Colonel Gibbon’s failure lay less in tactical error than in weakness of numbers. He had enough men to take the Nez Percé camp by surprise but not enough to press the advantage or even hold his gain. The Big Hole defeat was widely cited to show the sad condition into which the infantry regiments had been allowed to lapse. General Terry found it painful to contemplate that six companies could field no more than 146 men and to behold its colonel fighting, rifle in hand, like a private. Had the Seventh Infantry been maintained at even the minimum authorized strength, Terry felt, probably rightly, Gibbon could have whipped the Nez Percé at the Big Hole and ended the war.25
Colonel Sturgis appears in many accounts as a comic bumbler. Unfortunate victim of a clever strategem would be a fairer appraisal; to be deceived by the Nez Percé was not proof of incompetence. Moreover, the blunders of others diverted units that were to have reported to Sturgis and that would have enabled him to cover both the Clark Fork and Stinking Water exits from Yellowstone National Park. His performance at Canyon Creek is more vulnerable to criticism, although even here it is unlikely that greater energy or different tactics would have materially changed the outcome.
Of all the army participants, therefore, only Miles emerged from the Nez Percé War with enhanced reputation. And his honors were tarnished by his treacherous seizure of Chief Joseph in violation of a truce flag and by his selfish grab for all the glory. Rather, it is the Nez Percé—the chiefs, the warriors, the old men, the women and children—who excite the admiration, respect, and sympathy of posterity. Truly have they been called “The Patriots.”26
NOTES
1. A good biography of Howard is John A. Carpenter, Sword and Olive Branch: Oliver Otis Howard (Pittsburgh, Pa., 1964).
2. Sherman to Howard, Nov. 29, 1873, Sherman Papers, vol. 90, pp. 301–2. See also ibid., Nov. 12, 1872, p. 220.
3. The literature of the Nez Percé War and its antecedents is voluminous. I have relied mainly on three recent works: Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., The Nez Percé Indians and the Opening of the Northwest (New Haven, Conn., 1965); Merrill D. Beal, “ I Will Fight No More Forever”: Chief Joseph and the Nez Percé War (Seattle, Wash., 1963); and Mark H. Brown, The Flight of the Nez Percé: A History of the Nez Percé War (New York, 1967).
4. Major Wood refused to subscribe to such peremptory action and filed a dissenting report. The commission’s report is in CIA, Annual Report (1877), pp. 211–17. Excellent commentary on the commission and council appears in letters of the wife of the Fort Lapwai surgeon: Abe Laufe, ed., An Army Doctor’s Wife on the Frontier: Letters from Alaska and the Far West, 1874–1878 (Pittsburgh, Pa., 1962), pp. 216–24.
5. SW, Annual Report (1877), pp. 116–17.
6. Howard’s official report of the conference, May 22, 1877, is in ibid., pp. 589–97. His version of his dealings with the Nez Percés was later set forth in Nez Percé Joseph (Boston, 1881) and My Life and Experiences among Our Hostile Indians, chap. 17. Principal Indian accounts are Chief Joseph, “An Indian’s View of Indian Affairs,” North American Review, 128 (1879), 412–33; Lucullus V. McWhorter, Yellow Wolf: His Own Story (Caldwell, Ida., 1948); and McWhorter, Hear Me, My Chiefs! (Caldwell, Ida., 1952).
7. “Chief Joseph’s Own Story,” in Brady, Northwestern Fights and Fighters, p. 64. For the Battle of White Bird Canyon, in addition to works already cited in this chapter, see first-hand accounts in ibid. by Captains Perry and Parnell, chaps. 4 and 5. I have also relied heavily on John D. McDermott, Forlorn Hope: A Study of the Battle of White Bird Canyon (MS. report, National Park Service, 1968).
8. The origins, purposes, and progress of Whipple’s mission have been confused by conflicting evidence. The most satisfactory analysis is Brown, Flight of the Nez Percé, pp. 164–69.
9. The official report of this affair is in SW, Annual Report (1877), pp. 500–1. The evidence is confused and contradictory. See Josephy, p. 569, note 27, for an analysis.
10. Gibbon’s report is in SW, Annual Report (1877), pp. 68–72. In addition to the books cited in notes 3 and 6 above, see Gibbon’s later account, “The Battle of the Big Hole,” Harpers Weekly, 39 (1895), 1215–16, 1235–36; and G. O. Shields, “The Battle of the Big Hole,” in Brady, Northwestern Fights and Fighters, chap. 10.
11. Quoted in Brown, p. 289.
12. The dilatory troop was L, Second Cavalry, under Capt. Randolph Norwood. The troop had been escorting General Sherman on a tour of Montana forts, and Sherman had sent it to help Howard. Regimental rivalry apparently explains in large part the isolation of Norwood’s troop at Camas Meadows, but who should be faulted, Norwood or Sanford, is not clear.
13. The text of the exchange with Sherman is in SW, Annual Report (1877), pp. 12–14. McDowell’s telegram is quoted in Brown, pp. 302–3. Brown, chap. 19, has the clearest analysis of this stage of the campaign. While at Henry’s Lake, Howard wrote a lengthy report dated August 27 detailing his operations from the outbreak of hostilities to the Camas Meadows engagement. This appears twice in SW, Annual Report (1877), pp. 119–31 and 601–13. Later he submitted a complete report, with map, covering the entire campaign. Dated Dec. 26, 1877, it is printed in ibid., pp. 585–660.
14. The confused topography makes these movements difficult to reconstruct. The clearest description is in Brown, chap. 21. Sturgis’ report, a labored self-defense, is in SW, Annual Report (1877), pp. 507–11.
15. Sturgis’ official report is in SW, Annual Report (1877), pp. 511–12. The reports of his squadron commanders, Maj. Lewis Merrill and Capt. Frederick W. Benteen, are in ibid., pp. 569–72. See also Theodore W. Goldin, “The Seventh Cavalry at Cañon Creek,” in Brady, Northwestern Fights and Fighters, chap. 13.
16. Miles later ridiculed this contention, but Brown, p. 366, cites persuasive supporting evidence.
17. Casualties are detailed in SW, Annual Report (1877), p. 75. For the Battle of Bear Paw Mountains (or Snake Creek, or Eagle Creek), in addition to sources already cited, see Miles’ reports in ibid., pp. 74–76, 514–16, and 527–29; and Captain Moylan’s report in Chandler, Of Garryowen in Glory, pp. 74–76. See also Johnson, Unregimented General, chaps. 15–16; Quaife, ed., “Yellowstone Kelly,” chap. 11; and Miles, Personal Recollections, chap. 20–21. Other accounts by participants are Ami F. Mulford, Fighting Indians in the Seventh United States Cavalry (p.p., Corning, N.Y., 1879), chaps. 27–30; McClernand, “With the Indian and the Buffalo in Montana,” pp. 198–206; and Henry Romeyn, “The Capture of Chief Joseph and the Nez Percé Indians,” Montana Historical Society Contributions, 2 (1806), 28s-91.
18. Kelly, p. 193.
19. Turner, North-West Mounted Police, 1, 342.
20. SW, Annual Report (1877), p. 15.
21. Ibid., p. 529.
22. See especially Josephy, pp. 519, 531–32, 542–43. 598: and Beal, pp. 247–49.
23. Chicago Times, Oct. 25, 1877, quoted in Brown, p. 422.
24. Sherman Papers, vol. 46, LC. Col. Frank Wheaton and the Second Infantry had been ordered from Georgia. Howard planned to have Wheaton lead a second expedition to Montana farther north while his own went up the Lolo Trail. This movement was overtaken by events and never materialized.
Three weeks later McDowell again wrote Sherman, this time in reference to Colonel Miles: “I have many times wished that he could have had Howard’s right column [i.e., the one Wheaton was to have led], or, his [Howard’s] command immediately after Joseph’s defeat [at Clearwater], as I am sure the whole affair would have been closed up a month ago.” Aug. 24, 1877, ibid.
25. SW, Annual Report (1877), p. 505.
26. Josephy, title of chap. 13.
Bannock, Paiute, Sheepeater, and Ute, 1878–79
THE NEZ PERCÉ BID FOR FREEDOM has excited popular fascination ever since 1877. Less well remembered, in part because overshadowed by the more memorable conflict with the Nez Percés, are hostilities that broke out in 1878 and 1879 with some of their neighbors—Bannocks, Paiutes, Sheepeaters, and Utes.
In 1877 almost 600 Bannocks were enrolled
at the Ross Fork, or Fort Hall, Agency on the upper Snake River in southeastern Idaho. This agency also supervised almost 1,000 Shoshonis. About 150 miles to the north, Bannocks and Shoshonis shared the tiny Lemhi Reservation with Sheepeaters. Numbering about 900, these “Lemhis” acknowledged the leadership of Bannock Chief Tendoy. The Fort Hall Bannocks boasted no leader of comparable stature; none had emerged to replace the respected Taghee, dead since 1871. By the end of 1877, however, a chief named Buffalo Horn had attracted a strong following. He had proved his mettle as a scout for the army in the Sioux campaigns of 1876–77 and in the Nez Percé War. Crook, Howard, and Miles all spoke highly of him.1
The Bannocks enjoyed a close friendship with the Paiutes and affiliated Western Shoshonis who ranged over much of southern Idaho, eastern Oregon, and northern Nevada. Four reservations—Pyramid Lake, Walker River, and Duck Valley in Nevada and Malheur in Oregon—claimed only tenuous allegiance from these Indians. Mostly they drifted about their homeland huntine small game, fishing the lakes and rivers, and gathering camas roots and pine nuts. In 1878 the Paiute agents counted almost 8,000 Paiutes and Western Shoshonis, only 1,100 of whom were listed as “habitually on reserves.”2 The best-known Paiute leader was Winnemucca, whose band usually lived on the upper Owyhee River. Among the Malheurs, the leading chief was Egan, although a sinister shaman named Oytes enjoyed considerable prominence too.
For five years in the middle 1860s the Yahuskin and Walpapi Paiutes, usually called Snakes, had ravaged Oregon settlements and travel routes until badly whipped by General Crook in 1866—68 (see Chapter Eleven). Since then, neither Paiutes nor Bannocks had caused any serious trouble. But by the middle 1870s mounting white pressures spread unrest through both tribes. Game grew scarce and unhindered pursuit of it more difficult. Yet the agents could not provide sufficient rations to subsitute for the declining yield of traditional food-gathering practices. Later, asked what sparked the Bannock-Paiute uprising, General Crook replied: “Hunger. Nothing but hunger.”3
Other causes contributed. The Nez Percé War had an unsettling effect. At Fort Hall Agency further unrest attended the wounding of two white men by a drunken Bannock in August 1877 and the slaying of another white in November. Efforts to track down the murderer so excited the Indians that the agent called for military help. Three companies of the Fourteenth Infantry from Camp Douglas, Utah, arrived at the agency early in December. The arrest of the culprit in January 1878 created such alarm that Col. John E. Smith seized fifty-three Bannock warriors and confiscated their arms and ponies, thus adding still more to their resentment. General Crook visited the agency early in April and pronounced the trouble subsiding. Actually, Bannock emissaries were already among the Paiutes stirring up a war sentiment. The bands on the Malheur Reservation seemed especially receptive. The agent sought to dampen their combativeness by threatening to invite Crook to visit Malheur Agency, too. “No name is better known or more dreaded by them,” he reported. Subsequent events showed the specter of Crook less frightening than the agent supposed.4
The episode that finally touched off warfare occurred on Camas Prairie, a favored root-digging area about ninety miles southeast of Boise, Idaho, where Bannocks, “Lemhis,” and even some Paiutes and Umatillas from Oregon congregated in the spring of 1878. Long a source of food, Camas Prairie had been confirmed to the Bannocks in the Treaty of 1868. But the clerk who wrote out the treaty rendered the term as “Kansas Prairie,” and as a result it had never been formally reserved for the Indians. They regarded it as theirs all the same, and for several seasons they shared it amicably with white stockmen. But increasingly the destruction of the camas roots, especially by hogs, angered the tribesmen. Already belligerent when they arrived in the spring of 1878, the Bannocks talked threateningly of expelling the whites altogether. Against this background, on May 30 a Bannock shot and wounded two white men.
The assault, apparently perpetrated without specific provocation, brought the smoldering discontent to a climax. The Lemhi and part of the Fort Hall Indians hastened back to their agencies, but Buffalo Horn and his followers, sure they would be punished anyway, decided to launch a grand plundering raid. Counting Paiutes and Umatillas, the warrior force numbered about 200. Tearing up a road station and ferry, they crossed Snake River and rode westward across southern Idaho, killing ten whites along the way. A skirmish with volunteers from Silver City on June 8 took the life of Buffalo Horn and left the raiders leaderless. They continued west to Steens Mountain, in Oregon. Here they united with Egan, Oytes, and the Malheur Paiutes, who had quietly slipped off their reservation on June 5. Altogether, the Indians at Steens Mountain numbered about 700, with some 450 fighting men.
Although Fort Hall lay within Crook’s Department of the Platte, the Bannock-Paiute uprising took place in General Howard’s Department of the Columbia. To him, for a second summer, fell the task of mobilizing troops and organizing a campaign. Capt. Reuben F. Bernard and his troop of the First Cavalry at Boise Barracks had taken the field on May 31, the day after the violence on Camas Prairie. A big-framed, heavy-bearded veteran of many battles, Bernard pressed the fugitives closely across Idaho and into Oregon, pausing finally at a place called Sheep Ranch, on Jordan River a few miles above its confluence with the Owyhee. By this time, June 12, Howard had reached Boise and asserted personal control of operations.5
Howard had been braced for an outbreak for more than a month. Dispatches from Col. Frank Wheaton at Fort Lapwai had warned of unusual restlessness and activity among the “Columbia River renegades” of Washington and the Umatillas and Paiutes of Oregon. Troops at all the posts in the department had received standby orders. When the blowup came, it was unexpected only in location. Ordering a concentration on Boise of elements of the First Cavalry, Twenty-first Infantry, and Fourth Artillery, Howard instructed Wheaton to move to Fort Walla Walla and deploy the Second Infantry to watch the Columbia River Indians. General McDowell ordered units of the Eighth and Twelfth Infantry from other parts of the division to the war zone. After conferring with Wheaton at Fort Walla Walla, Howard and his aides traveled by stagecoach to Boise, arriving on June 12.
Because the Bannock rights to Camas Prairie were widely conceded, even by the governor of Idaho, General McDowell wanted Howard to explore the possibilities of an amicable settlement before resorting to arms. In Sarah Winnemucca, daughter of the Paiute chief, Captain Bernard found a means of communicating with the Indians. The Paiute “princess” volunteered for the mission and Howard authorized it. In the Steens Mountain camp Sarah found the war fervor so strong that she barely succeeded in escaping with her father and a handful of peaceably disposed followers. Oytes’ preachings kept excitement high, and Egan, the Paiute war chief, reluctantly agreed to take the place of the fallen Buffalo Horn as hostile leader. On June 15 at Sheep Ranch Sarah described her ordeal and observations to General Howard.
As Howard moved on Steens Mountain in three columns, the hostiles broke camp and traveled northwest across the desert to Silver Creek, forty-five miles west of Camp Harney. Here, at daybreak on June 23, Captain Bernard and three troops of cavalry pounced on them. In three successive waves, his squadron swept through the village and drove its surprised occupants across the creek and to the top of some steep bluffs on the other side, where they took strong defensive positions. Bernard refused to pay the price of an assault, and the two sides exchanged long-range fire the rest of the day. The Indians stole away in the night. Although casualties were light on both sides, the Bannock-Paiute coalition suffered a crippling blow in the loss of the camp and all its contents.
At Malheur Agency, deserted by the agent and sacked and badly damaged, Howard gathered a command of about 480 men in seven companies of foot and four troops of horse. Bits of intelligence from various sources convinced him that the hostiles, now traveling north toward the populated John Day Valley, had been reinforced by Klamaths and planned a union with the Umatillas, Cayuses, and perhaps even the Columbia River groups. Alerting units to the north under Colone
ls Wheaton and Cuvier Grover to prevent such a junction, Howard took up the pursuit.
Over the tortuous topography surrounding the branches of the John Day River the troops toiled grimly along the trial, “The country over which we have marched,” the general reported from the mouth of the south fork on July 2, “is the most broken and rugged I have ever seen.” The Indians, skirmishing with militia and pillaging ranches, pushed hard to stay ahead of Bernard’s cavalry, ranging far in front of the infantry. Northeastward to the slopes of the Blue Mountains and the edge of the Umatilla Reservation the chase continued. On July 7 troops dispatched southward by Wheaton joined at Pilot Rock, about twenty miles south of Pendleton. Additional units of the First Cavalry brought Bernard’s force to seven troops—a formidable command for a captain. But Bernard was a superlative field soldier, who enjoyed the full confidence of the department commander, and it is probably not entirely coincidental that Colonel Grover left the campaign for an eastern recruiting detail or that Major Sanford, the other field officer of the regiment in the area, never managed to play more than a supporting role.
On July 8 scouts discovered the hostiles strongly posted atop rocky bluffs on Birch Creek near Pilot Butte. Howard watched as Bernard led the attack with his entire cavalry command. “The advance was made along several approaches in a handsome manner, not a man falling out of ranks,” Howard reported. “The different sides of the hill were steeper than Missionary Ridge [site of a famous Civil War battle], still the troops, though encountering a severe fire that emptied some saddles and killed many horses, did not waver, but skirmished to the very top.” The warriors fell back to new and higher positions, from which the troopers drove them in still another assault. A third time, now in a stand of timber, the Indians formed, only to be flanked, struck frontally, and driven in disorder from the field. Their horses exhausted, the cavalry could not pursue. “Captain Bernard is entitled to special credit for this engagement,” declared General Howard, “as indeed for the entire campaign.”6
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