Nez Perce Summer, 1877

Cover

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Reasons

Eruption and White Bird Canyon

Looking Glass's Camp and Cottonwood

Clearwater

Kamiah, Weippe, and Fort Fizzle

Bitterroot and the Big Hole

Camas Meadows

The National Park

Canyon Creek

Cow Island and Cow Creek Canyon

Yellowstone Command

Bear's Paw: Attack and Defense

Bear's Paw: Siege and Surrender

Consequences

Epilogue

Appendix A

Appendix B

Bibliography

Nez Perce Summer, 1877 Chapter 4: Clearwater

Chapter 4:
Clearwater (continued)

Howard established his line to protect his supplies and ammunition. The occasional offensive thrusts were, in fact, part of an overall defensive scheme adopted to allow the general and his staff to determine how best to counter the tribesmen. Captain Trimble depicted the position "as in some respects good, as the ground was higher and sufficiently undulating to make temporary earthworks easy of erection. Furthermore, as the whole line was clear of the timber, any hostile seen emerging therefrom could easily be stopped." [53] The roughly semicircular line covered all areas of approach, although the heaviest concentration of soldiers was in front, where Howard stationed his infantry and artillerymen, doubtless because of the greater range and accuracy of their rifles over those of the cavalry, who rested on the flanks. (The discrepancy in the arms was not lost on the Nez Perces, who generally maintained appropriate distances relative to the positions of the cavalry and foot troops. [54]) The line ran about eight hundred yards north to south, but in its convolutions stretched in overall length for more than two miles. Once it was established, many of the men had to lie flat to avoid being hit by Nez Perce bullets; they then worked to erect small semicircular breastworks from the many rocks that dotted the terrain. Others threw up rifle pits where the ground was soft enough for digging. Although the Nez Perces' gunfire reached all along the line, the heaviest return fire continued left of the center and opposite the main warriors' ravine. Once, recalled Sergeant McCarthy:

a squad of about a dozen mounted Indians came out of the woods . . . and stray shots struck the ground about us from time to time, but on the other side of the line, the firing was very heavy. We could not see what was going on there, but there was one continual peal of musketry and the howitzers and gatlings [sic] were being used freely; and the yells of the Indians, shoutings of our men and the braying of our pack mules made a terrible din. [55]

During one lull in the afternoon, Lieutenant Shelton and part of Company E of the cavalry crept out in front to a position from which they could rake the warriors' defenses. "As soon as this was discovered by Captain Perry he had the recall sounded, it being in violation of orders to leave the skirmish line in any direction." [56] The battle intermittently raged in this manner until dark. "The Infantry and artillery all behaved splendidly and held all the exposed and dangerous points," wrote McCarthy. "The Indians found them more formidable than they did the cavalry at White Bird Canyon." [57] At about 9:00 p.m., the men heard the Nez Perce leader mentioned by McCarthy "haranguing" the warriors, his voice rising above the tumult and continuing his message for an hour, when the shooting subsided to just an occasional shot. "Now and then," remembered Trimble, "the female voice could be detected in a plaintive wail of mourning, sometimes in low and tremulous unison, then breaking into a piercing cry." [58] Those close to the tribesmen in the large ravine could hear them working on their barricades. "I heard the piling of cobble stones some thirty yards in my front," remembered Lieutenant Bailey. [59] He directed the howitzer at his rear to open on the place indicated. "I was amazed to see the flash of a discharge close behind me, and then came the shell so near over my head that I could have touched it by reaching up, and to my joy the shell exploded right in the place I had indicated." [60] At dusk, one soldier spotted a lone white horse loping toward him. "Suspecting some deviltry, I went out, when the horse came right up to me. He was in perfect terror, shot just above the nose, the ball passing completely through his tongue. He had on an Indian rope, and was completely covered with human blood." [61]

Through the night, the ammunition was replenished all along the line. The troops held their respective positions about five paces apart, and they followed orders to enlarge their breastworks, "two or more to occupy them during the night, the occupants . . . to relieve each other in watching." [62] Without food, the soldiers could only work on their defenses and wait for dawn. The spring in the ravine near the crest of the bluffs—that had been taken by Miles's and Miller's charges—had not been completely secured and continued to draw much attention. It lay about two hundred yards west of the right side of the soldiers' line. During much of the day, Nez Perce sharpshooters, some seemingly firing from treetops, [63] had succeeded in keeping the troops from the water, and the men—their canteens empty—and some three hundred cavalry mounts and pack mules confined in the center suffered from thirst. In at least one instance, an officer drank from a muddy mire through which the mules had walked, and later he became ill. After dark, when water was more easily obtained, Surgeon (Major) George M. Sternberg organized a force of officers, packers, and hospital attendants (including General Howard) to pass back and forth to the spring. To counter wild claims circulating among the men as to the extent of their casualties, Howard—who was out on the line reconnoitering his position between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m.provided the men with an accurate report and encouraged them with prospects for victory on the morrow. He withdrew Captain Rodney's company from the line, placing the men in the rear as a reserve force. That night, wrote Lieutenant Wilkinson, "the bright stars looked down on our little Army, exhausted but not discouraged. Our torn and bleeding comrades give us cheer by their brave words spoken, and silent suffering." [64]

During the night, about half of the warriors left the ravine and returned to guard their village. Many elderly noncombatants stayed at a "smoking lodge," an enclosure of stones about twelve yards long by eight yards wide about eight hundred yards west of the army position (near present Dizzy Head) and protected by trees and ridges from immediate danger. At the smoking lodge (or smoking pit), the day's events were discussed and counsel offered to the Nez Perce leaders charged with the fighting. Some of those who met at the smoking lodge were Weyato Kakin, Helam Kawot, Two Moon, and the Palouse leader, Husis Kute. Later, some younger men reportedly shirked their duty at the front to find shelter there. [65]

At daybreak, July 12, the gunfire began anew. Most of the warriors' shooting continued from the heavily occupied ravine, and several times braves on horseback dashed, shooting, from the declivity onto the plain to see the situation before them. Once they tried to drive a herd of several hundred ponies through the line to disrupt and stampede the pack animals, but the attempt failed. Within minutes of daylight, Nez Perce marksmen had rousted several cooks who had gone to the spring for water to make coffee, sending them scampering across the plateau to the line, some tossing their kettles aside as they ran. Howard ordered Captain Miller to take the spring, and that officer again moved forward, this time with Captain Perry's dismounted cavalrymen and Lieutenant Otis's gun battery, and with Rodney's company in support. The maneuver shortly drove the warriors away, and by 9:00 a.m., Miller reclaimed the spring and the cooks got their water. Following this exchange, the gunfire died down all along the line. The cavalry horses were watered at the spring, justify">and the men settled in their breastworks received coffee and freshly baked bread—their first meal since the battle started.

But the warriors aggressively persisted in their enterprise, keeping up their intermittent appearances on all sections of the front. One officer, writing a few days later, depicted the warriors' mode of combat:

They ride up behind little elevations, throw themselves from their ponies, fire, and are off like rockets. Lines of them creep and crawl and twist themselves through the grass until within range, and with pieces as good as ours tell with deadly aim that they are marksmen. They tie grass upon their heads, so that it is hard to tell which bunch of grass does not conceal an Indian with a globe-sighted rifle. They [also] climb trees and shoot from them. [66]

The day passed with each side trying to anticipate the movements of the other. In the afternoon, Howard withdrew Miller's artillery battalion from the line, closing it with the thinly spread soldiers of the cavalry and infantry and moving the line ahead so that it more directly faced the bluff and the ravine sheltering the warriors. The general and his staff now planned an offensive movement to be executed by Miller's men, assisted by a howitzer: They would rush out from the line on the left of the Nez Perces' ravine, then charge into it and strike the warriors from behind. The remaining troops would join in the assault. [67]

But at 2:00 p.m., the plan changed with the discovery far to the south of the anticipated supply train from Fort Lapwai with Captain James Jackson's Company B, First Cavalry, in escort. Instead of leading his charge, Miller extended the left of the line, then moved his companies (A, D, E, and G) out along the ridge for two miles, "clearing the way with a howitzer," and interposed his force between the Nez Perce position and the approaching train. Jackson had reached Grangeville the previous night and had left on the morning of the twelfth to join Howard. [68] Then, at about 3:00 p.m., as Miller countermarched guarding Jackson's approach, the artillerymen suddenly wheeled and charged double time across the plateau straight toward the warriors in the ravine. When some warriors moved out and around, attempting to pass Miller's left, the reserve company under Rodney deployed, outflanking them. Miller wrote of the assault on the warriors' position:

On the charge . . . I was delayed slightly by the hesitating movements of D Battery, at the most important juncture, while close to and opposite the Indians' stone shelters. A & G Batteries had outflanked the Indians to their left. Seeing it, both Capt. Morris and myself yelled to the men to take the works. There was no officer with them. When [First] Lieut. Wm F. Stewart, 4th Art'y, my adjutant, seeing the trouble, sprang forward to where the men were and took them over and into the works and advanced in pursuit. [69]

Reported Howard: "For a few minutes there is stubborn resistance at the enemy's barricades. Then the whole line gives way." [70]

Overall, the onslaught was sudden and swift and caught many of the warriors behind their defenses. Quickly following Miller in the charge came the infantrymen and Winter's dismounted cavalry moving as skirmishers. "One bullet went through the top of my hat and removed a handful of hair," wrote Second Lieutenant Edward S. Farrow. [71] As the rush proceeded, the companies of Jackson and Trimble advanced with a Gatling gun and the two howitzers to the brow of the bluff and opened a brisk but ineffective fire on the retreating tribesmen.

McCarthy gave a vivid account of the movement:

The Indians had all along held possession of the trail leading down to their camp, and had built stone forts capable of holding 10 or 12 men each at the point where the trail commenced. . . . As soon as the Indians at the head of the trail, or cañon, found their position was turned, they abandoned their forts and fled down the trail, and a general stampede up the other side [of the river], which was a gradual slope, was commenced. Our whole line advanced to the edge of the perpendicular bluff, and the artillery in some instances advanced down the less steep path and trail. . . . The cavalry were then ordered to their horses, and boots and saddles sounded, and as soon as mounted we moved forward towards the trail. [72]

The soldiers chased down the ravine after the warriors, who quickly negotiated the high South Fork waters and raced their ponies up Cottonwood Creek and into the hills after their families. Most of the cavalrymen did not join in the pursuit, but dismounted and led their animals carefully down the trail. Sergeant McCarthy took note of the Nez Perces' stone fortifications:

They were horseshoe shaped, high enough for a man to stand up in, and on the top willows were so placed as to cover a gun barrel and shade the eye. In front of the Indian line of forts and a few yards distant from the rifle pits occupied by the Infantry lay a dead Indian who had advanced beyond his comrades. He was nearly naked and lay as if asleep on his back, one arm down over his head and knee bent. He was a magnificent[ly] shaped man and very large, in fact almost gigantic. [73]

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