River. Lieutenant Maus had been sent north to try to overtake the escaped Nez Perces, especially Chief White Bird. He did capture a few stragglers and then returned to the command.

  The troops met up with Sturgis’ Seventh Cavalry which remained in the field to watch any movements of the hostile Sioux. Several of the wounded soldiers and Indians died on the way and had to be buried beside the trail. At the Missouri River as many wounded as possible were sent down on the steamer. General Howard, with his infantry and artillery battalions, embarked on the steamer Benton for St. Louis. His troops went back to their headquarters post at Fort Vancouver, Washington. The cavalry the general had dispatched overland on September 27 to its various headquarters posts in the Northwest. From St. Louis, Howard continued to Chicago for an interview with General Sheridan.

  Escorted by Miles’s column the Nez Perce prisoners continued their march to the Yellowstone. “There were three battalions of well-equipped, hardy resolute soldiers, with artillery,” the colonel writes, “besides upward of four hundred prisoners; and on the opposite flank, some distance away, were driven over six hundred of the captured stock, while in the rear were the travois and ambulances, bearing the wounded, followed by the pack-trains and wagon trains, and all covered by advance guards, flankers, and rear guards.”1

  The thirty Sioux and Cheyenne scouts attached to Miles’s command were each permitted “to select five captured ponies,” nor did they pick the poorest ones. The scouts then hurried on and reached the fort ahead of the troops, causing much consternation, as the families of the officers and men feared for their safety. Their fears were put to rest, however, when the interpreter arrived and disclosed the first accurate news of the Bearpaw battle.

  Three days later the command made its appearance in full force on the buttes to the west. The cantonment, later called Fort Keogh, lay on the south bank of the Yellowstone near the mouth of Tongue River and the present site of Miles City. The soldiers and Nez Perces descended the winding trail down the bluffs to the waiting ferry.

  A royal welcome awaited the returning victorious troops. It is best described in Colonel Miles’s own words:

  The families of the officers and soldiers and all the other people at the garrison, including the band of the Fifth Infantry, citizens and Indians, lined the bank of the Yellowstone; and as some of the principal officers, including myself together with Chief Joseph and one or two of the principal Indians, stepped into the boat, and it moved from the northern shore, the band struck up “Hail to the Chief,” and then as we neared the other shore, it suddenly changed to “O, no! no! not for Joseph,” which it played for a short time, and then went back to the former strain.2

  Miles reports that the “Nez Perce Indians were given a comfortable camp on the right bank of the Yellowstone, and it was my purpose to keep them there during the winter and send them back to Idaho in the spring.”3

  25

  “Somebody Has Got Our Horses”

  Joseph and the remnants of the five warring bands became another problem to the War Department. What should be done with them now that they were captured? It is true they had surrendered with the agreement that they should return to their own country, but how to get them there? Miles had already written to the Secretary of War:

  As I received no reply to my request for orders or information that should govern my movements, I acted on what I supposed was the original design of the government to place these Indians on their reservation, and so informed them, and also sent assurances to the war parties that were out, and those who had escaped, that they would be taken to Tongue River and retained for a time, and sent across the mountains as soon as the weather permitted in the spring. They cheerfully complied.1

  The nation’s press of the time had dubbed the Nez Perces “Howard’s Indians,” since he had been originally sent to round them up and remove them to the Lapwai Reservation. He used his official discretionary powers and issued the following written order to Miles:

  Headquarters Department of the Columbia,

  In the Field, Battle-field of Eagle

  Creek, near Bear Paw Mountains,

  Montana, October 7, 1877.

  Col. Nelson A. Miles,

  Fifth Infantry, Commanding District of the Yellowstone. Colonel: On account of the cost of transportation of the Nez Perces prisoners to the Pacific coast, I deem it best to retain them all at some place within your district, where they can be kept under military control till next spring. Then, unless you receive instructions from higher authority, you are hereby directed to have them sent under proper guard to my department, where I will take charge of them, and carry out the instructions I have already received. . . .

  O. O. Howard,

  Brigadier-General, Commanding Department.2

  All of which is evidence that the two officers were working for the best interests of the Indians—an important point because of the suffering and misery that the Nez Perces later went through, due to “higher authority” breaking the promises and countermanding the orders of Howard and Miles. But more of that later.

  Within ten days after the Nez Perces’ arrival at Fort Keogh, orders came from “higher authority” to send them eight hundred miles by steamer to Fort Lincoln near Bismarck, Dakota Territory, the reason given being that subsistence would be cheaper there. And Joseph’s medley of bands were fairly launched, like the Cherokee Indians, on their own
“trail of tears.”

  Since it was low-water season on the Yellowstone, fourteen flatboats were used to transport the Nez Perces from Fort Keogh. These barges had been used to carry garden truck from Livingston to the post for the soldiers’ mess. Each boat could accommodate from twenty to twenty-five people, and in them the wounded, the aged, the sick, and the children were placed. One white man took charge of each boat to handle the tiller, dole out the rations, and guard the prisoners. The able-bodied warriors, including Joseph, and a few women marched overland to Fort Lincoln, escorted by a detachment of the Seventh Cavalry and a wagon train under command of Colonel Miles.3

  Those on the flatboats drifted down the current during the daytime and tied up to the bank at night, always on the alert, however, for roving hostile parties of Sioux. The weather remained sunny with cool, frosty nights. Rations were supplied by the army commissary at Fort Keogh, and were supplemented by game killed along the riverbanks. To the Nez Perces’ credit be it noted, the lone white guard had no hesitation in loaning his gun to the hunters, and he permitted the older boys to fashion bows and arrows.

  Years afterward Nelson Titus recalled how one flatboat taking the Nez Perces down the Yellowstone to the Missouri was so heavily loaded that the deck was near waterline. An Indian woman with a papoose strapped to her back stooped over to dip drinking water, and the child fell into the river. The mother immediately jumped in after it. The boat, however, did not stop, and that was the last seen of either.4

  In passing the Mandan Agency, the officer in charge of the prisoners stopped for two hours to get supplies. During the interval, according to Miles, the Mandans and Nez Perces curiously investigated each other. One of the latter tribe, an old man of seventy named “George Washington,” told the officer when they were again floating down the river, “Those Mandans back there are bad Indians.” The officer inquired why, and the old man answered, “Because they stole two Nez Perce blankets.” Now the Nez Perces had lost nearly everything on their long march from Idaho, and had given up all their guns and horses. So the officer was properly sympathetic, and then the thought struck him to ask George Washington if the Nez Perces had taken anything that belonged to the Mandans. “Oh, yes,” came the truthful reply, “we got away with four buffalo robes.”5

  However, Fred Bond, in charge of one of the flatboats, relates a very different reception from the Mandans, who lined the shore ready to start hostilities, possibly fearing the Nez Perces were a raiding party’s advance guard.

  Two middle-aged Indians kept crowding in the river towards the boat. I halted them but still they pressed towards the boat then I thought of what Billy Edwards the light weight champ of years ago had taught me at Woodhaven, L. I. A good upper cut to point of chin the result would be a knock out blow, so I stept quickly towards those two and gave each of them a good upper cut. They each fell in the river knocked out. . . . Then I backed to the boat and stood there with folded arms. I heard a small moan behind me and I knew it was Shades of Night [a woman captive so named by Bond] ready to sink her eight inches of sharp steel to the hilt on the first one who touch our boat, then I seen two young bucks trying to work their way with a bull boat to our stern. . . . I plunged out into deeper water and shoved their bull boat out into swifter water and they was carried further down stream. . . .6

  Finally, the official in charge of the post convinced the Mandans that the Nez Perces were present by authority of the United States government. The boat then “pushed off safely except the small Mandan boys pelted us with rocks on our way till I got my gun. That bluff them away.”7

  On arrival at Bismarck, Joseph was the guest of honor at a dinner given jointly by the ladies of the town and those of Fort Lincoln. The Bismarck Tribune for November 21, 1877, reprinted the following invitation:

  To Joseph, Head Chief of Nez Perces.

  Sir:—Desiring to show you our kind feelings and the admiration we have for your bravery and humanity, as exhibited in your recent conflict with the forces of the United States, we most cordially invited you to dine with us at the Sheridan House, in this city. The dinner to be given at 1½ P.M. to-day.

  Joseph and the other chiefs named, about twelve o’clock, held a reception in the Sheridan Parlors, and all were presented to a number of the ladies of the house. The Indians were told that this respect was on account of “their humanity to our soldier prisoners.”

  Joseph, half starved for months during the campaign, gave evidence of his pleasure when his favorite dish of salmon was served to him.

  Apparently Miles was distrustful of the government’s attitude toward the Nez Perces and feared they would not be given a fair deal, for in his report to Secretary McCrary he warmly urged:

  As these people have been hitherto loyal to the government and friends of the white race from the time their country was first explored, and in their skilful campaigns have spared hundreds of lives and thousands of dollars’ worth of property that they might have destroyed, and as they have, in my opinion, been grossly wronged in years past, have lost most of their warriors, their homes, property, and everything except a small amount of clothing, I have the honor to recommend that ample provision be made for their civilization, and to enable them to become self-sustaining. They are sufficiently intelligent to appreciate the consideration which, in my opinion, is justly due them from the government.8

  And did the Secretary of War faithfully fulfill the conditions of surrender, and hearken to his military experts in the field? Assuredly not! With seeming governmental perversity McCrary ordered the Indians to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in November, after a short time at Bismarck, Dakota Territory. They made this stage of their journey by train. Here, amid unhealthful conditions, they remained until the Indian Bureau could assume jurisdiction over them.

  The entire responsibility for not honoring Howard’s and Miles’s promises did not rest wholly on McCrary’s shoulders, however. It would appear that General W. T. Sherman, acting in his capacity of General of the Army, shared some of it, for he had written to the secretary: “They should never again be allowed to return to Oregon or to Lapwai.”9

  Yet, in that same document, Sherman admitted that the Nez Perce War was “one of the most extraordinary Indian wars of which there is any record. The Indians throughout displayed a courage and skill that elicited universal praise; they abstained from scalping, let captive women go free, did not commit indiscriminate murder of peaceful families, which is usual, and fought with almost scientific skill, using advance and rear guards, skirmish lines, and field fortifications.”10 But admiration did not prompt him to respect this honorable foe in deed—not even to the extent of making restitution of their property.

  However, General Philip Sheridan, as commander of the Division of the Missouri with headquarters in Chicago, had issued the first order for the Indians’ removal to Fort Lincoln or Fort Riley, thus transferring them from Howard’s departmental authority. The general was unable to persuade Sheridan to execute his and Miles’s plan for the prisoners.

  What explanation was made to Joseph after he had acted in good faith, had laid down his arms, given up over eleven hundred horses and more than one hundred saddles? He was told that if he were permitted to go back to his own country more bloodshed might occur between the Nez Perces and the relatives of the murdered whites. Settlers in the Wallowa Valley and around Lapwai had been flooding the government with petitions to keep the Indians out of the Northwest, fearful, perhaps, that the lands they had seized from those Indians might be given back to their original owners. Yet it was White Bird’s band, not Joseph’s, which had brought on the war!

  When the terms of surrender were violated by the government, Joseph did not dig up the tomahawk and go on the warpath again. No, he, the red savage, spoke with a straight tongue, and was a gentleman of his word! Nor did he blame Howard or Miles for what his people suffered. He remarked only, “Somebody has got our horses.” From the time the Indians relinquished their ponies in 1877 until 1885—eight long years�
�one gross injustice followed another. But Joseph never gave up hope that some day a repentant government would carry out the pledged word of Colonel Miles.

  Meanwhile, at Leavenworth, the Nez Perces sickened and died in a climate entirely unsuited to their constitutions. Acclimated to a mountain plateau country, they were now forced to live in the hot, malarious lowlands of the Missouri River bottom, with only river water for drinking and cooking purposes. Joseph vainly protested; like the humanitarian he was he always had the interests of his people at heart. Says he, “I cannot tell how much my heart suffered for my people while at Leavenworth. The Great Spirit Chief who rules above seemed to be looking some other way, and did not see what was being done to my people.”11

  Miles used his influence in Washington to have his promise kept to the Nez Perces—likewise in vain.

  In July of 1878 they were ordered onto a reservation in the Indian Territory, which Congress had apportioned for them on both sides of the Salt Fork of the Arkansas. By then but 410 persons remained of the 431 sent to Leavenworth. Three more died en route to their new home. Two hundred and sixty were ill, and shortly thereafter one fourth of the survivors died.12 This appalling mortality was due largely to malaria contracted at Fort Leavenworth.

  They were first located with the Quapaws, but here again they found the climate very unhealthy—so much so that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, E. A. Hayt, visited the band and asked Joseph to travel with him to search for a healthier reservation, or at least one suited more to the Nez Perces’ liking.