Chapter 4: Clearwater (continued)
In the meantime, warriors from the camp crossed the
South Fork and began a spirited approach through two large ravines
leading to the bluff tops along which Howard's troops marched. (These
ravines were opposite of and south from the village; they ran east on
either side of the feature today called Dizzy Head.) When shooting by
the Indians erupted behind and to the left of the column,
Howardanxious to join the battle after consecutive
debaclesfirst countermarched his men, then deployed them into line
to return fire on the warriors. Captain Miller placed his companies
"along the crest of a ravine to the right, to connect on the left with
the Infantry." [26] Wrote Second Lieutenant
Charles E. S. Wood, of the infantry: "It was a test caseall the
hostiles under Joseph against all the soldiers under Howard." [27] Back at the north, on orders to move to the
main body, Trimble's Company H, First Cavalry, which was as much as
one-half mile in front of the column, dismounted and, leading their
horses, turned back and encountered Captain George B. Rodney and Company
D, Fourth Artillery, who were escorting the pack train. [28] Placing the animals between the two units,
Trimble and Rodney passed through the depression at the head of the
ravine (present Stites Canyon) to gain the open plateau on which the
balance of the column was deploying into a rough semicircle, with the
curve facing the bluffs. As Trimble and Rodney extended their men into
the line, the pack animals proceeded several hundred yards to the rear
and center, where Howard established his headquarters and hospital and
where the other cavalry animals had been sent. One officer recalled that
the headquarters was built "with the aid of the Pack Saddles piled in a
circular manner, though the protection was very slight." [29]
The Nez Perces who confronted Howard's troops had
been taken by surprise. Many had been engaged in routine activities in
the camp. Some were racing ponies on the flat land along the river
bottom north of the village and others were swimming in the South Fork,
when the booming of the howitzer and the crash of the shells fragmenting
caught their attention. A scout came riding down the hill east of the
river and announced that the soldiers were surrounding the camp. Twenty
warriors grabbed their weapons and cartridge belts, then fell in behind
Toohoolhoolzote, the aged leader who Howard had jailed at Fort Lapwai.
Together, they raced upstream about one-half mile to a shallow ford,
then crossed and ascended the ravines to attack the troops and keep them
from approaching the camp. Tying their horses in the trees, the warriors
crept along the brow of the bluff, occupying several points between the
spring and the large draw up through which most of them passed. Armed
with an old muzzleloading rifle, Toohoolhoolzote crawled up the slope
and killed two soldiers, among the first to fall in the battle. Other
warriors piled loose stones into crude ramparts, then moved ahead, fired
at the troops, and fell back behind the barricades.
Because the troops had miscalculated the location of
the village, they had actually passed on toward Clear Creek before
discovering their error, and it took them time to reverse direction and
march back to the blufftop plateau, where they were when Toohoolhoolzote
attacked and caused them to assume their defensive line. While this
initiative held the soldiers in place, more warriorshaving moved
their families from dangernow swept into the large ravine and
gained the heights. Many of them followed the military leaders, Rainbow
and Ollokot. The total number of fighting men at the top at this time
probably did not exceed one hundred. [30]
"Battle of Clearwater. Howard, July 11-12" Inset drawing in Fletcher, "Department of Columbia Map"
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As the principal Nez Perce firing settled in the
large ravine below the blufftops on the south, Howard's men adjusted
their own position. Miller with two infantry companies, plus Company A
and part of Company E of the artillery, withdrew toward the sound of the
gunfire. The roughly skewed, crescent-shaped defensive perimeter of the
soldiers fluidly settled into place to meet the warriors. From its
southernmost extremity to its northernmost, the command deployed as
follows: Companies F and L, First Cavalry; artillery battalion; infantry
battalion; Companies E and H, First Cavalry. Before long, about
twenty-five warriors appeared on the south end of the perimeter,
galloping as if to flank the troops. Instantly divining their plan,
Major Edwin C. Mason of the Twenty-first InfantryHoward's chief of staff
who was supervising the placement of troopstook Burton's and
Second Lieutenant Edward S. Farrow's Companies C and E, emerged from the
line, and with Captain Winters's cavalry on their far right, moved ahead
"under a hail of fire" to disrupt the movement. Meanwhile, two civilian
packers and their laggardly pack mules loaded with howitzer ammunition
hove into sight from the south, hurrying to reach the command. When
within three hundred yards of the skirmish line, the warriors dashed in,
killed the two men, and moved off with three of the animals and their
baggage. [31] Fire from Perry's and
Whipple's cavalrymen helped dissuade the attackers, and soon Lieutenant
Wilkinson, aided by Rodney's company, arrived to escort the remaining
mules into the line. [32]
All this time, the gunfire from the edge of the
bluffsand especially from the Nez Perce position in the forested
gulch opposite Howard's leftcontinued to increase in volume, as
the warriors sent a barrage of bullets among the troops. "They gave it
to us hot," said one observer. Supplementing the soldiers' rifle and
carbine fire was that from the howitzers and Gatlings commanded by
Lieutenant Otis, for the moment still stationed at a pivotal site on the
bluff and capable of dominating both the village and the principal Nez
Perce position in the ravine. [33]
Eventually, one howitzer, then the other, was drawn up behind the left
of the line and nearly opposite this latter position. [34] Occasionally, the warriors attempted
assaults on this front. These charges were made "in regular daredevil
style, nothing sneaking about it," remembered Sergeant McCarthy. "They
were brave men, and faced a terrific fire of musketry, gatling [sic]
guns and howitzers." [35] One attack came
from a ravine opposite the right of the line in which a spring was
located. (This draw is presently called Anderson Creek Ravine.) Several
men of Company B of the infantry resisted this assault, during which
Private Edward Wykoff was killed and another man was wounded.
McCarthy recollected details of the warriors'
attacks:
The Indian battle formations were excellent. Commands
were mostly given by signals. A chief on some point out of range
directed the movement by waving a blanket or circling his pony. They
rode to the attack or in pursuit in small squads of 3 or 4. Each squad
seemed to be an independent unit. Their horses were gentle and when an
Indian wanted to shoot he rolled off the pony to the ground, took
deliberate aim and crawled on again, the pony remaining quiet and
patient during the firing. . . . I saw several of these squads go by.
They were singing, one of the bunch giving out the song, the others
joining in the chorus. . . . The leader, a medicine man, harangued the
warriors during the battle in a voice heard all over the field. [36]
©2000, Montana Historical Society Press, do not use without permission of publisher.
About midafternoon, the warriors opened an attack on
the left front of the army line. Captain Evan Miles led Companies B, D,
E, and H, of the infantry, and A and part of E, of the artillery, in a
spirited drive that cleared some of these tribesmen from the ravine. A
Civil War veteran of marked ability, Miles had served with the
Twenty-first since 1866. [37] Captain Marcus
P. Miller and the balance of the artillerymen supported Miles's
movement, in which Captain Eugene A. Bancroft, Company A of the
artillery, was shot through the lungs and Lieutenant Charles A. Williams
of the infantry through the wrist and thigh. [38] Miller described the action:
[I] saw that a party of Indians had attacked the part
of my line occupied by Battery "A," 4th Art'y, [and] that the left half
of the battery was slowly retreating. . . . I instantly rallied this
batterygave the order to cheer and charge. [I] directed that
[First] Lieut. [James A.] Haughey commanding the Infantry company next
on the right to do the same and with what other men I could get hold of
near them, all rushed upon the Indians, the Indians turning back and
running like whipped dogs. This cheer and charge was taken up all along
the lines and a general advance was made. The charge relieved
temporarily the attack on the lines about the Howitzersbut shortly
the Indians returned to attack these. [39]
A correspondent told of Miles's action:
The soldiers stood their ground manfully and held
their own. The artillery company came to their assistance on the double
quick. They dropped in the grass for a moment or so, and then, "up
guards and at 'em". . . . The Indians ran and a rousing cheer broke from
the whole line. The gatling [sic] gun and howitzers had already taken up
their positions, and on the stampede opened a splendid and rapid fire on
the enemy. [40]
Although the artillery pieces played on the Nez Perce
positions, the warriors managed to kill or wound four members of one
howitzer battery. Private William S. LeMay, the sole remaining
cannoneer, was ableby lying on his back between the wheelsto
load and fire the weapon and drive back the warriors. [41] So determined were the warriors that, at
one point, they practically enveloped the howitzer and Gatling. First
Lieutenant Charles F. Humphrey quickly gathered some men of Company E,
Fourth Artillery, and facing a blistering fire from the warriors, retook
the pieces, the soldiers having to haul them manually. Captain Miller
reported: "That party had to cross grounds seen to be exposed to severe
fire from the Indiansbut following the example of Lieut. Humphrey
the men went bravely on. Two of them were wounded in getting there." [42] But Humphrey's maneuver seemed to determine
the warriors in pressing their attack, and they continued their push
toward the battery. Many army casualties happened at this point. As one
observer reported:
So exposed were the soldiers, and so fast did the
killed and wounded fall, that the command "halt" was given before
reaching the enemy's line. In this charge was most of the loss sustained
by the troops. There were more men killed and wounded during twenty
minutes than were lost during the rest of the fight. [43]
The dead lay where they fell; wagons took the wounded
to the hospital, where the surgeons had raised an awning for their
comfort. The warrior Yellow Bull claimed that the warriors had planned
to capture some of the soldiers alive. One named Pahatush prepared to go
out. "Just as he was about to start, a volley was fired by the soldiers,
and the smoke was so thick that we could not see. Pahatush was shot in
the right hand as he held his gun, and the gun was broken." [44]
Soon afterward, forty-two-year-old Captain Miller led
another charge on the bluff to the immediate right of the ravine held by
the greatest number of the warriors. According to Miller,
Gen'l Howard ordered me with Capt [Stephen P.]
Jocelyn's Co. B, 21st Infantry, and Winters' troop of Cavalry on foot,
to take the ridge. . . . I tried that, but with only partial success and
temporary relief to the linebut sufficient time was given to allow
the men there to use their entrenching tools and gain some shelter. [45]
Miller's actions here and on the next day were
roundly hailed, and he emerged from the battle a genuine hero. Miller's
charge on the Nez Perce positions at Clearwater succeeded in
significantly advancing the army perimeter in that critical sector.
Correspondent Thomas Sutherland wrote:
The words . . . Miller used were these:"Men, get up
and go for them; if we don't do something they will kill us all." At
this every man in that part of the line sprang to his feet, and all made
one impetuous, irresistible charge, driving the Indians from their
barricades on the edge of the canyon down a steep bluff into the wooded
canyon below. . . . Some of the Indians did not leave their posts until
the soldiers were within twenty or thirty yards of them, all the time
keeping up a continuous fusillade of bullets. Strange to say, only one
man was shot during this charge; he was killed outright. [46]
Participating in this action were Companies B, C, H,
and I, of the infantry, along with Company E of the cavalry.
Simultaneously, on the right of the army position, Lieutenant Wilkinson
opened a lively demonstration with the remaining available men, while
the howitzers leveled a bombardment on the Nez Perces' position. The
firing from the right perhaps contributed to the recall of Miller's men
from their farthest advance, for it was soon discovered that his
soldiers were being fired upon from behind. Seeing what was happening,
Second Lieutenant Harry L. Bailey dashing out between the
linesshouted, "Cease firing[!] You are firing into your own
men[!]" After a few minutes, order was restored and Miller's troops
withdrew several paces back. [47] Bailey
recounted an incident that occurred as he scolded one of his men for
recklessly exposing himself. "'I tell you, Lieutenant, this is a
ticklish business.' I told him it would be more ticklish if he did not
keep his place. At that moment a rattlesnake reared up at his elbow, and
he forgot the bullets for a second!" [48]
Howard concluded the maneuver a success: "Miller's charge gained the
ridge [along the bluff top] in front and secured the disputed ravine
near Winters's left [present Anderson's Draw]. Further spasmodic charges
on the left by the enemy were repelled by Perry's and Whipple's cavalry,
dismounted, and Captain Arthur Morris's artillery, Company G." [49]
This bold attack by Miller's men succeeded in driving
many of the Nez Perces with Toohoolhoolzote away from the brow of the
hill. The warrior Yellow Wolf remembered the event. "Indians and
soldiers fightingalmost together. We could not count the soldiers.
There must have been hundreds. Bullets came thicker and thicker." [50] When the soldiers crested the brow, the
warriors dashed away through the trees, many leaving their ponies behind
as they moved down the ravine. They evidently returned after Miller's
troops pulled back from their farthest advance. Some of the warriors who
fought there were later identified as Wahlitits (Shore Crossing),
Sarpsisilppilp (Red Moccasin Top), Tipyahlana Kapskaps (Strong Eagle),
Pahkatos Owyeen (Five Wounds), and Witslahtahpalakin (Hair Cut Upward).
Yellow Wolf later joined a party in the area of the spring, the members
of which were engaged in a contest with the cavalrymen on the line.
Here, the tribesmen suffered their first battle losses when Wayakat
(Going Across) was shot and killed and Yoomtis Kunnin (Grizzly Bear
Blanket) received a fatal wound. Another man, Howallits (Mean Man),
incurred a slight wound. Here, too, Yellow Wolf was instructed to shoot
at officers rather than common soldiers. [51] (The Nez Perces continued to pursue this
unique tactic in subsequent engagements with the army.)
During the day, one of Howard's Nez Perce scouts
deserted the troops. He was Elaskolatat (Animal Entering a Hole), whose
father had been killed in the volunteers' fight at Cottonwood. At an
appropriate moment, the scout dashed his mount across the field and into
the Nez Perce lines, where "he threw off his citizen's clothes and
dressed as an Indian for battle." Later that day, while joining in a
horseback charge, the former scout received a gunshot wound. [52]
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