So the question begged itself of an answer—how to move cavalry without a trumpet?
Forced to start left for Theller’s F, where he could deliver his orders in person, Perry suddenly noticed how Shearer’s civilians had turned out of the fight and were retreating pell-mell against Theller’s far left flank, with the warriors slipping out of the creekside brush to make things hot right behind them. In fact, by the time Perry now turned his attention to that side of his line, the Nez Perce had already gained the knoll the volunteers had recently abandoned. From there the enemy was just beginning to lay down a troublesome fire that was falling among the far end of F Company.
“Lieutenant Theller!” Perry hollered above the din as he reined up beside the mounted officer. “Start passing the word, man-to-man if you have to! They’re to make a slow, strategic retreat to the right and the rear.”
“Right and rear—yes, sir!”
“That’s right!” the captain yelled, twisting slightly in the saddle to point at the shallow swale behind them where the horse-holders were already occupied in firing at another bunch of warriors inching closer and closer to them through a shallow ravine that angled up from the creekside brush. “Get your men pushing back toward Trimble’s H! Get them to the back side of the knoll where your horses are being held before those animals are driven off.”
Theller had an unrestrained, wild look in his eye. “Can’t stand to lose our horses, Colonel!”
“Your men don’t stand a chance of fighting their way out of this without those horses,” Perry reminded him. “Protect those mounts as you pull your men back and rejoin Trimble’s company!”
The lieutenant saluted and whirled away, jabbing his horse into motion as he raced to the far left end of the line where the civilians and Theller’s soldiers were jamming up in retreat.
Maybe Trimble’s H Company has their trumpet, Perry thought. A horn, a horn—my kingdom for a horn!
By the time Perry got his horse turned around and was starting back along the curving crest of the battle ridge, he realized how Trimble’s men were in just as poor an order as Theller’s troops. Most of H Company was still mounted, but those horses unaccustomed to gunfire were rearing and bucking with every volley of the company’s Springfields. The rest of Trimble’s men had dismounted, all the better to take aim. Yet … those on foot were huddling at the center of the line, not daring to advance any closer to the right flank, where a solitary handful of soldiers held the Indian horsemen off from a high point of rocks above the deep ravine, nor did those men on foot dare to get any closer to the left flank, where an irregular stream of Theller’s F Company were bunching up for protection.
If control wasn’t seized—and now—disarray was sure to sweep over his battalion.
“Major Trimble!” Perry shouted, finding the officer starting his way from those stalwarts barricaded behind some breastworks near the ravine. “I need your trumpet!”
He saluted. “My apologies, sir. My man’s lost it somewhere on the trail coming down in the dark.”
“By God’s eyes … that’s two of them lost last night!” Perry roared in frustration.
Gazing over Trimble’s shoulder, Perry watched how word of the retreat was leaping from man to man among Theller’s F Company on their left. As soon as a soldier got the word to start moving to the right and rear there was no stopping him. Now even more of Theller’s right was bunching in with Trimble’s left.
“Colonel, look!” Trimble cried, suddenly grabbing his post commander by the elbow to twist Perry around.
Just down the slope from them the entire left side of F Company was completely disintegrating. It was clear that those pressured, harried, frightened men had watched how the left flank of their own company started to pull back, hurrying away and thereby leaving a gap between those who were already retreating with hopes of joining up with Trimble’s H Company and those being left behind.
But wholesale panic didn’t break out until the wounded hell-bent-for-leather volunteers blended in with the terrified recruits scrambling to get turned around and retreat for their lives—with the warriors breaking from the brushy confines of those trees dotting the creek bank, screaming and shooting right in among the civilians at the tail end of the disintegrating line. A few warriors were even popping up right behind the held horses!
Dashing to the rear, the remnants of F Company were racing headlong for the swale where the frantic horse holders had their hands full with the mounts that were rearing, snorting, twisting, and bucking while bullets landed in among them. As Theller’s men clambered to their feet, abandoning their line … a soldier dropped. Then a second, clawing at the air with both arms as he spilled into the knee-high grass.
Every five or ten yards in their retreat, another soldier spun to the ground, some of them scratching at their backs, clawing at their death wounds. Six men down in less than a minute.
No longer was there any order on the left. And what little remained on the right existed only in pockets of a few soldiers here and there where those steady veterans bravely resisted the impulse to retreat with the rest.
Just how did this happen? Perry’s mind cried out as despair seized him by the throat. How in the hell had his men outnumbered these warriors two-to-one only to have this fight turn into a full-scale retreat within the first five minutes?
As Perry twisted his horse around, doing his best to spot anyone with stripes on their sleeves—corporals or sergeants, any noncom who could hear him above the clatter of guns and the screams of the enemy—all he needed was a few good men who could help him regain control of this disintegrating command.
If he didn’t … Captain David Perry understood … then this retreat would become a rout.
Chapter 37
June 17, 1877
In their mindless panic a few of Theller’s F Company were throwing aside their weapons and madly dashing for their horses.
Captain Joel G. Trimble couldn’t blame any of those untried, untested recruits for breaking and running—what with that relentless fire coming from the brush all around them: front, flanks, and now even the swale at their rear. At the very least, those frightened soldiers were only following the cowardly example of the citizen volunteers who were already whipping their horses in a mad retreat back up the canyon.
Rats abandoning the ship, he silently mouthed the words. Cowardly rats, every last one of the militiamen boasting what they were going to do when they finally cornered the Nez Perce, the sort who had been grumbling that they wanted to be at the head of the march so they would be the first to get in their licks. And look at them now! Scampering back over the hills like scared jackrabbits!
“Major Trimble!”
Yanked back to the moment, he turned in the saddle to find Perry threading his mount through the men of H Company who were on foot and those who had remained on horseback.
“Colonel!” Trimble hollered. “I could use your help to hold these men—”
“Major, this must be an orderly retreat,” Perry gushed his interruption.
“R-retreat, Colonel?” Trimble bristled. “I respectfully request that I take H Company and make a charge against the enemy.”
“Charge?” Perry echoed, his brow knitting in disbelief.
“Yes, sir: straight through the enemy to the Salmon River—”
“That would result in our utter annihilation, Major,” Perry snapped in that way a commanding officer silenced all debate from his subordinates. “Nothing less than the death of us all. No, Major. To save what men are still alive for the moment, we must seize the upper hand and begin our retreat now.”
“But … Colonel.” Trimble felt exasperation well up inside him like a poisonous, festering boil about to erupt. They still had more soldiers than Nez Perce on this battlefield. He held no doubt they could still wrench victory from what was swiftly becoming a disastrous rout … but David Perry wasn’t the officer to snatch victory from this naked rabble—
“Listen to me!” Perry snarl
ed impatiently. “We must act quickly or suffer a resounding defeat. Our withdrawal must be orderly, Major. Two men at a time. No more than two. The rest will cover those who are falling back. An orderly retreat back to the top of the canyon where we can find a defensible position—or this ground becomes our Little Bighorn.”
“Yes, sir!” Trimble replied and saluted, feeling stirred not to lose a single man between here and safety on the Camas Prairie, despite the cowardice or ineptitude of the battalion commander. “I’ll pass along the order.”
Thank the Lord he had a few veterans in H Company. Even though those old files could see how the rest of the line was falling apart, even though they could see how F Company had already been flushed like a panic-stricken band of barnyard chicks, even though everyone else around those old veterans was acting without reason … those few steady hands had refused to budge until they were ordered to.
“Sergeant Reilly!” he cried as he halted behind the closest noncom. “Start this side of the line back to the canyon! No more than two at a time while the rest cover them.”
“Aye, Captain,” said Patrick Reilly.
“Make it orderly, Sergeant,” Trimble hollered over the growing tumult around them. “Keep a firm hand!”
From there he quickly located John Conroy at the left of the ragged line H Company was still somehow holding against the daring horsemen who raced past, hanging from the far sides of their ponies, stalwartly refusing to bolt and run with Theller’s escape. Farther down the slope Trimble spotted both of his steady Germans, Sergeants Isidor Schneider and Henry Arend. Likely those two were holding the men around them because their soldiers were more afraid of that pair of cast-iron-tough sergeants than they were of the screaming warriors swarming out of the creek bottom.
By the time the first of his men got turned around and started for the rear, Trimble could no longer see any of the volunteers. Disappeared up the canyon, well on their way back to Mount Idaho.
Slowly, slowly, he had his troops pulling back in some semblance of order, while F Company was no longer a company of soldiers. Theller’s men had become like a band of wrens or sparrows, flitting wildly away from the fighting as if an owl or a hawk were swooping down on their tails—
Trimble instantly recognized the lieutenant far off to the right in front of him, well ahead in the retreat. Theller was hatless, trudging along wearily, the muzzle of his carbine clamped in his right hand, dragging the butt across the grassy slope. Not even making an attempt at running, no. Moving much more slowly than any of the rest of the men he no longer commanded. Weaving a bit from side to side as if … he was in shock. Not in control of himself. Perhaps even wounded.
Trimble kicked his horse into a lope. “Mr. Theller!”
The lieutenant stopped immediately when Trimble called, then turned slowly as Trimble brought his horse beside him. Theller stared up at him, blinking, as if not recognizing the captain.
“Are you … are you wounded, Lieutenant?” Trimble asked.
“No. No, I’m not, sir,” he replied vacantly.
The captain twisted in the saddle, spotting one of his steadiest veterans. “Lieutenant Parnell! Bring that horse over here!”
Parnell and two of Sergeant Arend’s men came up and quickly boosted Theller into the saddle. No sooner was he atop the horse than he dropped his carbine and grabbed the reins with both hands, frantically kicking his spurs into the panic-stricken mount.
“That’s a goddamn thanks for you,” one of Arend’s soldiers grumbled as they stood there a moment, watching Theller tear off, racing for the gentler east side of the slope that would carry him to the top of the canyon.
Staring at the fleeing lieutenant a moment longer, Trimble became aware of the rifle fire coming from that distant outcrop of rocks where Sergeant McCarthy and his half-dozen were still working their trapdoors with studied effectiveness. Everywhere else on the battlefield the enemy was swarming, noisy, belligerent, and cocky. But nowhere near that squad of riflemen hunkered down behind the pitiful breastwork of rocks were the horsemen pulling their deadly shenanigans.
“That’s some brave men back there, Major,” Parnell observed, admiration thick in his voice.
The captain had spotted McCarthy’s squad too. But now Trimble realized those seven men were so separated from the rest of the retreating company, for the most part with their backs to the rest of the battalion, that they hadn’t heard the order to retreat … that they hadn’t seen the full-scale retreat already in process across the rest of the battlefield.
By the time Trimble got his horse turned and started yelling at his other sergeants, H Company was almost four hundred yards distant from McCarthy’s squad.
“Turn back, men! Turn back!” he cried at those troopers around him, waving vigorously, thrashing his arms in a vain attempt to command their attention. “We can make a stand with those men! Halt and turn! Back to the rocks!”
But it was already too late, no matter that Parnell and their four sergeants did the best they could. It made little difference how many of the retreating soldiers they grabbed hold of and dragged to a stop—once Arend or Reilly, Schneider or even John Conroy released a man, then that man was gone, continuing his retreat just that much faster. How Trimble had prayed that panic would not overwhelm H Company, prayed that this would be an orderly retreat to the rear until they found a defensible position … prayed that it didn’t become a rout.
Despite the fact that he still had a half-dozen of these old files around him, Joel G. Trimble figured it was already too late. Already … it had become every man for himself.
* * *
Husis Owyeen sprinted after the fleeing soldiers.
His name was Wounded Head on account of a long-ago battle in buffalo country. This was not like fighting a real enemy. This was like chasing frightened buffalo in a stampede.
As wounded soldiers fell, warriors vied with one another to be the first to overrun them, finishing off the Shadows with their kopluts, sometimes a bullet. Then the warrior stripped the rifle from the dead soldier’s hands, tore the cartridge belt from his waist … and ran on after the fleeing soldiers.
There were so many to fall victim to the Nee-Me-Poo that morning. Still, Wounded Head hadn’t been quick enough to reach the fighting, fast enough to reach one of the wounded or the dead, to be the first to strip the enemy of his weapons.
Truth was, he’d had too much of the white man’s whiskey to drink last night. Wounded Head could not be sure, but he fuzzily remembered stumbling toward the edge of camp, where he fell, passing out right where he landed. He had awakened to find his wife slapping him, yelling at him that No Feet brought word of the soldiers coming! Carrying their two-year-old son strapped in a shawl at her shoulders, she helped Wounded Head back to their lodge, where he searched for his old rifle—but neither of them had found it. So with a groggy, pounding head, the warrior had loped after the other fighting men long gone from camp, lots of gunfire still coming from White Bird Hill.
Not far from cemetery hill, where his people had long buried their dead, Wounded Head caught up with another warrior and asked him for one of his weapons, since the man carried a carbine in his hands and a pistol stuffed in his belt.
“I have used this already,” he told Wounded Head, yanking the old, heavy, muzzleloading Walker Colt’s revolver from his cartridge belt and handed it over.
All but one of its complement of black-powder charges and percussion caps were already used up.
The man shrugged as he started away. “I have fired it several times in our charge out of the bushes that began the soldiers’ wild flight.”
“Thank you,” Wounded Head accepted the offer, hollering to the man’s back.
A gun with one bullet was a little better than no gun at all.
Reining around the side of the hill, he spotted a Shadow ahead of him. Wounded Head saw no other warrior nearby. The soldier ran poorly, as if struggling with a sore ankle or an injured knee, lunging with each step so badly th
at Wounded Head’s pony had no problem quickly gaining on him. The white man glanced back over his shoulder, hearing the warrior closing the gap.
When the soldier jerked to a halt, the flaps of his unbuttoned shirt flew open. The shirt underneath was smeared with mud. This much Wounded Head saw as the ashen-faced soldier dragged up his rifle and pointed it at him. But Wounded Head was faster with his heavy old pistol.
Pitching backward when the big bullet slammed into him, the white man landed on his back, his legs twitching as Wounded Head came up and dismounted, walking over to the soldier. A black hole between the Shadow’s eyes seeped blood. Soon the eyes stopped fluttering, and the legs no longer quivered.
Kneeling, Wounded Head quickly laid his old Walker on the soldier’s chest as a gift to this vanquished foe, then promptly set to work on the dead man’s cartridge belt, shoving the leather strap free of the buckle. With some effort he managed to drag the belt from beneath the body. Remaining there on his knees, the warrior re-buckled it around his own waist, then snatched up the white man’s gun. He had seen many of these carbines before, but never had he dreamed of having one of his own!
With his thumb rolling back the big hammer a second click, Wounded Head flipped up the trapdoor and found a loaded cartridge in the weapon’s breech. With the palm of his left hand he re-seated the trapdoor, then stood. He bent and patted the old pistol, now empty of bullets.
Wounded Head left it for the dead soldier, exulting and giving thanks for this wonderful gift of the army carbine.
* * *
“Sergeant … look!”
Michael McCarthy turned when Private James Shay tapped on his shoulder and pointed to the rear.
He and his six were alone. Three hundred yards, perhaps more, separated them from the rest of H Company. Every last blessed one of those troops gradually moving away from McCarthy’s fight. Their company splintering, breaking apart.
Then he spied two men on horseback coming to a halt at the top of a small hillock no more than two hundred yards along their backtrail. No trouble knowing who the big cuss was—that was Parnell. What a burden the man was to a horse!
Cries from the Earth: The Outbreak Of the Nez Perce War and the Battle of White Bird Canyon June 17, 1877 (The Plainsmen Series) Page 36
