Cries from the Earth: The Outbreak Of the Nez Perce War and the Battle of White Bird Canyon June 17, 1877 (The Plainsmen Series)

by Terry C. Johnston

  Later, when the First Cavalry was transferred to the Northwest following the Civil War, the captain struck a decisive blow against a large party of Snake and Bannock warriors on the Owyhee River in Idaho the day after Christmas in 1866. For his leadership in that victory Perry received his second brevet to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Then, during the campaign in the Lava Beds against Captain Jack’s Modocs a few years later, his F Company saw more action. Perry himself suffered a wound during fighting at Tule Lake in 1873.1

  So this was not a man untried in battle, nor a leader hesitant in a fight. No less an Indian fighter than General George Crook himself had publicly expressed his admiration for Perry’s own abilities as an Indian fighter.

  Of the men at Fort Lapwai that night of 15 June, eighteen and seventy-seven, Captain David Perry was the man to lead those two companies of cavalry against the Nez Perce uprising. He knew firsthand what Indian fighting was all about. And the captain recognized when bold action must be taken.

  Now was not the time to delay.

  Howard’s former aide-de-camp, Captain William H. Boyle of G Company, Twenty-first Infantry, would remain in command of Fort Lapwai until the reinforcements arrived and he would depart with Howard and the pack train.

  With Lieutenant Parnell’s and Captain Trimble’s wives visiting over at Fort Walla Walla and his own off on holiday at The Dalles, only one officer’s wife was still in residence at the fort: Mrs. Delia Theller. She moved up to stand beside General Howard after kissing her husband farewell, and the lieutenant turned aside to join his men as the sergeants began to bawl their stirring command of, “Mount!”

  Perry nudged his horse to the edge of the porch directly in front of Howard. He could tell by the look on the department commander’s face that Howard fully agreed to his not waiting until morning to go in search of the Nez Perce. “Good-bye, General.”

  “Good-bye, Colonel. You must not get whipped.”

  “There is no danger of that, sir.”

  Howard saluted. “Colonel—I know you will make short work of this.”

  The captain saluted and without another word reined left. To his three officers he gave the order. “Right—by fours—MARCH!”

  Ninety-nine enlisted men set off on their march—no more than sixty-five miles to reach Mount Idaho. Joe Rabusco and a dozen unarmed Treaty Nez Perce who would serve as scouts streamed along either side of the formation, quickly loping to the front of the column.

  It was just past eight o’clock when the captain led his detail into the dark, moving south down the Mount Idaho Road.

  Almost from the time they left Fort Lapwai, Perry’s command entered a mountainous country sparsely dotted with heavy timber and scarred with deep ravines, which slowed their march through the black of that cloudy, moonless night, not to mention the rain that began minutes after they were on their way, a rain that made the trail muddy and extremely slippery—dangerous footing for the horses by day, a treacherous situation by night.

  So dark was it that Perry grew increasingly suspicious of an ambush by scouting parties that might be keeping an eye on the post for sign of a soldier column. By one o’clock he ordered Second Lieutenant William Russell Parnell, junior officer of Trimble’s H Company, to take the advance with a platoon of skirmishers.

  David Perry understood that there was not a better officer to have along on this campaign than Parnell, a forty-year-old Dublin-born Irishman who had served with distinction in the British Hussars, a unit of foot. After transferring to the Lancers, Parnell had participated in the capture of Sebastopol during the Crimean War and was, in fact, one of a handful of survivors from that fabled “Charge of the Light Brigade” at Balaclava who had ridden on, on into the mouth of death with the six hundred.

  After immigrating to America in 1860, this large-boned man who taxed the strength of his mounts volunteered for the Union Army in the Civil War. Following his capture by Confederate troops at Upperville in 1863, Parnell managed to escape and return to his lines, seeing service in the Shenandoah Campaign despite the fact that he still carried a minié ball in the bone of his left hip. In addition, the lieutenant bore the scars of several deep saber wounds, one of which had severed his nose.

  As a prisoner of war he had received no medical attention for that deep, suppurating wound that caused the bone to corrode and fall away, leaving a gaping hole in the roof of his mouth, an affliction that made it difficult for him to speak clearly. After the war, Parnell had a metal plate constructed to cover the hole, which permitted him to articulate so others could understand him.

  By the end of the war he had reached the rank of lieutenant colonel and had been awarded two brevets for gallantry in action. With things quieted back east, Parnell moved west with the army. During a fierce skirmish against hostiles on Pit River under the field command of General George Crook, Parnell garnered another brevet, earning himself the honor of being called lieutenant colonel in the regular army. Like many of the officers in the Northwest, he too had participated in the Modoc War.

  Moving into the vanguard this dark, rainy night, Lieutenant Parnell deployed his skirmishers 200 yards in front of the column and posted outriders 150 yards from both flanks to prevent any surprise ambushes. The march was taking longer than Perry had hoped, what with those small-footed mules so notoriously balky where the footing was uncertain. So during that night Perry was compelled to order brief halts not only to allow the five heavy-laden pack mules to catch up with the rear of the march but also to give Parnell’s skirmishers time to maneuver through the thick brush on either side of the wagon road and to cross the deep ravines ahead of the column. A soaking night seeped into the coming of a drizzly dawn.

  At midmorning, 16 June, Captain Perry ordered a halt in the yard at Cottonwood House after a march of forty-plus miles. It was plain as sun the battalion’s horses were not in the least conditioned to the demands of the campaign trail. Directing the column to dismount in a field behind the house where the men removed their saddles and turned their horses out for a roll and to graze within a fenced pasture, Perry next deployed Parnell’s pickets to warn of any approaching horsemen.

  “The men can fall out and cook their breakfast,” he declared to his officers, gazing down at the face of his pocket watch. “Two hours. We march away at noon.”

  In the distance, Perry spotted three huge columns of smoke. Perhaps burning haystacks. Maybe the homes of settlers. The captain turned to this experienced Irish soldier, Lieutenant Parnell. “Search the buildings,” he ordered as he turned slowly, looking over the tranquil scene here at Cottonwood House. Hard to believe a raiding party had been here at all.

  Upon close examination, Perry’s men found some wagons beneath a shed near the house that had had their contents disturbed as the warriors rifled through the supplies. And inside the Norton house itself, it was plain the raiders had intended to burn the place to the ground. They had thrown a burning firebrand into a trunk that contained clothing and papers, but the lid had fallen and snuffed out the flames before much damage was caused.

  There was some brief excitement when two of the pickets brought in a lone Nez Perce dressed in civilian clothing. At first Perry suspected he might be a spy from the Non-Treaty camp they were pursuing, but Joe Rabusco came over to explain that the rider was a Treaty man from Lapwai who had followed the column alone in hopes of joining the other twelve who had enlisted as scouts for the captain.

  “Abraham Watsinma,” Rabusco introduced the horseman.

  “Very well. He’s under your command now,” Perry said as he sent them to rejoin the other scouts.

  As the search of the Norton road ranch continued, company cooks started fires and prepared breakfast while most of the men curled up in the grass right among their grazing horses to catch a little sleep while they could. These ninety-nine weary cavalrymen had now been awake for something more than twenty-four hours.

  Chapter 28

  June 16, 1877

  Mamma,

  We have
just watched the little party of two companies start off at dusk. General Howard remains here. If John had been here, he would have been out tonight marching with them. I can’t help but feel glad that he is not, but I know he will feel he ought to have been here, and General Howard was so much concerned tonight about the command starting off without a medical officer.

  It is ten o’clock and I am going to bed. We all feel so anxious. I will write soon again. I have only told you the news we have had that we know is true. Rumors of all sorts have been coming into the post all day. Everything centers here, and you can imagine how we all feel. I hope and pray it won’t be another Modoc War. Love to all,

  Your loving daughter,

  Emily F.

  Henawit, the one called Going Fast, did not know which of the white settlers owned this deserted house standing a few miles southwest of the place the Shadows called Grangeville. It did not matter anyway. The frightened Boston Man and his family had abandoned the place, leaving everything for Going Fast and his friends to plunder.

  Disappointed that they did not find any firearms or ammunition, they nonetheless did discover some food already prepared and left behind on a table: cold meat and biscuits, along with most of a fruit pie. Going Fast sat down in the middle of the floor and joined his two companions in a regal breakfast truly fit for warriors. After promptly filling their bellies, the trio located a small keg of whiskey on a box in the corner—enough inside to get all three of them good and drunk.

  Accompanied by his young friend Pahka Alyanakt, who was called Five Winters, and the older warrior named Jye-loo—who was lame in one leg—Going Fast had left the camp at Lahmotta on White Bird Creek early that morning and headed north onto the Camas Prairie in search of booty and horses among those ranches the Shadows were fleeing now that the war scare was spreading like a late-summer wildfire.

  Stuffed with food, their heads reeling from the potent whiskey, the warriors took to traipsing around in the clothing they found—men’s pants and a woman’s dresses too—dancing, singing, drinking, and carousing until all three collapsed into a deep sleep right there in the middle of the rough-planked floor.

  * * *

  Bleary-eyed following a near-sleepless night after returning to Grangeville with John Chamberlin’s body, the man’s widow, and their two daughters, John G. Rowton had volunteered to join George Shearer’s posse going in search of any more survivors now that the sky was turning gray with dawn’s first light this Saturday, the sixteenth of June.

  Three miles southwest of town as they neared Abner Smith’s homestead nestled against the hills, Shearer ordered his twenty volunteers to spread out and keep their eyes peeled for redskins. The moment Rowton halted his horse near the edge of the tree line, alone, he spotted the three Indian ponies grazing in the yard at the corner of the house.

  For a moment he sat there, reckoning on his chances of taking the three bastards on his own—recalling the pitiful sight of that Chamberlin woman as she scrambled away from her rescuers like a terrified animal, remembering the wounded, inhuman cries that had escaped her throat as Rowton’s party finally surrounded her and escape became impossible. But as much as he hungered to kill the three of them by himself, Rowton decided it prudent that he turn back to fetch Shearer and the others. Just in case there were any more of the murdering bastards in the area.

  Where there were three of the niggers, there’d always be many times more.

  “Shearer!” he shouted as he came in sight of the volunteers who were reaching the road that would take them through the timber to the Smith place.

  “What’s got you lathered?” George Shearer asked in a distinctively southern drawl as he perched the butt of his double-barreled Parker shotgun on the top of his thigh and watched Rowton rein up beside him.

  “Three ponies,” John said breathlessly. “Injun ones … just easy as you please … out front of the Smith house.”

  Shearer grinned, patting the shotgun while he looked over the volunteers. “You fellers remember what that boy, Hill Norton, told us these red neegras done to his family out on the road?”

  Rowton looked at the anger clouding the faces of those twenty volunteers as all grunted their assent.

  Then Shearer looked squarely at Rowton. “Ain’t none of us ever gonna forget the sight of that poor Mrs. Chamberlin, fellers—knowing full well what they done to her, a fate that’s nigh wuss’n death.”

  The whole bunch yipped like coyotes with the scent of prey strong in their nostrils. John couldn’t help but feel ready to string a few of the red bastards up himself, maybeso just to make their dying long and hard to serve as a lesson to all the—

  “So let’s go see ’bout catching us some red bucks and chopping off their balls afore we kill ’em real slow!” Shearer goaded his band of twenty.

  As one they shot away, still bellowing for blood, their horses wild-eyed and wide-nosed as the twenty-one tore across that last half-mile to Ab Smith’s homestead, where Rowton believed they could finally start giving hurt back for hurt.

  * * *

  His head was pounding as if someone were swinging a kopluts against the back of his skull.… Going Fast came suddenly awake, sensing the rough wood board against his cheek.

  He blinked his eyes, slowly remembering that he had fallen asleep from the powerful whiskey right where he had collapsed half-in, and half-out, the door to the Shadow house. As he dragged up his heavy head from the planks, Going Fast realized he could actually hear the pounding—growing louder and louder.

  In an instant his instincts told him it was the hooves of many horses. No one at the Lahmotta camp knew they had come here. Chances were it was not another war party out to plunder the scattered homesteads on this part of the Camas Prairie.

  Rocking up to his hands and knees, Going Fast crawled back inside the open doorway, hollering to his sleeping friends, “Hurry! Hurry! Riders coming to catch us!”

  Together the three of them struggled to maintain their balance as they lurched off the porch, landing in the yard about the time they spotted the riders approaching down the road at a gallop. Their three skittish ponies shied when the trio stumbled among them. Going Fast heard the pop of the first gun, recognized the hiss of a bullet as it sped overhead.

  His head aching, he vaulted atop the bare back of his horse and brought it around, finding Five Winters already mounted and kicking his heels into his pony’s ribs.

  “Come on! Come on!” Going Fast shouted at the older warrior, who was struggling to control his frightened horse long enough for him to mount.

  Poor Jyeloo was so lame, lacking any strength in one leg, that he could not easily mount this pony dancing about in a circle. That, and the man was older, slower from a long-ago war wound in his back. Still somewhat drunk too.

  Going Fast bumped his pony right against Jyeloo’s to hold it still, reaching across with one arm to do what he could to help pull the lame man atop the frightened sidestepping pony.

  “Help me!” Jyeloo screamed. “I can’t—”

  Two bullets burrowed into the ground near the hooves of Going Fast’s pony, scaring the animal. A heartbeat later another bullet whined past his ear and slapped against the house. His horse started prancing away from Jyeloo’s pony.

  “Here!” Going Fast hollered. He leaned to the side, holding his soldier rifle out between them. “Take it and defend yourself!”

  His own pony whipped itself around as if stung by wasps and reared with a whinny. The last thing Going Fast saw as he struggled to hold onto his animal was Jyeloo frantically gripping his horse’s mane with one hand, the other gripping that soldier rifle, valiantly struggling to kick that lame leg up and over the animal’s back, desperate to drag himself off the ground.

  Then Going Fast’s horse bolted away. And he realized he had failed to leave his cartridge belt with Jyeloo. The soldier rifle had only one bullet in it. The lame one didn’t have a chance against so many.

  Admitting to himself that he had never been so scared for
his life, Going Fast galloped in the wake of Five Winters, the two of them clattering past a stand of trees and racing across a narrow strip of pasture for the slope they would ascend in escaping south for the encampment at White Bird Canyon.

  Escaping from the murderous Shadows still firing bullets over their heads.

  * * *

  John Rowton was exuberant to see how quickly they were closing in on that last warrior struggling to mount up and rein his pony away from the Smith homestead. An instant later the red bastard pulled himself atop the horse and flailed his legs to get his horse moving.

  At Rowton’s knee rode George Shearer, whooping and sometimes growling like that big black-haired mastiff one of the shopkeepers kept chained up outside his trading tent in the mining camp of Florence. Shearer sounded just like a snarling dog ready to lunge and latch onto your leg, take a hunk of meat right out of your arm … maybe even clamp its jaws on your throat.

  Those first two warriors jumped their ponies over the fence that cut diagonally across the back of Smith’s pasture there at the base of the hill. Once the bastards were around that knoll, they would have a straight shot up and over the divide to the headwaters of White Bird Creek. And from there the twenty would lose them. That’s likely where the whole village of redskins was fleeing.

  Rowton kept expecting that third Indian to jump his pony over the rail fence only high enough that it blocked Smith’s cows from his garden crops … when the warrior’s horse suddenly shied and dug in its hooves, skidding stiff-legged to a halt this side of the fence. The Nez Perce yanked brutally on the rein and started to come around for another try at the jump when he spotted Rowton and Shearer, along with all the rest clattering up behind them.