Chapter 9: Canyon Creek (continued)
Within hours of the close of the encounter, Sturgis
dashed off a note to be telegraphed to his superiors: "We have just had
a hard fight with the Nez Perces lasting nearly all day. We killed and
wounded a good many & captured several hundred head of stock.
Reports not yet in and cannot give our loss but it is [a] considerable
number killed & a good many wounded." [69] In fact, Sturgis's casualties in the Canyon
Creek fighting totaled three enlisted men killed and an officer (Captain
Thomas H. French) and eight men wounded, one of whom died later while
being transported down the Yellowstone. Wilkinson's Company L, which was
in the forefront in opening the action, sustained the heaviest losses,
with two men killed and two wounded. The dead on the field were Private
Edgar Archer (who actually survived until the fourteenth) and Private
Nathan T. Brown, Company L, and Private Frank T. Goslin, of Company M.
[70] (Brown served as acting sergeant major
with Benteen's battalion.) That evening the soldiers buried Brown and
Goslin in a trench. A witness said that the men "were literally shot to
pieces, but no time was taken or effort expended in fixing or cleaning
them up in any manner, but they were put into the trench with spurs,
belts or other wearing apparel upon them." An officer conducted a
service and a shot was fired over the graves. [71]
Contemporary media views of the Canyon Creek engagement as they
appeared in Harper's Weekly, October 27, 1877
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During the fighting at Canyon Creek, several
episodes of a personal nature occurred regarding the soldiers. In one, a
mixed-blood Bannock with Fisher went into the fray sporting "a bright
scarlet Indian war-dress, topped out with an eagle-feathered
war-bonnet." Although the scout, Charley Rainey, warned the soldiers not
to shoot at him, apparently not all got the word. As Rainey and another
scout, Baptiste Ouvrier, huddled among the sage cleaning their weapons
after the fighting was well under way, a company of passing troopers
spied them and, thinking them Nez Perces, leveled a volley their way,
"cutting the feathers out of Charley's bonnet, shooting several holes
through their clothing and tearing up the brush and dirt on all sides of
them." [72] In another instance, Private
James W. Butler of Company F was left behind in Merrill's initial
advance because his mount was too fatigued to continue. Butler "followed
rapidly on foot until he captured a pony, which he mounted bareback and
galloped forward to the skirmish line, where he behaved gallantly during
the fight." [73] The various scouts, both of
Sturgis's and Howard's commands (evidently not constrained by the
military discipline of the proceedings), ranged about"bushwhacked
around," said Redingtonduring the fighting and got involved in
several small-scale skirmishes with the warriors. Redington was
incredulous over one of these, in which a dozen or so scouts atop a
knoll drew the warriors' attention:
A shower of hostile bullets went slap-bang right
among and through them, zipping and pinging and spitting up little dabs
of dust under their horses' feet, and before and behind them. Logically,
every one of those scouts was scheduled to get shot. And yet neither man
nor horse was hit. Why? Don't know! . . . Must have been thirteen
guardian angels watching over each scout and diverting bullets by inches
and half-inches. [74]
Later, while joining his colleagues in a flank attack
on a Nez Perce position, Redington received a wound in the knee. "One of
my fellow Boy Scouts took his mouthful of tobacco and slapped it onto
the wound, making it stay put with a strip of his shirt. It smarted
some, but caused hurry-up healing, and the few days' stiffness did not
hinder horse-riding." [75] Redington further
remembered the aftermath of the battle, when "we had to cut steaks from
the horses and mules shot during the day. The meat was tough and
stringy, for the poor animals had been ridden and packed for months,
with only what grass they could pick up at night. But it was all the
food we had." [76]
Trooper Jacob Horner recollected the lack of food and
water during the day-long fight, and the suffering of the wounded
soldiers afterwards, many of whom, over objections of medical personnel,
drank stagnant alkali water collected from buffalo wallows to relieve
their thirst. Horner also recalled Colonel Sturgis's tendency to spit
tobacco "in every direction. The other officers moved away to avoid
him." [77] On one occasion, Horner acted as
a messenger for Sturgis:
Sturgis noticed that the troops, who were dismounted
and firing on their bellies, were removed too far from their horses. He
turned to me and ordered me to deliver a verbal message to Major Lewis
Merrill to bring the horses closer. . . . I mounted and headed for the
puffs of smoke. When I got into the center of action I suddenly had a
strange feeling. I saw that I was the only mounted trooper in sight.
What I had to do, had to be done quickly. The bullets were whining over
the field. I spurred on to where I thought I might find the major.
Suddenly I recognized him in the grass. The sun sparkled on his glasses.
I knew it was him. I yelled the order and he acknowledged it with a
grunt. I lost no time in wheeling my horse around and heading for
headquarters. I escaped being hit. [78]
Horner recalled watching Sturgis when a man was
brought to the headquarters area with a severely wounded heel. He saw
the colonel wince at the sight of the injured youth, possibly reminded
of the loss of his son with Custer the previous year. Horner watched as
a buddy was brought in with a badly wounded arm requiring removal. "He
asked me if I wanted to watch the amputation. I told him I would rather
not." [79]
Most of the personal accounts agree that Benteen
displayed great coolness and bravery in the Canyon Creek combat. One
stated that after his surrender Joseph asked to see the officer who rode
the buckskin horse at Canyon Creek and whom the warriors had tried
repeatedly but unsuccessfully to shoot. He was described as having a
"trout rod in his hand and a pipe in his mouth." It was Benteen. And
although the accounts of Goldin and others are quick to condemn
Sturgis's management of the engagement (some stated that he was afraid
because of what had happened to the regiment at the Little Bighorn),
most such judgments are without foundation. Even though Sturgis failed
to finally deter the tribesmen at Canyon Creek, Private Horner
remembered the colonel as genial, energetic, and cool in battle, and
said that he was highly regarded by his soldiers. [80] From all indications, too, some Seventh
Cavalry soldiers showed certain compassion for the Nez Perces in their
struggle, perhaps because they had but recently joined in the campaign
against them as opposed to Howard's men who had been in the field since
June. The men of the Seventh had been reading of their plight in the
newspapers for most of the summer, and Goldin not only confessed that
"our sympathies were with the Indians," but noted admiringly that "the
resourcefulness of those Indians was the cause of much talk among our
men." He added that "we felt they had received more than the traditional
Double Cross. We fought them, of course, but our hearts were not in it
as in the case of the Siouz [sic], Cheyennes and Apaches." [81] Similarly, Trooper William C. Slaper of
Company M recalled thinking that "the Nez Perces were a good people and
very much abused by our pin-head Government officials." [82] Even those who had been on the trail now
for months grudgingly admitted respect for their cause. Wrote Dr.
FitzGerald of Howard's command, who had accompanied Sturgis to Canyon
Creek: "Poor Nez Perces! . . . I am actually beginning to admire their
bravery and endurance in the face of so many well-equipped enemies." [83]
Most of the Nez Perce accounts of the fighting at
Canyon Creek, which they called Tepahlewam Wakuspah (Place Similar to
the Split Rocks at Tolo Lake), [84] suggest
that the immediate appearance of the troops was unforeseen, and that
perhaps the warriors were so engrossed in their foraging activities down
the Yellowstone on the morning of the thirteenth that they failed to
keep scouts posted on the back trail. It is likely that had the Nez
Perces not already been packed and on the move, Sturgis's attack would
have had devastating results for them. Yellow Wolf indicated that only
as the village packed up did he receive knowledge of the troops'
advance. "I saw soldiers near, and across the valley from us. The
traveling camp had nearly been surprised. Soldiers afoothundreds
of them. I whipped my horse to his best, getting away from that danger."
[85] As the families and horses began
entering the mouth of the canyon, Yellow Wolf briefly joined the
warrior, Teeto Hoonnod, who singlehandedly kept part of the troops at
bay. This prominent man warned Yellow Wolf to get away, as he was
drawing fire, and Yellow Wolf proceeded to withdraw and join the
warriors guarding the families as they filed into the canyon. He saw
what apparently was Benteen's movement to cut off the horses,
interpreting it as a drive to capture the noncombatants. "They tried to
get the women and children. But some of the warriors, not many, were too
quick. Firing from a bluff, they killed and crippled a few of them,
turning them back." [86] Referring to the
climbing of Horse Cache Butte by some of Sturgis's troops late in the
fighting, Yellow Wolf noted that these soldiers killed two horses and
wounded a man named Silooyelam "in the left ankle." Two other Nee-Me-Poo
casualties at Canyon Creek were Eeahlokoon, hit in the right leg, and
Animal Entering a Hole, wounded in the left hip and thigh by a single
bullet. Although Sturgis claimed that sixteen Indians were killed at
Canyon Creek, the sole fatality acknowledged by the Nez Perces in the
engagement was Tookleiks (Fish Trap), an elderly man who was trying to
retrieve one of his horses when he was shot by the Crows. [87] The warrior Teeto Hoonnod stayed in
position at the mouth of the canyon, performing a rearguard function
until the tribal assemblage had gotten safely inside its walls. [88] After the battle, as the troops withdrew
and went into camp near the mouth of the canyon, the Nez Perces bore
left up the main branch of Canyon Creek. Yellow Wolf and others raised a
barricade in the upper reaches to impede further pursuit. [89] "It was after dark when we reached camp.
Staking our horses, we had supper, then lay down to sleep." [90]
Other than that of Yellow Wolf, few Nee-Me-Poo
accounts described the combat at Canyon Creek, noting only that a
confrontation occurred. Several, however, observed its significance for
the people, primarily in that although the women and children and most
of the livestock managed to escape, "we lost a large part of our herd of
horses. This loss was a serious blow to us." The misfortune of losing
the ponies at Canyon Creek (most of them appropriated by the Crows),
with further such losses the next day, ultimately meant that the
remaining animals had to compensate, and probably slowed the rate of
march after that to an extent that it facilitated the army's effort to
stop the Nez Perces. As Yellow Bull stated, "At Canyon Creek fight we
lost many horses, and this crippled our transportation, making it hard
work for us to get along." [91] Just as
important, the loss of the animalspossibly coupled with the onset
of a perceived deficiency in the amount of their available
ammunitionseems to have contributed to growing dissension and
outright quarreling among the people, [92]
doubtless aggravated by the knowledge of the Crows' betrayal in direct
opposition to what Looking Glass had predicted. [93] These factors, added to the real likelihood
that the people were becoming physically exhausted from their
three-months-long ordeal, constituted but part of the significance of
Canyon Creek. Of greater magnitude, based on the perspective of
later-unfolding events, was the critical loss of a full day's travel by
the Nez Perces as the engagement with Sturgis occupied and thus delayed
their progress. Although Sturgis failed to win a solid victory and stop
the Indians and end the war, his action so thwarted them materially,
physically, and psychologically that its significance, although perhaps
not recognized at the time, became compelling in view of what happened
to the tribesmen over the ensuing three weeks, and how, in turn, it
affected their final defeat by the army.
The wounded of Sturgis's command suffered desperately
from thirst on the days following the fighting. The colonel and his men
departed on the trail on September 14, leaving them to the attention of
appropriate medical personnel until the arrival of Howard's column and
requisite transportation. First Lieutenant Charles A. Varnum, regimental
quartermaster officer, then escorted the wounded forty miles down the
north bank of the Yellowstone to Pompey's Pillar, where on the
eighteenth a wide-bottomed mackinaw was engaged to carry them on to the
Tongue River Cantonment. On the march from Canyon Creek, Varnum's
procession encountered the famous Martha Jane ("Calamity Jane") Cannary,
who reportedly had lived in a dugout near Horse Cache Butte on the
battlefield and who had experienced a brief run-in with the Nez Perces
near the Yellowstone. She now agreed to accompany the injured downriver
as a nurse. Later on the eighteenth, at Terry's Landing, opposite the
mouth of the Bighorn River, the boat halted while the body of Private
James Lawler of Company G, who had died that day, was removed for
burial. The remaining seven wounded reached Tongue River four days later
where they were hospitalized. [94]
Virtually every officer who appeared on the field at
Canyon Creek on September 13, 1877, received belated recognition for
"gallant service in action" in the engagement when in 1890 Congress
permitted the retroactive award of brevets by the War Department. By
then, many of them were retired or deceased. Assistant Surgeons Jenkins
A. FitzGerald (died in 1879) and Valery Havard were cited "for repeated
exposure to the fire of the enemy in their humane efforts to extricate
and take care of the wounded." Thirty enlisted participants likewise
received citations for their efforts at Canyon Creek. [95]
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