The descending trail on the east side of the mountains traversed ledges narrower than those on the west side, and the canyons appeared more terrifying. Not far from the summit (on its eastern slope) the Indians had to dismount and lead their horses along a sheer ledge, man and mount pressing against the wall of the cliff lest they should lose their footing on wet rocks and plunge into the gorge. Safely past this dangerous place, they ascended another crest and started down the widened and less rugged path into Lolo Canyon. The chiefs ordered a halt on the banks of a shallow stream (Lolo Creek) winding through a green valley margined by gently sloping and sparsely wooded hills. Hot sulphur springs erupted thin columns of steam into the air. These waters of Lolo Hot Springs, Montana, provided the Indians with natural bathing and washing facilities. In this paradise of the wilderness, the sick and the wounded sought the healing properties of the “medicine” waters.
However, new difficulties confronted the chiefs. Messengers brought information that Charlot awaited an excuse to ally his people with the whites, even though his tribe, like the Nez Perces, were also nontreaty Indians.17 This Flathead chief sent a warning to Joseph’s warriors not to harm a single hair of any white person in the Bitterroot Valley. If the Nez Perces stole any stock belonging to either settlers or Indians, Charlot would use the act as a pretext to join the soldiers. His belligerent attitude toward his former friends was said to be prompted by his desire to steal the Nez Perces’ fine horses.18
Nevertheless, the chiefs decided to go south up the Bitterroot Valley and pass through the land owned by Charlot’s band of Flatheads. Although Canada—and freedom—lay but 240 miles to the north, the Nez Perces at this time apparently had formed no decision to turn in that direction. They proposed, rather, to reach the country of the Crows, who had promised them a safe passage to the buffalo hunting grounds. Then, too, they hoped to outdistance Howard’s pursuing force by keeping to a rough, mountainous region. If they attempted to go directly east through the sixty-mile defile of Hell Gate Canyon, they would have to pass the town of Missoula and they wished to avoid large settlements. Besides, they undoubtedly had warning of Wheaton’s command approaching from the west over the Coeur d’Alenes, and thus the direct way north toward Canada was closed to them.
5. Retreat of the Nez Perces through Montana.
Nez Perce survivors of the campaign told Edward Curtis “that when the passage of Lolo cañon was begun, there was no thought of escaping to Canada, but that later it was decided that if the Apsaroke [Crows] would not help them they would learn from that tribe the route to the ‘Old Woman’s Country.’”19
This southerly route through the Bitterroot meant hundreds of extra miles to travel, but it offered greater safety and a plentiful food supply, which would also provide skins to replace the lodges they had lost at the battle of the Clearwater.
Meanwhile, alarmed by the approaching menace of Joseph’s warriors, the citizens of Missoula became active in organizing volunteer companies. Christopher P. Higgins,20 who had come West with Governor Stevens’ expedition in 1853 and was present as Stevens’ packmaster at the Walla Walla council in 1855, was elected captain.
With the hostiles almost on the outskirts of the town, Missoula was in tumult. Every new refugee from the country brought more tales of impending doom. One intensely excited woman drove for miles in mad haste to reach the town. Not until she was safely inside Higgins and Worden’s store did she realize that her bonnet was on backwards, with the long ribbons hanging over her face.
While the settlers of western Montana had visions of being massacred by the invading Nez Perces, Joseph’s people leisurely traveled down the Lolo Canyon until they were stopped by the hasty log fortifications of “Fort Fizzle.”
16
The Affair at “Fort Fizzle”
The report of Lieutenant Coolidge convinced many Montanans that the scene of hostilities would shift to the Bitterroot Valley. Wild rumors made the whites fear that their erstwhile friends, the Nez Perces, might attack Missoula. Many citizens there were personally acquainted with White Bird and Looking Glass, who in past years had bartered at the stores and paid social visits at the homes of townspeople.1 The citizens also expected the Flatheads in racial sympathy to join their red brethren.
This put the members of Charlot’s band in a quandary, for they realized that the whites, in their hysteria, would hardly know one Indian from another and might through error shoot them in event of battle.
Missoula was not prepared for an Indian war, which increased the citizens’ alarm. Four miles south of the town, Fort Missoula was then in process of construction, and garrisoned with only two reduced companies, A and I, of the Seventh Infantry, commanded by Captain Charles C. Rawn. The post had forty-four soldiers, who, regardless of their bravery, were certainly no match for, possibly, 300 warriors supported by 450 women and children, many of whom could handle a gun as well as the braves.
In response to Rawn’s call for volunteers, scores of settlers rushed into town, over one hundred men coming from Bitterroot farms. Captain C. P. Higgins recruited another hundred in Missoula. The women and children were crowded into the general merchandise store of Higgins and Worden. Being a stout log building with ample space, it had been converted into a temporary barricade.
With his command increased by two hundred civilian volunteers, Captain Rawn, his five commissioned regular officers, and thirty enlisted men of the Seventh Infantry, marched the twelve miles south to Lolo Canyon on July 25. Eight miles above where the canyon debouched into the Bitterroot Valley, Rawn erected log breastworks three feet high, and had trenches dug. He had chosen a strategic location at the narrowest part of the defile, flanked on either side by steep-sided, sparsely wooded hills. Thus the enemy approaching from the west could not, theoretically, force a way past. Besides, the fortifications gave the defenders a decided advantage over the Indians, who would be placed in an exposed position.
Nez Perce scouts informed the chiefs about the entrenchments barring their progress. The main body of Indians reached the site of “Fort Fizzle” on July 26. They raised their lodges two miles up the canyon, Rawn stated (but McWhorter gives the distance as twelve miles), and settled down to study how they could pass the armed force in front of them without bloodshed.
No doubt the chiefs, with military insight, realized a direct attack would be foolhardy, for, even if their men could successfully assault the barricade, they would suffer fearful losses. The chiefs therefore sent out spies to reconnoiter the region for a passageway around the breastworks. The Nez Perces could not rely upon Charlot’s band of Flatheads to attack Rawn’s forces from the rear, because scouts brought word that this chief had not changed his stipulations regarding the invasion of his territory by the hostiles. Indeed, about twenty to twenty-five Flathead braves led by Charlot’s son, according to Indian Agent Ronan, had joined Rawn.
Apparently the Nez Perces were surprised at the bellicose reception accorded them by the Montana people, who had always been their friends. Since they felt no enmity toward the settlers of the Bitterroot, the chiefs willingly agreed to parley with the military.
In his report to the Secretary of War, Captain Rawn states that he held a council on July 27 with Joseph, White Bird, and Looking Glass.2 The chiefs protested only friendship for the people of Montana, and proposed, if allowed to pass unmolested, to refrain from any acts of depredation on their march up the Bitterroot Valley. Rawn, however, would agree to give them free passage only on condition that they surrender to him their arms, their ammunition, and their mounts.
This, of course, the chiefs refused to do, for Rawn’s ultimatum meant unconditional surrender. Without horses or arms the Nez Perces would be at the mercy of the army, and all their sacrifices of life and property in Idaho would have been in vain.
In order to gain time and to hold the hostiles in check, so that either Howard’s or Gibbon’s force could arrive with reenforcements, the captain appointed another meeting for the next day. He arranged to
talk with Looking Glass and one other Indian.
This arrangement suited the chiefs, for they were planning a means of escape, should the diplomacy of Looking Glass fail to elicit permission from Rawn for a safe passage. Since he was better known in Missoula than the other chiefs, Looking Glass might have more influence with the whites.
Accordingly, the next day, at a spot on the prairie out of range of rifles in the Indian camp, Looking Glass and one of his braves met the captain, who was accompanied by Delaware Jim as interpreter.
However, the meeting was not satisfactory to Rawn, for he wrote in his report:
I submitted to him the same conditions as before, to wit, that if they wished to enter the valley they must disarm and dismount, surrendering all stock. Looking-Glass said he would talk to his people, and would tell me what they said at 9 A.M. the next day. Distrusting him, I would not agree to that hour, but proposed 12 m. We separated without agreement. Nothing satisfactory having resulted from the conference, I returned to the breastworks, expecting to be attacked.3
Rawn held a consultation with his officers and the civilian allies. When the Bitterroot volunteers learned of the Nez Perces’ pledge of peace, they decided that no act of theirs should precipitate destruction to their farms in the valley. One hundred or more, in groups of one to twelve, departed for home at once, “without leave,” the captain reports. Rawn immediately posted rear guards to prevent further desertions. The remainder of his force of regulars and Missoula men became excited by the activity in the hostiles’ camp and tensely waited for the attack.
The Nez Perces were determined to reach the Bitterroot Valley in spite of Rawn’s warlike attitude. The women began preparing everything for a quick march. They pulled down the lodges and loaded them with the supplies on the backs of packhorses after the chiefs had agreed to a plan of action. There is no testimony to indicate who originated the stratagem, but it was probably decided on in the council of the leaders.
By ten o’clock the next morning the Indian cavalcade began moving from the canyon to the hills, ascending the slopes a half mile in front of the right flank of the entrenchments. The Nez Perces’ line of march, screened by gullies and trees on the north side of the gorge, led them safely past the flank of the fortifications, and thus into the Bitterroot Valley. The chiefs apparently had made a topographical study of the vicinity, and had seized upon a route of escape which the whites believed to be impossible.
W. R. Logan, who was present at “Fort Fizzle” with his father, Captain William Logan, and Captain Rawn, has written an eyewitness description of the exodus of the Nez Perces:
About ten o’clock we heard singing, apparently above our heads. Upon looking up we discovered the Indians passing along the side of the cliff, where we thought a goat could not pass, much less an entire tribe of Indians with all their impedimenta. The entire band dropped into the valley beyond us and then proceeded up the Bitter Root. Two civilians and I rode down from our camp and followed with the Indians for a mile or more. They were good-natured, cracked jokes, and seemed very much amused at the way they had fooled Rawn and Logan.4
Amazed and completely outwitted by the maneuver, Rawn formed skirmish lines across the canyon with his regulars and the remaining volunteers and advanced toward the Indians. He expected them to attack, but the Nez Perces continued up the valley while the rear guard fired a parting shot over the heads of the troops. Believing that the chiefs intended to keep the peace, all but a dozen or twenty Missoula citizens had deserted. So the captain wisely returned to the fort with his skeleton force, no doubt chagrined by his failure to check the Indians.
One settler, when asked why he had left the command, stated laconically, “We didn’t lose any Indians.” He was willing to let Idaho solve its own problems. Most of the volunteers were glad to escape a battle, and with droll humor referred to their recent barricade as “Fort Fizzle.”
The Nez Perces kept their promise as they moved up the valley, making twelve to fourteen miles a day. There was no need to hurry, for they knew Howard to be many days behind them. Besides, their footsore and gaunt ponies needed the opportunity to rest and graze after their arduous trip over the Lolo Trail. Grass had been scarce, but the meadowlands of the Bitterroot afforded abundant pasturage. The people, too, had been on scanty rations of food.
Evidence of strain showed most clearly in members of Joseph’s band, for during the entire two months since leaving the Wallowa Valley, they had been traveling and fighting. Joseph’s heart was sick with his troubles, and each mile of retreat from Idaho appeared to depress him the more. Doubtless he thought often of his homeland, the valley of winding waters, where lay the graves of his father and mother. Imbued with the Dreamer’s sacred love for the land of his ancestors, Joseph seems to have dreaded most of all that death would claim him and his people in a strange country, far from the graves of forefathers. This Oriental veneration of ancestors made bitter the Indians’ fear of racial extinction in alien lands.
After leaving Lolo, Yellow Bull states, the chiefs held another council in which Looking Glass and Joseph again agreed to go to the Crows’ country, although they were opposed by Pile of Clouds, who wanted to return to the Salmon River. At this powwow, Yellow Bull reports:
Joseph did not rise, but said: “While we were fighting for our own country, there was reason to fight, but while we are here, I would not have anything to say in favor of fighting, for this is not my country. Since we have left our country, it matters little where we go.”5
White Bird remained neutral this time, but insisted, “If we go to the Crows, we must all go.”6 This remark of White Bird’s would indicate continued dissension among the various bands, and perhaps talk of splitting up, each band to go its own way. However, the Indians stayed together, with Looking Glass as dominant leader to select the campsites and pace the day’s march. Joseph continued in the role of guardian of the old people, the women and children. Although Charlot disapproved of the intrusion of his former allies, he passively watched the cavalcade of Nez Perces go through his land.
During the caravan’s leisurely trek up the valley most of the white population peeked from barricaded cabins in consternation. That Bitterroot settlers distrusted the peaceful intentions of the Indians is brought out in a letter written by Washington J. McCormick, a prominent attorney of Missoula, to Territorial Governor Potts. He thus describes conditions in the valley:
Their men [warriors] are disciplined their horses are trained, and they are commanded by a man who thoroughly understands his business. There is no longer any doubt but that Joseph with his entire fighting force is here. The Indians have plenty of Gold dust Coin and greenbacks and have been paying exorbitant prices for flour Coffee sugar and tobacco. They told the merchants of Stevensville (thirty miles up the Bitter Root from Missoula) on Wednesday that they had money to pay for what supplies they wanted and if they did not sell to them they would take them by force. So far as I am advised they have killed no stock and molested no one except to disarm two or three citizens, returning their guns however but keeping their ammunition. The people of the Bitter Root with their families are still in their fortifications and propose to remain there until the danger is past. The situation is a most deplorable one their wheat crops are ready for the machine, and no one to harvest them while in many instances stock have broken into their fields and ruined their crops. . . . The people are thoroughly convinced that Capt Rawn acted wisely in not attacking the Indians.7
Only one merchant in the valley refused to make money by trading with the Nez Perces. Mr. Young, of Corvallis, angrily ordered them out of his store and barred it shut. His rivals at Stevensville and Hamilton profited by the extra business. With one exception no white man’s property was pillaged. This lone case was the Lockwood ranch in Ross Hole. The owner fled when a party of young braves approached his home, and the Indians proceeded to gut the house and take everything that caught their fancy.8
Despite the peaceful attitude of the invaders, the peop
le of Deer Lodge, a town eighty miles east of Missoula, fled to the penitentiary and locked themselves in. In their alarm they appealed to the copper-mining town of Butte for volunteers. William A. Clark,9 later United States Senator from Montana, offered to ride to that settlement to recruit help. He made a remarkable trip on horseback, covering the forty-two miles in three and one-half hours through the scorching heat. Mrs. Al Pearce10 had thoughtfully placed cabbage leaves in his hat to keep him from getting sunstroke. Later the Butte and Deer Lodge volunteers joined Colonel Gibbon’s force.
In the meanwhile, Howard was still toiling over the Lolo Trail.11 The last of his command had left the Weippe prairie in Idaho for the Bitterroot on July 30. On August 4 a message from Rawn informed him of the Indians’ slow movement up the valley, and that Colonel Gibbon was expected to reach Missoula from Fort Shaw immediately. Howard decided to divide his command in the hope of forming a junction with Gibbon earlier than he could with the whole of it. A dispatch from Gibbon himself asking for reenforcements reached the general at Summit Prairie, so he pushed ahead with two hundred picked cavalrymen.
Colonel Wheaton’s left column of Howard’s brigade, coming by way of Spokane through the Coeur d’Alene Mountains, returned to Lewiston when the Nez Perces turned south up the Bitterroot.
The hostiles’ fighting force received reenforcements in the valley from a Nez Perce band of six lodges under Poker Joe (Lean Elk). He and his group had recently arrived in the Bitterroot from a buffalo hunt. Poker Joe, half Indian and half French, is described as an intelligent man whom the Indians considered a great leader and warrior. He was thoroughly familiar with the Montana country and preferred to live away from the Nez Perce Reservation.12
Saga of Chief Joseph Page 21