Big Hole National Battlefield Administrative History

Chapter Two:
The Soldiers' Monument

In 1883 a granite monument was erected at the battlefield to honor the soldier dead. Who initiated the project and precisely what the monument meant were details soon forgotten. Official correspondence in the early 1900s – when the soldiers' monument was already nearly twenty years old – disclosed that authorities in the War Department were uncertain whether the monument doubled as a grave marker or not. In the absence of documentation, it was assumed that it did not.

The idea for the soldiers' monument may have originated with Colonel Gibbon. The colonel recommended a number of his men for Medals of Honor, and years after the battle he wrote letters in support of the Bitterroot volunteers' claims for compensation for their service. Together with General Howard and Col. Nelson Miles, he also took an interest in the cause of returning the exiled Nez Perce to their homeland. In addition to these activities, it appears that Gibbon first suggested the idea of a monument to commemorate the slain members of his command at the Battle of the Big Hole. [7]

On February 28, 1882, Secretary of War Robert T. Lincoln authorized the expenditure of $800 for the placement of a granite monument on the Big Hole battlefield. The expenditure came from incidentals of the quartermaster's department for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1882, and did not require an act of Congress. [8] The six-ton monument was cut in Concord, New Hampshire, shipped by railroad to Dillon, and hauled by ox teams from there to the battlefield. It was erected in September 1883 by a detachment of soldiers from Fort Missoula, under the command of Capt. J. T. Thompson, Third Infantry. [9]

Cut in the shape of a stout obelisk and bearing an inscription that honored the U.S. soldiers who fell in the battle while making no mention of Nez Perce casualties, the "soldiers' monument" conveyed a nationalistic sentiment of honorable sacrifice. The dimensions and placement of the soldiers' monument near the Siege Area were suggestive of a large, common gravestone. Indeed, like the granite obelisk placed at the Little Bighorn Battlefield in 1886, it bore the names of all the officers and enlisted men killed in the conflict. Yet the soldiers' monument made no specific reference to soldiers' graves.

In the years following the placement of the soldiers' monument, the Big Hole Valley grew less isolated. Homesteaders moved into the valley beginning in May 1882, taking up claims along the river and creeks where they could grow hay and raise cattle. Small ranches soon dotted the length of the Big Hole and the towns of Wisdom and Jackson Hot Springs sprang to life. [10] Transportation in the valley remained primitive; one of the early wagon roads originated from settlers using the wheel ruts made by the wagon that had carried the granite monument into the valley in 1883. As the Big Hole became settled, tourists frequented the battlefield in growing numbers. The soldiers' monument served to mark the site years before there was any official interpretation or protection of the battlefield.

One person who visited the soldiers' monument, Lt. P. Murray, 3rd Infantry, was disturbed by what he found. "Relic hunters," Murray complained, were defacing the monument. In a letter dated February 6, 1895, Murray stated that "nearly all the corners are broken off, the edges being similarly attacked." He also found that the pine trees around the Siege Area were being "cut to pieces by people hunting for bullets." [11] Murray's letter was forwarded to Capt. George S. Hoyt, assistant quartermaster in Helena. In June 1895, Hoyt submitted an estimate for the erection of an iron fence to enclose the soldiers' monument and protect it from further vandalism. [12] No appropriation was made at this time.

On February 8, 1900, the Senate passed a resolution requesting the Secretary of War to ascertain what action "has been taken or should be taken to properly mark the graves of those killed and buried on or near the battlefield, and to preserve such marks from obliteration." [13] In reply, Quartermaster General M. I. Ludington stated that "the records of this office give no information on the subject of the Big Hole battlefield, or the marking of the graves of those buried there." Ludington was only able to produce correspondence from 1882-1883 regarding the erection of the soldiers' monument and from 1895 regarding the need for a protective fence. Less than a quarter century after the battle, the administrative record of this soldiers' monument was already obscure to the officials responsible for maintaining it.

Soldier's monument in Siege Area. The metal cage was added later to protect the monument from souvenir collectors.
Courtesy National Park Service, Big Hole NB, n.d.