Another dissenter, Edward S. Curtis, photographer and historian, who researched Nez Perce sources in the early 1900s, concluded Joseph was “no more responsible for the success or failure [of the campaign] than were several other chiefs, and far less so than Looking Glass, and at no time, with the possible exception of the first battle, was he either in executive or active command of the Indian forces; that his voice in council during that period was no greater than that of any other individual among the head-men; and that Looking Glass—after he had joined the hostile forces—was in fact their leader, and was, so far as such is possible in Indian wars, their commander.”17 Curtis considered Looking Glass “the ablest of all the chiefs.”
Recent Nez Perce testimony coincides with the above. Josiah Red Wolf, who went through the war as a child of five, in an interview in the Spokesman-Review Inland Empire Magazine, November 17, 1963, declared: “Joseph was not a war chief. He was not the main leader nor was he the great leader of the war. . . . We (children and old people) were taken care of by Joseph and kept away from the fights. . . . Joseph was a good man, but he was not the battle leader. Looking Glass was the leader with battle experience (gained helping the Crows fight the Sioux in 1874). Looking Glass spoke for all the bands.”
The late L. V. McWhorter, who made the most exhaustive study of the subject among Indian sources of any investigator, believed Joseph was too inexperienced in fighting in the intertribal wars during buffalo hunting expeditions to be a battle leader. He was also the youngest chief of the five warring bands, and the only one who made but a single known journey to the buffalo country. Besides, “In the more than two dozen narratives [of Nez Perce sources] recorded by McWhorter, Joseph never once emerges as war chief or as a leading warrior.”18 Philip Williams, a Nez Perce, explains “that leadership on the battlefield was never assumed by any of the chiefs.”19 McWhorter concludes: “Apparently none of the chiefs participated very actively in the fighting until the last battle, the final defense of the tribe in the fight for survival.”20
It is perhaps highly significant that a nephew of Chief Joseph, Yellow Wolf, a warrior and scout throughout the war, scarcely mentions his uncle in his account of the fighting in His Own Story, as recorded by McWhorter, until the last battle. Had Joseph been an active participant in the battles it is inconceivable Yellow Wolf would have ignored all reference to his relative, particularly since he lived in Joseph’s lodge and was therefore on friendly terms. Nor does Chief Joseph himself in his own story relate his personal exploits in any battle except the final one at Bearpaw. Presumably, this was not due to extreme modesty on the chief’s part, but to a lack of fighting activities. Thus, confronted by this formidable array of Indian testimony, the modern historian must reevaluate Chief Joseph’s role in the war as a peace leader, a guardian of the noncombatants, and as a most reluctant warrior.
But Joseph has long become identified in the public mind as symbolic of the fighting prowess of the warring Nez Perces and he may long remain so, despite the Indian evidence to the contrary. The whites have invested him with the title of military genius, a quality shared, the Indians avow, by many warriors and chiefs of the five bands.
Part III
The Military Campaign of 1877
11
The Settlers Prepare for War
Alarmed by the belligerent attitude of the Indians prior to the first murderous outbreak, the settlers of Mount Idaho had erected barricades. Farmers abandoned their crops, ranchers let their stock go astray, and all fled with their wives and children to the protection of the settlements.
Arthur I. Chapman, reputedly a friend of Joseph, had been warned on June 13 by Tucallacasena, a “handsome and stalwart” brother of Looking Glass, that the Nez Perces were practically on the warpath. The chief’s brother also notified M. H. Rice to be on his guard. Chapman was married to a Nez Perce woman and fluently spoke the language of his wife’s tribe. He would later be retained by General Howard as official interpreter. But in the latter part of June he organized a company of volunteers and was elected captain.
Some of the treaty Nez Perces who had been engaging in the sports and contests held in Rocky Canyon became fearful of trouble after the first murders, and, as mentioned in the preceding chapter, left the main camp in haste. They warned their white friends to go into town and wait until all danger had passed.
Letters and telegrams poured into the Boise office of Mason Brayman, governor of Idaho Territory. The citizens1 were afraid that trouble might spread to the Weiser and Paiute Indians, who might burn their crops and buildings. In answer to these urgent pleas the governor dispensed arms and ammunition to the settlers of north and west central Idaho. Offers of assistance from adventure-loving spirits who wanted to join the volunteers came to Governor Brayman from as far away as Utah, Oregon, and California.
Volunteer companies sprang into being in all the affected areas. Edward McConville became captain of one group which he organized at Lewiston. In July, D. B. Randall mustered a company of eighty mounted men in addition to Chapman’s volunteers at Mount Idaho, since that town was in the center of the Indian troubles. Randall was elected captain, James L. Cearley, first lieutenant, and Lew P. Wilmot, second lieutenant.
Before fear had reached the point of a general hysteria, L. P. Brown, secretary of the volunteers at Mount Idaho, sent a letter to Captain David Perry, the commanding officer at Fort Lapwai. On the evening of June 14 (the second day of the massacres), the messenger arrived with the note, which stated that the Indians were insolent, and the citizens feared trouble.
Part of the message ran:
Yesterday they [the Nez Perces] had a grand parade. About a hundred were mounted, and well armed, and went through the manoeuvres of a fight—were thus engaged for about two hours. . . . A good many were in town to-day, and were trying to obtain powder and other ammunition.2
This referred to White Bird’s band, as the chief boasted that the Indians would not go on the reservation. The communication further suggested that Captain Perry send a force to hurry the Nez Perces onto the reserve should they resist.
Since many of the military operations took place in this area, the region will be briefly described. Mount Idaho was situated at the farther edge of a large camas prairie near mountain spurs that lay between the Salmon and Clearwater rivers, sixty miles southeast of Fort Lapwai. Rocky Canyon, where the bands of both White Bird and Joseph were then encamped, was the same distance from the post, but nearer the Salmon River. Slate Creek was forty miles beyond Mount Idaho. This settlement lay three miles southeast of Grangeville.
General Howard had returned to Fort Lapwai on June 14, accompanied by Colonel Watkins, Inspector of Indian Affairs, to see if the bands were moving in accordance with his orders.
3. Chief Joseph. From the collection of J. W. Redington. Photo courtesy of the Misses Brady.
4. Nez Perce country, 1877
At dawn on June 15, Captain Perry sent a detachment of troops to reconnoiter toward Mount Idaho. Joe Roboses went with them as interpreter. Near Craig Mountain the soldiers met two excited Indians, one a lad of fourteen, who told the details of the Slate Creek murders. The detachment returned to Fort Lapwai at noon and reported to Howard, who thereupon investigated the rumor of the massacres. He established that they were committed by a few Indians in private revenge.
But as everything seemed to indicate trouble, Howard and Watkins, acting upon the advice of Agent Monteith and Perrin Whitman, the interpreter, sent Subchief Jonah and Joseph’s father-in-law, Whisk-tasket, to the group of malcontents said to be gathered at Chapman’s ranch. Old Whisk-tasket, the father of Joseph’s first wife, had volunteered to go and stoutly affirmed that his son-in-law would not fight. On the way, these emissaries encountered Looking Glass’s brother and a half-breed citizen named West. They were bringing to Perry more letters from Mount Idaho, giving detailed accounts of the killings. Together, the four Nez Perces hurried back to the fort. Brown’s communication said, in part: “One thing is
certain, we are in the midst of an Indian war.”3
In the face of that General Howard immediately detailed ninety-nine men from Troops F and H of the First Cavalry, commanded by Captain David Perry, for the relief of the Grangeville and Mount Idaho citizens. Captain Joel G. Trimble, a brevet major of Company C, and Lieutenants William R. Parnell and Edward R. Theller, the latter loaned from the Twenty-first Infantry, were ordered to assist Perry. This officer, a brevet colonel of Company F, was “a little over six feet in height, and very erect,” according to Howard. “He shows a clear Saxon eye, and usually wears a pleasant smile—pleasant, but with a reserve in it.”4
All the officers—Perry, Trimble, Theller, and Parnell—were married. Mrs. Trimble and her children and Mrs. Parnell had remained at Fort Walla Walla. Mrs. Perry had gone by boat to Portland shortly before Howard issued the order to leave on the campaign. Mrs. Theller was the only officer’s wife at Fort Lapwai when the command left. Literally holding down the fort with her were twenty soldiers to act as a guard, commanded by Captain Boyle, Howard’s former aide-de-camp.
At this time the general thought all the nontreaty bands were involved. If he had known that actually only White Bird’s young men were guilty, this history might never have been written. Howard remained at Fort Lapwai to direct the operations in the field. He sent dispatches to Walla Walla for reenforcements, and ordered Captain Whipple’s command from the Grande Ronde Valley to the post.
The women at the agency, three miles from Fort Lapwai, were escorted to Lewiston, although a few remained to give aid to settlers who had sought safety there. At Kamiah the hostiles ransacked the subagency after the employees had left it. The Indians took food, bedding, and cooking utensils. Wild rumors added to the confusion as treaty and nontreaty Nez Perces, full of tales of expected massacres, took refuge at the fort.
A group of thirty settlers, including many women and children from Salmon River, found protection in a barricade on Slate Creek.5 The men formed a volunteer company, although they had only shotguns and revolvers with which to defend themselves.
Marauding bands of hostiles raided the prairies to the very limits of Grangeville and Mount Idaho. Many settlers who had not heeded the first warnings of their Nez Perce friends now attempted flight, only to fall into the hands of Indians turned savage fiends by overindulgence in whiskey. On June 15 raiders wounded and abducted Mrs. John J. Manuel, and killed William Osborne and Harry Mason. The latter had whipped two Indians in the spring. A council of arbitration had decided in favor of the white man, and so another cankering sore was added to the Nez Perces’ lacerated feelings against American injustice.
Like a modern Paul Revere, Lew Day volunteered to ride from Mount Idaho to Fort Lapwai to secure military aid. He galloped over the countryside, warning the white people to flee to the towns, for the redskins were on a rampage of murder and rapine. Being fired upon and wounded by the Indians, he stopped at Cottonwood House, a ranch and stage station owned by B. B. Norton. Day assisted a party of whites there to escape on the evening of June 14. With the men, women, and children in a wagon, escorted by two of the men on horseback, the ten people left Norton’s ranch after dark in a desperate attempt to reach Mount Idaho, eighteen miles away.
They had not traveled far before a war party overtook them about midnight. In the running fight that ensued the men attempted to hold off the superior force of Indians. But every gun flash attracted the bullets of the attackers and the team horses were quickly shot down, bringing the wagon to a halt. In the confusion Miss Bowers and little Hill Norton jumped out and escaped into the brush.
John Chamberlain, his wife, and two children tried to escape from the wagon in the darkness, but their progress through the bushes was soon discovered by the war party. During the hand-to-hand combat Chamberlain was fatally shot. While he lay dying the terrifying shrieks of his wife rang in his ears as the marauders repeatedly attacked her and inflicted severe injuries. One Indian cruelly cut off a piece of the daughter’s tongue, and in so doing stabbed her in the neck; another placed the little boy’s head beneath his knees and crushed the youngster to death. This is the only record of deliberate atrocities perpetrated by the Nez Perces. Naturally such acts were not sanctioned by the chiefs, but appear to have been committed by bloodthirsty young braves.
The remainder of the party protected themselves behind the dead horses and fought off the desultory fire of the Indians until daylight. Lew Day and Joseph Moore fell mortally wounded. Day survived until the morning, and Moore lingered on for six weeks. During the night one of the raider’s bullets killed Norton. His wife was shot through both legs, but later, like Mrs. Chamberlain and her daughter, recovered.
Miss Bowers managed to reach Mount Idaho by a tortuous route and gave the alarm to the citizens. Forty of them rushed out to the rescue and brought the wounded into town the next day.
Patrick Brice, a husky miner from Florence, was traveling northward when he found a little girl, Maggie Manuel,6 hiding from the Indians in the bushes. She had been badly wounded by an arrow. Brice carried the child to her home on White Bird Creek, where he constructed a rude chair from the burned remains of the house. He strapped the improvised litter to his back and started to carry the girl to Mount Idaho by a devious route of fifty miles. For two nights he hiked, and he hid himself and the wounded child in the brush during the day.
A highly dramatized account of this incident, written by Charles S. Moody, narrates that Brice met a raiding party whose leader, Mox Mox, proposed to kill him and the girl. He overawed the Indians by displaying a blood-red cross tattooed on his breast. They permitted him to go on, but threatened reprisal against all inhabitants of Mount Idaho if he didn’t return in “two sleeps.”
Brice continued on his way and carried the child safely into Mount Idaho. After a day’s rest, he went back to the Indian camp where he presented himself as a hostage, supposedly to Chief Joseph, who magnanimously sent him on his way unharmed.7
The Indian version of this episode is far less dramatic. In September, 1931, Black Feather (Black Eagle), who was one of the principals in the incident, gave McWhorter this account: Black Feather was approaching three Nez Perce warriors, who were smoking near the banks of White Bird Creek, when he heard a noise in the bushes and soon saw a white man (Patrick Brice) carrying a child on his left arm.
The white man nodded and asked, “Will you kill me?”
“No,” said Black Feather, who then walked over to the three Indians. One of them, startled, attempted to shoot the white man. The other two objected because of the child. Black Feather motioned Brice to the bushes.
“When he reached the thicket,” Black Feather continued, “he turned again and nodded to me, then disappeared in the brush. I saw him no more.”8
Not knowing how many more settlers might be killed in the Salmon River mountains and fearing the worst, Mount Idaho citizens armed themselves with pitchforks, butcher knives, guns, and other weapons with lethal potentialities. The wildest excitement prevailed there and in the neighboring town of Grangeville until the troops arrived on the evening of June 16.
After leaving Fort Lapwai at 8:00 P.M. on the fifteenth, Perry’s force marched all night. But finding the Indians had left Cottonwood Creek, the soldiers proceeded to Grangeville. The townsmen, certain the redskins could be given a thorough whipping, urged Perry to attack the Indian village at once. The officers, too, fully believed that these Indians, like all others in their experience, would scamper away from a show of military force. But as yet, the fighting mettle of the peaceful Nez Perces had never been tested against the whites; and later events proved that Perry’s command was inadequate for offensive action.
Perry rested his men for an hour while he held a consultation with his officers and the citizens. The latter declared they had seen the Indians going in force to White Bird Canyon with the likely intention of crossing the Salmon River at that point. From there the Nez Perces could go south to the Little Salmon, take the buffalo trail eastward, and
so escape from the country. Fearing the Indians might do just that, Perry decided to attack them at White Bird Canyon before they could effect the river crossing.
Fully confident of victory, the cavalry, the Indian scouts, and eleven volunteers under George Shearer, an ex-Confederate major, started at ten o’clock that night for the Indian camp, sixteen miles from Grangeville. Advancing under cover of darkness, Perry hoped to make a surprise attack at dawn.
Wearied by the loss of two nights’ sleep after a forced march of seventy miles, few of the men cared to talk as they rode across the rolling prairie. One trooper, though, struck a match to light his pipe. Instantly, from the hillside came the howl of a coyote that ended unnaturally on a high note.9 However, none of the soldiers took particular notice of it.
Perry halted his command on the edge of the plateau near the head of White Bird Canyon, about four miles from the Indian encampment. Before the troops stopped to rest, a white woman with a babe in her arms, followed by a girl of six, had emerged from her place of concealment among the willows in a nearby gulch. The soldiers quickly emptied the food from their haversacks for the refugees who had lain three days in hiding. The mother was Mrs. Samuel Benedict. Her older girl’s head had been badly crushed. Escorted by two volunteers, the woman and children finally reached Mount Idaho in safety.10
The troops caught only fitful snatches of sleep during what remained of the hours of darkness. At dawn of June 17 the bugle called boots and saddles, and soon the fatigued soldiers, keyed up now by the anticipation of forthcoming battle with the Indians, rode down the trail into the canyon still darkened by the shadows of night.
Saga of Chief Joseph Page 14