Chapter 12:Bear's Paw: Attack and Defense
Word of the presence of the village ahead, coupled
with reports that the Nez Perces might already be fleeing to the north,
impelled Miles to hurry his troops forward. It was shortly after 9:00
a.m. [1] Operating on knowledge gained from
his scouts that the village lay between four and six miles ahead over
generally open terrain, the colonel started his cavalry forward at a
trot, the Indian scouts well out in front. The battalion of the Second
Cavalry caught up with the Seventh, and on direction each unit formed
into columns of fours. Lieutenant McClernand remembered that "the 7th
was directed to move to the right of the Second and on a line with it,
taking sufficient interval to form left front into line." [2] Miles ordered Tyler to follow the lead of
the scouts and charge directly through the Nez Perces' camp, while the
companies of the Seventh would come in closely behind in support. The
mounted Fifth infantrymen would follow in reserve, followed by the
Hotchkiss gun and pack train.
The distance to the village proved to be several
miles greater than reported, and perhaps with the belief that the Nez
Perces might be getting away, Miles ordered the horsemen to spur into a
gallop. [3] Eventually, the command, still
moving northwesterly, crested the low divide from which the Nez Perce
horse herd could be seen on the flat west of Snake Creek; some witnesses
reported seeing parts of the village, yet two miles away, as the troops
started the gentle descent toward the bottom. Here the column
momentarily slowed, the battalions reforming left front into line
preparatory to opening the assault. [4] The
final configuration kept the Seventh on the right, the Second on the
left, and the Fifth somewhat behind and between the former battalions.
[5] The Cheyenne scouts hurried their own
advance far in front, and as they closed on the camp, they swerved
gradually left, sweeping broadly toward the pony herd grazing on the
bench west of the camp. Tyler's battalion, following some distance
behindprobably believing that the ponies and Nez Perces moving
among them represented the main part of the encampment, most of which
still lay hidden in the creek bottomresponded in kind, veering
left after the scouts.
Miles was riding close to the Seventh troopers as
they resumed a trot down the slope leading toward the south end of the
village. As Tyler's men diverged, Miles saw what was happening and
quickly ordered the battalion of the Seventh Cavalry to lead the charge
into the camp, Captain Hale transmitting the directive to his company
commanders and reforming the companies back into columns of fours. [6] Miles reportedly yelled, "Charge them! Damn
them!," drawing a chorus of approving shouts in response as the horses
broke into a gallop, Hale leading the way. [7] "He was splendidly mounted on a spirited
gray horse," wrote Miles, "and wore a jaunty hat and a light cavalry
short coat. . . . [He had] a smile on his handsome face." [8] The descending plain lying before the
charging column was flat and broad, and gradually the soldiers reached a
point where their view in all directions became obscured by the rising
ground ahead. Whatever glimpse they had previously had of the village
was now lost as they plunged ahead, now moving up a moderate slope
toward the crest of what appeared to be a gentle hill leading down to
the village, but what, in fact, was a much more precipitous drop into
the creek bottom. Approaching over the broad flat now bordered on its
right by a gradually narrowing coulee, the Seventh troopers, revolvers
drawn, charged ahead with Company K, under battalion commander Hale, on
the right, Moylan's Company A on the left, and Godfrey's D in the
center. [9] As their horses thundered
toward the top of the hill rising south of the bottom, the field
suddenly narrowed as the coulee extending on the right increasingly
crowded the command. Hale's men, pressed by Godfrey's company on their
left, deviated right, riding into and through two swales, while Moylan
and Godfrey stayed on course.
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What followed happened quickly. Passing through the
swales, Hale's company ascended a flat ridge leading from the southeast
down toward the Nez Perce camp. Warriors hidden in the coulees and
washes suddenly opened a devastating fire on them that abruptly stopped
their advance. Almost simultaneously, Companies A and D, galloping full
stride, converged as they arrived on the top of the bluff, their horses
grinding to a halt within twenty yards of its edge. [10] "We could then see the village,"
remembered Private Fremont Kipp. "All of it lay within 400 yards of us,
to our right, at the mouth of a coulee." [11] Before the troops could react, a group of
warriors suddenly sprang up from beneath the crest of the bluff and
delivered a point-blank volley into them. Some riders fell or were shot
from their saddles, the momentum of the charge carrying their mounts to
stumble over the bluff. Private John McAlpine of Company D recalled:
Those Indians stopped our charge cold. The bullets
flew fast and thick. My horse went down . . . , and when I pulled myself
free a slug took my hat off. There was a man . . . riding beside me. His
horse was shot and as he got to his feet a bullet caught him square in
the forehead. . . . I reached over and took his hat. It was a fur one,
and I wiped the blood and brains off it and put it on. [12]
Hopeless of carrying a mounted assault beyond the
precipice, Captain Moylan commanded the troops to fall back. "The
movement was executed by 'Fours left about,'" he recalled. "In the
execution . . . some confusion occurred for the very good reason that
the men were under a heavy fire from the Indians, and that the large
majority of them had never been under fire before, being mostly all
recruits." [13]
Intent on withdrawing and reforming the battalion
components, Moylan started his own men to the rear. Before Godfrey could
follow suit, however, a Nez Perce marksman let loose, his shot striking
and killing the captain's horse, throwing the officer to the ground.
Godfrey later described the incident:
I saw an Indian taking aim at me. I was not more than
50 to 75 yards from him. [He was] to my left. I was riding on an iron
gray horse and my men were mounted on black horses. This of course made
me a conspicuous mark and I was quite a bit nearer to the Indian,
looking [to see] if it were possible to get down in columns of fours.
His rifle cracked and down went my horse, dead. The momentum (we were
galloping) threw me forward; I lit on my head and shoulder, leaving my
shoulder strap and hat on the ground, but I turned a complete somersault
and lit on my feet. I had my revolver in my hand, and as soon as I had
recovered somewhat from the daze of the stun, I tho[ugh]t I'd try to
defend myself, but when I tried to raise my pistol found my right arm
was disabled, paralyzed at the shoulder. While advancing to the charge
my trumpeter, [Private Thomas] Herwood, who was a boy recruit, gasped to
me, "Ca-Ca-Captain, there'll be a good many of our saddles emptied
today, won't there?" I replied, "Well, perhaps yes; but you keep right
along with me and you'll be all right." Soon after this I had occasion
to speak to him again and I found he had recovered himself. [14]
The actions of Trumpeter Herwood and Sergeant Charles
H. Welch probably saved Godfrey's life. As the captain lay prostrate
near his dead horse, his company moving to the rear, Herwood rode his
own animal between the Nez Perces and the officer, drawing the warriors'
attention to himself while Welch delivered a covering fire until Godfrey
could regain his feet. During this heroic endeavor, Herwood received a
gunshot wound in his side. [15] With
Godfrey thus incapacitated, Lieutenant Eckerson took charge. Eckerson
turned the head of the column back to the rear, and the partly stunned
Godfrey ran after them. Seeing this, Moylan rode up, halted the
reversal, and on orders from Colonel Miles, directed Companies A and D
to dismount and face front, adjoining the right of the mounted Fifth
infantrymen who had arrived on the field. Together, the Fifth and the
two units of the Seventh now occupied a line perhaps two hundred yards
back from the edge of the bluff. [16] Miles
next commanded the two cavalry companies to connect with Hale's K, then
under intense fire from the warriors. Thus far, casualties among the two
units remained light, with only three soldiers killed and four wounded,
mainly, Moylan believed, because of the presence of a large depression
in the terrain some distance from the edge of the bluff and between the
Nez Perce warriors and the troops. This "protected them somewhat, the
Indians overshooting them." [17]
Company K, meanwhile, was sustaining severe losses
more than three hundred yards away on the right. There, Hale's men had
advanced in formation along a flat ridge descending toward the southeast
side of the Nez Perce position, only to find themselves isolated and
exposed to sharpshooters in gullies adjoining the bluff on the south who
now turned on them with telling effect. Hale ordered his men to dismount
and to move forward in skirmish formation, their shooting forcing the
Nez Perces from their position below the bluff embankment from which
they had fired on Companies A and D. In the exchange, Lieutenant Biddle
was one of the first casualties, killed by Nez Perce fire, according to
one witness, while in the act of kneeling to shoot. From this point, the
battle intensified, the warriors quickly circling through the swales and
gulches to flank the soldiers and drive off and capture their animals,
and when the troops approached the edge of the coulee, the fighting
became hand-to-hand.
But as the dismounted troopers of A and D drew nearer
in support, moving at double time, their horses advancing with the
holders, the warriors gradually withdrew, assuming a protective stance
behind ridges and in gullies between the soldiers and their village,
where many noncombatant family members now lay hidden. Hale took
advantage of the pause to pull back and reassemble his company, leaving
several dead and wounded on the ground in his front. Private Peter Allen
was among those hit:
While we were on our retreat I was wounded, one
bullet crushing my left arm from elbow to wrist, another passed through
my belt and clothing grazing the skin on my right side, and a third
bullet passing through my hat plowing a ferrow [sic] through my hair
across the top of my head, which rendered me unconscious for a short
time. After I realized my condition and the position I was in, being
about midway between the two lines of battle under cross firing, I gave
the comrade just in front of me a signal to cease firing while I crawled
over in rear of our line of battle, my over-coat having nine bullet
holes in it. Capt. Owen Hale . . . directed me to go to the Hospital.
[18]
Some injured soldiers struggled back to the line,
while others, unable to move, lay helplessly near the edge of the coulee
until caught and killed in the ensuing crossfire. Godfrey recalled that
"they were in the line of fire from both sides, and these bodies had
many shot wounds that were made after death." [19]
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