Chapter 2: Eruption and White Bird Canyon (continued)
The White Bird Canyon fight almost instantly became
the subject of controversy regarding the soldiers' performance and the
leadership exhibited by Captain Perry. In the weeks that followed,
General Howard sympathized with Perry's management of the battle, but
described it as a "rout . . . , a kind of Bull Run on a small scale."
[39] Sergeant McCarthy summarized the
deficiencies of the combat:
Many of the guns choked with broken shells, the guns
being rusty and foul. We were in no fit condition to go to White Bird on
the night of the 16th. We had been in the saddle nearly 24 hours and men
and horses were tired and in bad shape for a fight. To cap the matter,
we were marched into a deep cañon and to a country strange to us,
and familiar to the enemy. If there was any plan of attack, I never
heard of it. The troops were formed in line and about a third advanced
in squads and the remainder very soon afterwards retreated in column up
a ridge and out of the canon. The detached advanced squads, each acting
independently and extended over considerable ground, were attacked in
detail and scattered and scarcely any escaped out of the cañon. .
. . Many of these men could have been saved if the retreat of the main
column had not been so rapid. [40]
The Mount Idaho volunteers also came under criticism
for having largely evacuated their position at the first shooting. [41] The post-battle assessment would continue for
years, with most debate centering on Perry's leadership, the problem of
numerical inferiority when one-fourth of a cavalry command had to hold
horses, and the dearth of training that hurt the soldiers at White Bird
Canyon and further demoralized them afterwards. "The explanation . . .
is simply that the men had not been drilled, could not manage their
horses, and knew little of the use of their arms," wrote one critic. [42] Persistent criticism of Perry's performance,
principally at White Bird Canyon, but also at the later engagements at
Cottonwood and Clearwater, led to his request for courts of inquiry,
which themselves generated controversy but found Perry's conduct
acceptable under the circumstances. Despite this cloud, in later years
Perry and Parnell received brevet promotions for their service at White
Bird Canyon, and Theller won posthumous notice "for brave and soldierly
conduct" in the events resulting in his death. [43]
Three days after the debacle in White Bird Canyon,
Perry and his command, accompanied by a contingent of citizens,
reconnoitered out of Grangeville toward the battlefield, but went only
as far as the head of the canyon. No Indians were seen. The troops
rested at Henry C. Johnson's ranch, the place where they had stopped on
their retreat on the seventeenth, then passed back into Grangeville.
That evening, the first medical personnel arrived from Fort Lapwai.
General Howard had learned of Perry's debacle on the afternoon of June
17. One of the first reports came from two Company F soldiers, Corporal
Charles W. Fuller and Private John White, who had fled at the opening of
the battle, racing their mounts all the way back to Fort Lapwai with the
earliestthough erroneousnews of the defeat.
More accurate reports arrived soon after, [44] and since then, Howard had busily mobilized
reinforcements from throughout his department and the Department of
California. Besides four companies of cavalry and three of infantry
already available at Fort Lapwai and Lewiston, Howard could expect
auxiliaries in the form of six companies of cavalry, five batteries of
artillery (intended to function as infantry), and three companies of
infantry, for a total of about 960 men. In addition, he directed that
Major John W. Green's troops at Fort Boise march north to watch the area
of the Weiser Valley and keep tribesmen from that region from joining
the Nez Perces. And with divisional approval, Howard arranged for troops
to be sent from the East Coast.
Some of the department force was on hand and moving
out of Fort Lapwai by June 22, and when Howard departed the next day to
personally lead the campaign, his immediate command consisted of 227
regular soldiers of Companies E and L, First Cavalry; Companies B, D, E,
I, and H, Twenty-first Infantry; and Battery E, Fourth Artillery,
outfitted as infantrymen, plus a unit of volunteers from Walla Walla
under Captain Thomas Paige. Other troops were to follow two days
later.
Reaching Norton's Ranch at Cottonwood at 1:30 p.m. on
the twenty-third, Howard noted the rampant destruction at the place:
"There is the clothing cut and torn and strewn aboutthe broken chairs,
the open drawers, the mixing of flour, sugar, salt and rubbishthe
evidences of riot run mad." [45] On Sunday,
Howard sent instructions to Captain Trimble at Grangeville to proceed
with Company H to Slate Creek to assist the Salmon River settlers. [46]
On Monday, June 25, Howard and his cavalry visited
Grangeville and Mount Idaho, greeting wounded soldiers hospitalized in
the hotel and meeting citizens and inspecting their makeshift barricades
before moving on to Johnson's Ranch, where the infantry troops had
preceded him. Early the next morning, the command began a reconnaissance
into White Bird Canyon, cautiously entering the defile leading toward
the Salmon with skirmishers advanced. On the battle site, the troopers
stood over their dead comrades in the hills and ravines and dug their
graves, a horrid, detested job that filled them with anguish. Many
corpses had grown disfigured and decomposed over the nine days of
exposure since the combat. "One body of a cavalry soldier gave us some
anxious moments," wrote an officer, "for it was thrust so hard into a
small hawthorn tree, in the full and life-like position of firing that
we did not approach without guns cocked." [47]
Late in the afternoon, in the midst of a driving thunderstorm, the men
found Lieutenant Theller's remains lying where he and his small force
had been entrapped. The body was wrapped and carefully interred where it
lay. [48]
While the burials were taking place, Howard, Perry,
and Captain Paige, reconnoitering the Nez Perces, saw the warriors
across the river intently watching the troops. They had crossed at
Horseshoe Bend and established their camp on Deer Creek. Underestimating
the tribesmen's ability to negotiate both the rugged topography and
rivers, the general sent word to McDowell that "the longer . . . Joseph
delays with his women, children and abundant stock of horses and cattle
between the Salmon and the Snake, the more certain he is shut in when
Major Green presses up the Weiser and Boise trails." [49] Believing that the Nez Perces intended to keep
his troops from fording, Howard planned to station a hundred
sharpshooters on a ridge across from the mouth of Canyon Creek, while
his other troops engaged the warriors from the front. To this end, he
sent a note to Trimble at Slate Creek: "Be prepared to follow up a
success from us by intercepting and obstructing trails toward Little
Salmon." [50] But on the twenty-seventh,
following a brief and ineffective exchange of fire with the tribesmen,
the command made preparations to cross the raging stream one and
one-half miles above the mouth of White Bird Creek. [51] When Howard raised the American flag at his
headquarters, the Nez Perces simultaneously raised a red blanket and
called for the troops to cross the river and fight. And as the troops
tried to get a rope across the stream to begin ferrying themselves over,
the warriors continued their baiting, waving blankets and taunting the
men to come after them. [52] That evening,
Howard's command bivouacked near the White Bird crossing. Despite the
strain of dealing with Perry's dead, the men seemed relaxed. As
Lieutenant Charles E. S. Wood observed:
Campsinging along, telling [stories], and
swearingprofanity, carelessness. Accepting thingshorrible at
other timesas a matter of course, such as mutilated corpses and
death in ghastly forms, strewn on every side. Again there is the
necessary leaving of last messages for sweethearts, mothers, and wives,
telling of jokes about being killed, about not looking for "my body,"
&c. Firing expected tomorrow. The nerve it takes to face the
probabilities by writing these last letters and leaving mementoes for
loved ones is wonderful,and one feels demoralized by such acts as
these. [53]
On the twenty-eighth, after a delay that he
considered unwarranted, still more reinforcements reached Howard,
consisting of batteries A, D, G, and M, Fourth Artillery (serving as
infantrymen), and Company C, Twenty-first Infantry, boosting the command
to almost four hundred men. That afternoon, the general noted, the
"Indians charged to the river, a brisk skirmish ensued, after which they
left the valley for the heights beyond." [54] The next day, June 29, Howard ordered his
train back to Fort Lapwai for supplies; Captain Perry commanded the
escort of Company F, First Cavalry, and Paige's Washington volunteers.
During the day, two small volunteer units arrived from Lewiston and
Dayton, Washington Territory, commanded, respectively, by Captains
Edward McConville and George Hunter. McConville's troops were sent
forward to Slate Creek to support Captain Trimble's command. [55] That evening, after his men had secured a
rope across the Salmon, Howard received word that Looking Glass,
heretofore reported to have refrained from openly supporting the people
with Joseph and White Bird, was doing precisely that and, moreover, was
threatening to join in the conflict. To keep that from happening, Howard
sent a force under Captain Stephen G. Whipple to "surprise and capture
this chief and all that belonged to him." [56]
Certainly the Nez Perces' defeat of Perry's command
must have created a powerful incentive for Looking Glass to explore the
option of joining the others. Similarly, the Battle of White Bird Canyon
created an inducement for the tribesmen of White Bird, Joseph, and
Toohoolhoolzote to continue the fight and perhaps raised false hopes
among them as to the eventual outcome. For the army, the battle produced
a healthy respect for the fighting abilities of the Nez Perces. It
showed that the people couldand wouldfight to protect their
interests and could deliver a blow swiftly and with stunning accuracy.
The troops learned that the warriors were better riders than themselves
and expertly adept marksmen capable of inflicting severe casualties in
the ranks. Individualistic in their mode of warfare, the Nez Perces used
their innate abilities to foil their tormentors and turn them back while
operating within the parameters of their group objectives. They employed
their ammunition economically and did not foolishly attempt to fire from
horseback, as had the soldiers. Their well-trained ponies stood calmly
during the tumult while the army mounts panicked and pulled their
holders about. If there was any consolation for General Howard in the
wake of the White Bird Canyon debacle, it lay in the knowledge that more
soldiers were at hand and that the army's resources were renewable
whereas the tribesmen's were not. But Howard would learn that
irrepressible spirits were sufficient for the course.
Looking Glass, leader of the Alpowai band of Nee-Me-Poo, as
photographed by William Henry Jackson in 1871. Captain Stephen Whipple's
assault on Looking Glass's village on July 1, 1877, effectually drove
that chief to support. National Anthropological
Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
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