Back at Mount Idaho by midnight, Whipple met Captain Lawrence S. Babbitt of Howard's staff with orders to proceed to Norton's Ranch at Cottonwood. Early on July 2, with the two Gatling guns in tow, the troops rode down the road to Cottonwood, there to await Perry's arrival from Fort Lapwai with supplies and to intercept the Nez Perces if they passed that way. Since crossing the Salmon, Howard had learned that the tribesmen were attempting to ford near Rocky Canyon, and from his headquarters, he notified Whipple that, if Perry did not arrive, to "leave no stone unturned to ascertain for me where the Indians are heading, and report to me as often as you can. I expect of the cavalry tremendous vigor and activity even if it should kill a few horses." [27] Howard later maintained that "the object of this movement was to meet the enemy and hold him in check should he anywhere attempt to recross the Salmon and turn upon my communications." [28]

"Cottonwood House—two days fight—Whipple and Perry—July 5th" Inset drawing in Fletcher, "Department of Columbia Map"

In 1877, Norton's, or Cottonwood, Ranch was the only major structural complex at Cottonwood. Situated in a sheltered gulch bordering the south side of Cottonwood Creek, which emptied into the South Fork of the Clearwater River about twenty miles east, the ranch straddled both sides of the Lewiston-Mount Idaho Road, with the house or hotel proper on the south side. In 1862 a man named Allen had built the way-station with logs from a cottonwood grove that lined the bottom. It consisted of a store, saloon, hotel, and stage station. After a year, two individuals, Wheeler and Toothacher, bought the property, and in 1864 John Byrom acquired it. Later, two other men, Joseph Moore and Peter H. Ready (a Mount Idaho volunteer in 1877), owned the ranch before selling it to Benjamin Norton, who operated it at the time of the outbreak. [29] Besides the hotel building proper, the ranch included barns, stables, and horse corrals. When Captain Whipple's Companies E and L, First Cavalry, arrived on July 2, the Norton property, unharmed by the warriors following its abandonment on the night of June 14, began service as a command headquarters, a use that would cause it much injury. [30]

Cottonwood stood on the western edge of the Camas Prairie. West of Norton's Ranch, the road to Lewiston gradually climbed over undulating ground punctuated by ravines and gorges of tributaries feeding south into Cottonwood Creek. The open terrain changed to light forest cover as the road crept up the east slope of Craig's Mountain, a hilly divide stretching roughly northeast-to-southwest, its crest approaching forty-five hundred feet altitude, or a thousand feet higher than at Norton's, about two and one-half miles east. The path of the road leading from Norton's made the distance longer, but kept generally to high ground before passing through a gentle saddle, followed then by a steep rise toward the crest of the divide.

After deploying his force at the ranch and throwing up defensive entrenchments, Captain Whipple—following Howard's instructions—sent two scouts, William Foster and Charles Blewett, out on the morning of July 3 to range south of Cottonwood looking for signs of the Nez Perces. The scouts traveled west on the Lewiston Road, or "stage road," to the point where it crossed Boardhouse Creek, then veered left on the Salmon River trail toward Lawyer's Canyon. [31] Meantime, the body of Nez Perces, with their livestock, had forded the Salmon and headed for Camas Prairie, intending to cross to a familiar camping ground at the mouth of Cottonwood Creek on the South Fork of the Clearwater. They, too, had sent out scouts from their village, and at a point about ten miles from Cottonwood, near Lawyer's Canyon leading to the Salmon, Foster and Blewett sighted tribesmen and started back to report their discovery. En route, at least one warrior shot at the scouts, who fired back. As Foster and Blewett retreated, Blewett's horse suddenly stumbled, throwing its rider and leaving Foster to press on alone and gain Cottonwood. [32] On Foster's arrival, Captain Babbitt, who had gone to Norton's with Whipple, immediately dispatched the information to Howard via Mount Idaho:

Cottonwood, 4 p.m. (Tuesday)

One of our scouts just in reports seeing twelve or more Indians from here toward Salmon river. On returning he was fired upon by a single Indian and he and the other scout returned the shots. In some way one scout was dismounted and took to the brush and the other was obliged to leave him. These Indians were coming from the direction of Salmon river on the trail leading toward Kamai [Kamiah] and crossing the road passing the place about eight miles from here. The whole command starts in a few moments and may bag the outfit unless the whole of Joseph's force is present.

Babbitt commanding. [33]

As the trumpeter sounded "Boots and Saddles," Whipple ordered ammunition distributed and otherwise readied his cavalrymen for action, planning to move in the direction that the warriors had been sighted. He ordered Lieutenant Rains of Company L, adjutant for the command, to take ten men and go out as the advance guard, reconnoiter the Nez Perces' position, and try to find and help Blewett. In his report to Howard, Whipple said that "I particularly cautioned Lt. Rains not to precede the command too far, to keep on high ground, and to report at the first sign of the Indians." [34]

©2000, Montana Historical Society Press, do not use without permission of publisher.

Rains immediately called for volunteers, got together five men each from Companies E and L, [35] and with Foster leading the way, started at 6:00 p.m. along the road winding up over the ridges west of Norton's Ranch. Second Lieutenant Sevier McClellan Rains was twenty-five years old, a Georgian (though born in Michigan) from a distinguished family. His father, Gabriel J. Rains, graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1827, served in the Seminole campaigns in Florida and in the War with Mexico, and rose to become a brigadier general in the Confederate army. Oddly enough, the elder Rains had served in the Northwest in the 1850s, had commanded the guard of soldiers attending the Walla Walla councils in 1855, and had taken an active part in the multitribal wars that followed. [36] Young Rains, who graduated on the eve of the military disaster at the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory in June 1876, had at the news applied for a commission in the Seventh Cavalry, but accepted one in the First Regiment, his original choice. [37] With his advance guard of ten men, plus Scout Foster, Rains moved rapidly, putting distance between his men and Whipple's main command. Up the winding road and along the ridge that diverged from Cottonwood Creek, Rains led his party. Two miles northwest of Norton's Ranch they descended into a broad saddle, then began moving up the slope of Craig's Mountain. To their left rear, and extending south from the saddle, ran a broad coulee leading down to the creek.

Unseen by the lieutenant and his men, Nez Perce warriors, having observed the advance, moved into the creek bottom and toward the coulee. After the party passed through the saddle and started up the divide, the warriors raced out of the coulee in their rear, effectively cutting off their retreat toward Cottonwood and charging the soldiers. Rains's men hurriedly took cover among some large boulders south of the road, probably expecting Whipple momentarily to appear and counter the Indians. But Whipple did not come forward. Scout Foster galloped his horse away to the north, but warriors pursued and killed him in the open. They surrounded Rains and his band and killed them all, evidently after a stout defense by the soldiers. From the dearth of evidence, it is difficult to conclude what, if any, tactical deployment occurred. When the bodies of the soldiers were found among many expended cartridge cases, most had been shot in the head, leading some to conclude that they had exhausted their ammunition before the warriors rushed their position and wiped them out. [38]

Whipple, meanwhile, galloped his seventy troopers ahead when the shooting started, but halted them on the eastward brim of the saddle one-half mile away. There the men of Companies E and L listened and waited until the firing died away. Again they advanced, this time as skirmishers, until they sighted approximately a hundred warriors in their front who sent scattered shots at them. [39] After two hours spent "menacing each other," Whipple's men turned around, formed a square enclosing the horses, and at dusk fell back to Norton's, where the captain composed a dispatch for General Howard:

Cottonwood, 10:30 a.m. [p.m.] (Tuesday)

Joseph with his entire force is in our front. We moved out at 6 a.m. [p.m.] to look after the Indians reported. Rains, with ten men moved on ahead about two miles. We heard firing at the foot of the long hill back of Cottonwood, and mounting a slight elevation saw a large force of Indians occupying a strong position in the timber covering the road. Nothing could be seen of Rains and his party and we fear they have been slaughtered. We moved up close enough to see we were greatly outnumbered by enemies strongly posted. Night was approaching and after a consultation of all the officers it was decided to return to this place and hold it until Perry . . . should arrive. There was no diversity of opinion in this case, and there is no doubt that the entire command would have been sacrificed in an attack. We shall make every effort to communicate with Perry to-night and keep him out of any trap. [40]

The withdrawal from in front of the Nez Perces occasioned much grumbling in the ranks because Whipple had neither attacked the warriors nor sought to learn Rains's lot. A report out of Mount Idaho complained that "Brave Rains and his followers were left to their fate, and Whipple with his command retreated (without firing a shot) to Cottonwood." [41] During the night, Whipple dispatched two men to go through to Perry. They became lost and later returned—apparently having unknowingly passed by Rains's dead command. Later, a friendly Indian brought word of the approach of the pack train from Fort Lapwai. With the loss of Rains's party, the captain had but seventy men available. Nonetheless, fearing that the Nez Perces would attack Perry, Whipple led his troops out at dawn on July 4, deployed in double skirmish lines. Passing west of Cottonwood, they found the remains of the advance guard, leaving them by the road as they urgently pressed ahead. Once, spotting a lone horse on a hill to the right, Whipple feared it might be a decoy for an ambush and kept the soldiers moving. Eight miles out they joined the train, seventy-five loaded mules guarded by twenty-nine men of Company F, then turned back to Cottonwood. [42] At the site of Rains's defeat, the cavalrymen attempted to bury the dead, but Nez Perce marksmen hidden among the boulders and trees of Craig's Mountain opened fire on them, and the effort was, for the moment, abandoned as the troops withdrew back to the fortified ranch complex at noon. [43]

Because no soldier with Lieutenant Rains survived the encounter with the Nez Perces, the Indians' accounts of the episode alone describe what happened before and after the party advanced beyond the saddle. A warrior named Seeyakoon Ilppilp (Red Spy) had killed Charles Blewett in the encounter where Foster escaped to Cottonwood. Several warriors followed to look for soldiers, finally sighting their bivouac and the surrounding earthworks at Norton's Ranch. When notified of the discovery, a larger group of warriors moved forward led by the prominent military men, Five Wounds and Rainbow. They discovered Rains's advance guard moving on the road and attacked from front and rear. The soldiers whipped their horses to flee, but all fell within minutes. The warrior Two Moon remembered that "the rocks where some of them took shelter did not save them from the bullets sent against them. Their horses, guns, and ammunition we took." [44] Another warrior, Yellow Wolf, interviewed in 1908 and again in 1930, described how a Nez Perce man decoyed Rains and his men forward while the remaining warriors circled and came in from the rear. As the command was wiped out, one soldier, his face bloodied from a wound in the head, survived repeated attempts by the Nez Perces to kill him, but finally succumbed to his multiple injuries. No warriors died in the attack on the Rains group. [45]

Kawownonilpilp's recounting supports these accounts:

Instead of making a charge down on the tents [at Norton's], the warriors turned and went after this artillery company [sic]. I was the one who had seen these soldiers first. As we chased them, two soldiers got off their horses. These men were killed, and we went right over them, not knowing who killed them. We kept on after the remaining soldiers, whose way was blocked by the ten men [warriors] on the hill. . . . We began moving up from behind, and then made a charge. No soldier was left alive. All in that squad were killed. [46]

Yet another Nee-Me-Poo stated that Looking Glass, having joined the others following Whipple's attack, led the assault against Rains:

The Indians cut them off from Cottonwood, as the soldiers instead of endeavoring to return to that place veered off in another direction, apparently determined to take chances on their horses. Before reaching a high ridge four of the soldiers dismounted and fought bravely. The four who dismounted were all killed by one Indian, a noted warrior named Wat-zam-yas. The other seven were overtaken on the ridge. . . . White Bird says the soldiers at Cottonwood could have saved this party if they had been brave enough, but they did not even start out from their camp. [47]

Yellow Wolf, however, was adamant that Looking Glass did not join the main body of tribesmen until they reached the mouth of Cottonwood Creek on the Clearwater. Logistically, following Looking Glass's recent loss via Whipple's attack, Yellow Wolf's assessment seems appropriate. In 1957, one of the surviving Mount Idaho volunteers named Elmer Adkinson stated that in about 1935 an aged Nez Perce named Johnson Boyd claimed that he had killed Lieutenant Rains. [48]