Big Hole National Battlefield Administrative History

Chapter Two:
Administration under the U.S. War Department (1883-1910)

Federal recognition and administration of Big Hole battlefield developed slowly in the decades after the battle. A monument to the U.S. soldiers was erected at the site in 1883. A bill to establish a national park was considered in 1906. After the Antiquities Act of that year, officials in the War Department, the U.S. Forest Service, and the General Land Office moved cautiously to set aside a small area under executive order.

Early Interpretation of the Battle

The Battle of the Big Hole generated immediate and widespread interest. Even more than the Nez Perces' long retreat over the Bitterroot Mountains into Montana, the hard-fought battle turned the Nez Perces' struggle into an epic, sensational event. That these Indians had been ambushed in their tepees and had still managed to escape seemed to confirm the military genius of the Nez Perce chiefs. Even as the war continued, newspaper writers spawned the legend of Chief Joseph's superb military leadership. The timing of the battle was important, too. "Coming within fourteen months of the Custer Massacre," historian Merrill D. Beal has written, it "aroused the whole nation and attracted the attention of the world." Some observers predicted that the Nez Perces' resistance could lead to a general Indian uprising. [1]

Survivors of the Battle of the Big Hole began to interpret what had happened as soon as the campaign was over. Colonel Gibbon wrote an "after action" report of the battle on September 20 from his hospital bed in Deer Lodge, detailing his actions and those of his adversary. General Howard also filed a report that fall. Gibbon and Howard each described the encounter in retrospect – Gibbon in an article published in Harper's Weekly in 1895, Howard in Nez Perce Joseph (1881) and again in My Life and Experiences among Hostile Indians (1907). Several soldiers and volunteers published accounts of the battle in various national magazines during the 1880s and 1890s. Even if these many accounts by survivors of the conflict varied in detail and reliability, they all contributed to making the Battle of the Big Hole perhaps the most well-documented battle of the Indian Wars.

No sooner was the war over than contemporaries sought to draw moral lessons from the episode. A New York Times editorial charged that "the Nez Perce War was, on the part of our government, an unpardonable and frightful blunder." The Nez Perce had been "goaded by injustice and wrong to take the war path." [2] Chief Joseph corroborated this view. Following his exile to Oklahoma, he recounted his people's story to a writer who published it in The North American Review in 1879. [3] Significantly, the piece was titled "An Indian's View of Indian Affairs" – it used the story of the Nez Perce War to draw larger lessons about federal Indian policy. Similarly, when members of Congress held hearings on the conduct of the Nez Perce War in 1878, they asked Colonel Gibbon not only to provide analysis of the Army's poor showing in the battle and the campaign, but to expand on the problems of federal-Indian relations. [4]

The lively interest in the Battle of the Big Hole extended to the battlefield itself. Montana pioneer Granville Stuart visited the battlefield on May 11, 1878, and made two sketches of what he saw. The first was a panorama looking toward the mountainside, with numbered annotations describing the soldiers' approach, the Nez Perce Encampment, the Twin Trees, and the Point of Timber to which the soldiers fell back. Stuart must have been accompanied by a veteran of the battle when he made this drawing. His second drawing was an artistic rendering in birdseye perspective. The litter of human skulls, horse skeletons, and tepee poles in the foreground of the picture suggested a moral censure of the attack on the Nez Perce village – a noteworthy perspective for a white resident of the territory. [5] It contrasted sharply with contemporary views of the Battle of the Little Bighorn that venerated Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and his men as martyrs in the cause of westward expansion. [6]

At least two schematic maps of the battlefield were made by or with the help of participants in the battle. Pvt. Holmes L. Coon located the main features of the battle in a crude sketch. And one L. T. Henry made a map of the site based on notes and measurements provided by Capt. J. M. T. Sanno, a battle veteran. The latter was presented to the Historical Society of Montana by the Helena Herald on September 2, 1888.