Joseph had vowed to his father to defend his homeland, but he also saw the situation with General Howard realistically. Not complying with Howard’s order would likely mean war, and war would mean many Nez Perce deaths, including those of women and children, all of whom Joseph felt a solemn responsibility to protect. In short, he faced two choices that involved his most
Important obligations, yet he saw no way to meet one of the obligations without failing in the other. Consequently, he chose the one that involved protecting the living.
Meeting the 30-day deadline, however, could not be done efficiently. Most of the cattle were lost in hurried attempts to cross the Snake River. Rather than lose the rest crossing the Salmon River, Joseph left the cattle with the intention of returning later to butcher them. Complicating the arduous trek for Joseph personally was that Springtime, his wife, was in the final stage of pregnancy.
Joseph left his band in the Camas Prairie southeast of Fort Lapwai and returned with his men to butcher as many of the cattle as they could manage. Upon returning to his camp after accomplishing that task, he learned that some young men had turned to violence. Wahlitits, a member of White Bird’s band, had engaged in a minor altercation with Yellow Grizzly Bear after accidentally damaging some kouse roots that Yellow Grizzly Bear’s wife was drying. Told that he should avenge the killer of his father, Eagle Robe, rather than interfering with a woman’s hard work, Wahlitits (who had surely been longing for justice for his father anyway) took off with two cousins to locate the object of his anger, Lawrence Ott. They missed Ott but found a retired sailor named Richard Devine and killed him. Other attacks on settlers followed, and soon Joseph and the rest of the Nez Perce leaders realized that they were enmeshed in a war that few of their people wanted.
Battle of White Bird Canyon
Most of the Nez Perce moved to White Bird Canyon near the Salmon River southeast of Lapwai, which they believed could be defended effectively if the soldiers attacked. Looking Glass, however, took his band back to his village along the Clearwater River, north of Fort Lapwai. The Nez Perce at White Bird Canyon were led by Joseph, White Bird, and Toohoolhoolzote; Hahtalekin and Husis Kute led two bands of Palouse from southeastern Washington.
Howard dispatched Companies F and H of the First Cavalry, totaling 103 men, under Captain David Perry to end the crisis, either by negotiation or force. Later, 11 settlers joined Perry as guides. When Perry arrived at White Bird Canyon on June 17, 6 warriors rode out under a white flag of truce to meet them. One of the settlers opened fire, and the battle was on.
The Indians were reasonably well armed with an assortment of repeating and muzzle-loading rifles, muskets, pistols, and bows and arrows. At the first shots, Captain Perry brought both companies forward, with the volunteers forming the left flank, leaving no men in reserve. The defenders shot from the front, rear, and left, shooting the bugler and aiming for officers in an attempt to disrupt the chain of command. The cavalry tried to retreat, but the effort at times dissolved into panicked disorder, with the battle quickly turning into a rout. Thirty-four soldiers, were killed, including Lieutenant Edward Theller, Perry’s subordinate officer in Company F, which Perry personally led.
Joseph was not the leader of this battle, nor did he serve as a war leader in later engagements with the army. He did participate in the fighting, undoubtedly concerned as he did so about the welfare of his newly born daughter.
After their victory, the Nez Perce leaders decided to cross back over the Salmon River in an effort to lure Howard’s forces across the river as well. The bands would then move north, recross, and hurry eastward where they hoped to meet up with the Flatheads, with whom the Nez Perce had long been friendly and whom they saw as likely allies. A rearguard would delay the troops’ crossing to give the rest time to push far ahead of Howard. For four days, Howard attempted to cross to the west bank of the river, but each time faced fire from the warriors who had been left behind. Once he was able to cross and discovered the stratagem, he had to recross yet again.
As the Indians moved east, Joseph, helped by White Bird, exercised the role that he would maintain over the long journey that was starting: watching over the people and organizing the logistics of the journey, such as setting up and dismantling camp.
Looking Glass's Return
Looking Glass’s men had played no part in the outbreak of violence, and he had no wish to fight the soldiers. Even so, Howard feared that Looking Glass might move to join Joseph. He sent two companies (E and L) along with 20 civilian volunteers to ensure that his people not become part of the fighting. Howard further ordered his commander, Captain Stephen Whipple, to arrest Looking Glass.
Looking Glass had every intention of avoiding war. Thus, when the soldiers arrived on July 1, 1877, he hoisted a white flag and sent a messenger out to meet them. According to one account, Whipple and a small group of his men rode toward the village demanding to see Looking Glass, but as they approached someone fired and hit a villager. The soldiers rode into the village shooting as the villagers fled. They trampled gardens, set fire to tipis, and engaged in wanton looting and destruction. The result was precisely the opposite of what Howard wanted: Two days later, Looking Glass rode into the nontreaty Indians’ camp and declared that he was ready for war.
Battle at Clearwater River
Howard continued his pursuit of the main body of nontreaty Nez Perce. A battalion of volunteers under Colonel Edward McConville caught up with them on July 8 along the south fork of the Clearwater River. In the previous days, there had been short but deadly encounters between the two sides. Along Cottonwood Creek on July 3, for example, an advance party consisting of 10 soldiers and the scout William Foster, led by Lieutenant Sevier Rains, was ambushed and completely wiped out.
McConville’s men decided to wait for Howard’s arrival, but the following morning they were surrounded by Nez Perce warriors. They took refuge on top of a hill that became known as Misery Hill because of the danger they constantly faced. A party of volunteer reinforcements arrived on July 10. The next day, McConville was able to lead his men off the hill but consequently was unable to coordinate efforts with Howard, who reached the area later that day.
Joseph and the others in the village were unaware of Howard’s approach. The general positioned his men on a high bluff and attempted to train howitzers on the village, although the guns could not be positioned to shoot downward at the angle necessary to hit the village.
The Nez Perce surrounding the bluff mounted attacks against the soldiers’ position. The battle continued into the next day, July 12, but the Indians had little experience of or enthusiasm for a siege. In addition, the howitzers and Gatling guns were now taking a toll on the warriors. They retreated, and the entire group headed north for Kamiah where there was a Christian Nez Perce settlement. Kamiah also was the place where the Nez Perce believed their original ancestors had been created. Howard’s men were delayed in crossing the Clearwater, and their pursuit was temporarily halted while the cavalry helped ferry the infantry across the river.
Howard’s forces suffered 15 fatalities in the battle. The casualties included a heavy proportion of officers and buglers, testament not only to their great visibility but also to the deliberate strategy of targeting them. Howard reported 23 Indian fatalities, but as Jerome Greene points out in Nez Perce Summer, 1877, the actual number of casualties was much lower, about 4 killed and 6 wounded.
Howard labeled the battle a tremendous victory, with the Indians “completely routed.” History has judged the battle differently. In Greene’s words, “By not pressing them in their retreat from their village, General Howard lost both the initiative and an opportunity to finally curb the nontreaty Nez Perces and end the war.”6
Kent Nerburn notes the battle also served as a watershed event in that both Howard and Chief Joseph were increasingly receiving much public attention, not to the general’s credit. Howard believed that Joseph was firmly in charge of the entire group and dictating strategy, a position that he made clear even four years later in his book Nez Perce Joseph. That view of Joseph was popularized in the war dispatches emanating from the battlefield pen of Thomas Sutherland. Increasingly, the press was portraying Joseph as a brilliant strategist and leader whose military acumen far outstripped that of the bumbling Howard; the latter was portrayed almost as a comic figure vainly pursuing the Nez Perce.
Kamiah
Joseph and the Nez Perce, after following the Clearwater north, received little help from their Christian brothers, who refused them their boats for crossing the river. Instead, Joseph and his nontreaty Indians built buffalo skin boats
To cross the river. They then moved into the Bitterroot Mountain foothills, waiting to attack their pursuers when they crossed the Clearwater once again in pursuit.
Howard had a trick up his sleeve as well. He took his cavalry north rather than crossing the river, hoping to mislead the Nez Perce into believing that he had given up the pursuit. Instead of falling for the ploy, however, the Nez Perce sent a contingent north to where the ferry that Howard intended to use was kept. They cut the rope used to pull the ferry, rendering it useless and giving themselves some breathing room.
The Nez Perce, now in the Weippe Prairie, considered whether they should follow the Lolo Trail east to meet up with the Flatheads or Crows in Montana, move north toward Canada to join Sitting Bull and the Lakotas, or return to Lapwai. Joseph favored none of these choices, instead preferring to move back to his homeland and die if necessary fighting to protect his home. The majority opinion disagreed with his choice, and Looking Glass was named to lead the continued exodus over the Bitterroot Mountains. Despite Joseph’s important administrative function on the journey, he actually had little impact on strategy during most of it, as he had no input into the pivotal decision taken in the Weippe Prairie to continue toward Montana.
On July 16,1877, the nontreaty group—consisting of 800 men, women, and children, plus 3,000 horses—continued its fateful journey.
World History
