Nez Perce Summer, 1877

Cover

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Reasons

Eruption and White Bird Canyon

Looking Glass's Camp and Cottonwood

Clearwater

Kamiah, Weippe, and Fort Fizzle

Bitterroot and the Big Hole

Camas Meadows

The National Park

Canyon Creek

Cow Island and Cow Creek Canyon

Yellowstone Command

Bear's Paw: Attack and Defense

Bear's Paw: Siege and Surrender

Consequences

Epilogue

Appendix A

Appendix B

Bibliography

Nez Perce Summer, 1877 Chapter 13: Bear's Paw: Siege and Surrender

Chapter 13:
Bear's Paw: Siege and Surrender (continued)

Early Saturday, Miles and Howard sent word to Sturgis and Mason to halt and await the arrival of the command "at the first good camp." [130] Miles also prepared a report describing his movements and the battle for filing with department headquarters. [131] Through the morning of October 6, more of the people came in, and Miles's final tally—including small parties of Nez Perces who were picked up by ranging troops over the next two weeks—totaled 448. [132] The prisoners included several wounded Nez Perces who were taken to the hospital for treatment by Doctors Tilton and Gardner. [133] "A few wounded Indians came to our camp last night," wrote Tilton, "but it was too late to attend to them. More are brought this morning and the urgent cases attended to—balls extracted and broken bones put in splints." [134] Wagons were sent to the mountains to get more poles for constructing litters and travois. [135] Miles also directed that his battalion and company commanders ensure sufficient quantities of willow brush and hay for use in transporting the wounded. [136] Wrote Tilton:

Instructions were given to make six litters and four travois, but the poles were so short (about 16 feet long) that they had to be used as travois. Unless the rear mule can see where to step, he walks off side very like a crab. Willows were put into the wagons and these covered by a liberal amount of grass, which made a very comfortable means of conveyance for many cases. [137]

Meanwhile, the hungry tribesmen consumed food issued to them, perhaps savoring the several buffalo shot the night before by the wood party. Yellow Wolf commented: "General Miles was good to the surrendered Indians with food. The little boys and girls loved him for that. They could now have hot food and fires to warm by." [138] At Miles's authority, most of the Cheyenne scouts started back to the cantonment with the ponies they had selected from the captured herd. Bruguier and the Lakota, Hump, left to overtake the scouts, but Young Two Moon soon caught up, saying that Miles instead wanted them to halt and await the command. [139]

As the intermittent procession of Nez Perces continued on the sixth, some of the officers took the occasion to explore their position, marveling at the ingenuity exhibited by the tribesmen in fashioning their semisubterranean dwellings. "These intrenchments," related one witness, "consisted mainly of a series of rifle pits dug deep into the earth, and they were arranged in some respects with a skill which would have done credit to an educated military engineer." [139] By the layout of the shelter pits in the bottoms and sides of the coulees, Miles's officers at last understood fully why their gunfire had taken little effect. Lieutenant Wood, one of the visitors, explained that "the ravines were so crooked as to prevent enfilade fire, and so protected by hills as to be safe from our sharpshooters." [140] Tilton also examined the works. "There were a series of holes in the bottom of a ravine which branched out in three directions; these holes were from 3 to 5 feet deep and from 3 to 10 feet in diameter. They gave perfect protection from small arms fire. Dead horses were utilized to increase the breastworks." [141] During the examination, some soldiers sent in "to overhaul their works" stumbled on a Nez Perce man, still armed, who had been wounded in the thigh. Private Zimmer said the man was in a tunnel between two pits and had kept supplies for several days with him. "It's likely he expected some of his escaped friends would come for him." [142] The men also uncovered caches of "saddles, robes, flour, sugar, beans, ammunition and a few arms" that allegedly belonged to those who had escaped north during the fighting. Late in the day, the people used army wagons to transport their property to a new and clean village site selected upstream and on the west side of Snake Creek, closer to the army camp. [143] "Our guard duty will be much lighter this evening," concluded Zimmer. [144]

Miles's losses at the Battle of the Bear's Paw totaled two officers and nineteen enlisted men killed, four officers and forty-six men wounded (three more enlisted men would die from their wounds), besides two Indian scouts wounded. [145] "Some of our wounded claimed to have been struck by explosive bullets, and they had ugly looking wounds," said Tilton.

I was disposed to doubt it, until I saw some explosive balls in the village. I secured two of .50 cal. and a package of .44 cal. I have since learned that the Nez Perces raided a place, owned by a prosperous Englishman who was an amateur stock ranchman in Idaho, and secured a quantity of ammunition, explosive bullets among other things. [146]

As the surgeons prepared the wounded for removal on the following day, the bodies of the soldiers killed on September 30 and after were covered over in the trench with earth and marked with rocks gathered by their comrades. [147] The remains of Captain Hale and Lieutenant Biddle were wrapped in blankets preparatory to moving with the troops back to the Missouri River to be shipped downstream to their respective families for interment. [148]

Nez Perce losses at Bear's Paw were not precisely determined because many of the dead had been buried in unmarked graves in or next to the shelter pits and were not readily found by the troops. Tilton, however, said that seventeen of the people had been killed and forty wounded as of October 3, although his source for the information is unknown. [149] McWhorter concluded from his sources that the number of dead did not exceed twenty-five, including twenty-two killed the first day. Colonel Miles, following the surrender, reported that between fifty and sixty had been wounded, five of whom died on the way to the cantonment. [150] In his postsurrender report, Dr. Tilton wrote regarding the wounded Nez Perces:

It would be difficult to ascertain the number of wounded among them. Some cases not very severe they pay very little attention to. I saw a fractured radius, a humerus, a femur, a clavicle, and one of the metacarpophalangeal joint of the left thumb. This last case the patient fixed up for himself and it appears to be doing very well. [151]

Tilton also commented on the cases of Hump, the Lakota, and White Wolf, the Northern Cheyenne, both scouts who had been shot, the latter in the head. "Both [of] these men returned to the Cantonment and swam the Yellowstone River with their horses. White Wolf has had several small pieces of the skull removed by a brother warrior; he continues to ride around the post as if his wound were a trifling affair." [152]

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