Place of the Manure Fires
Looking Glass decided to establish camp in a hollow known as the Place of the Manure Fires. To the north, just within sight, stood the hills called the Bear’s Paw (or, alternatively, the Wolf’s Paw). The battle that would soon ensue would come to be known as the Battle of Bear’s Paw. Still farther northward loomed the mountains that marked the border between the United States and safety in Canada. The day grew colder as the Nez Perce set up camp, and rain turned into snow. Joseph, as usual, oversaw the work and made sure that the horses were secured.
Looking Glass rejected the plea by some warriors to scout backward to make sure that no soldiers were following. Joseph, focused on caring for the elderly, sick, and young, supported Looking Glass’s decision. The location of the camp was low and out of the wind. Nearby were water and plenty of buffalo chips with which to make fires to warm those who were cold—the characteristic of the location that gave the site its name. It was the evening of September 29. Fifteen miles away Colonel Miles and his men attempted to sleep through the cold night, unable to build effective fires with the buffalo chips.
Miles had his men up by 2:00 a. m. By 4:30, they were on the march again. Then came a Cheyenne scout to report that he had discovered Joseph’s camp.
Meanwhile, Joseph had gone with his daughter Noise of Running Feet to see to the horse herd. Two scouts raced into camp to report that soldiers were approaching, and on a nearby hill another scout rode in circles waving a blanket and firing his rifle to signal the danger.
As the Nez Perce warriors raced to grab their weapons, Joseph instructed Noise of Running Feet to grab a horse and flee north toward Canada, as many women and children were doing. She would escape the battle, but her father would never see her again.
Joseph leaped onto a horse and dashed for his wife and infant daughter. A bullet struck his horse, but the animal stayed on its feet. Reaching the shelter where his family had spent the night, Joseph took the rifle his wife handed him and hurried to enter the fight.
The Nez Perce drove the soldiers back, but the camp was badly damaged by the attack. The soldiers, although unable to achieve the quick victory they wanted, had taken cover on surrounding bluffs, from which they could keep the Nez Perce pinned down. Heavy fire soon commenced, and the warriors withdrew from the original campsite to a draw where women and children who had not fled north had taken refuge.
The situation clearly was dire. The initial onslaught and counterattack had cost the Nez Perce dearly. Joseph’s brother, Ollokot, was dead. So was Toohoolhoolzote. Husis Kute had accidentally killed Lone Bird. Poker Joe also had fallen to friendly fire. Altogether, about 20 Nez Perce had died. Four band leaders—Joseph, Looking Glass, White Bird, and Husis Kute—remained alive.
Casualties also were high on the other side. Although Miles had superior forces and the element of surprise, his men had been outfought. Only a single officer of the Seventh Cavalry remained alive and unharmed. The three first sergeants of the Seventh were dead. Miles noted that 22 of his men were killed and 42 wounded, with “the line encircling the camp... dotted with dead and wounded soldiers and horses.”12
Under Siege
The Nez Perce had withstood the initial onslaught, but their prospects for escape were bleak. They had lost most of their horses. Families were split, with many members having fled, although those left behind could not know whether their kinsmen had been successful in escaping the attack or were killed or captured by the soldiers. Now those who remained were surrounded. The situation would become even worse when General Howard arrived.
Joseph and the other leaders debated what to do. They could stay and fight, surrender, or try to sneak away under cover of darkness. For Joseph, the long struggle to reach Canada had come to an end. As he looked at the elderly, the women and children, and the wounded, he knew that they could neither fight nor flee. Yet White Bird and Looking Glass wanted to wait. They sent six men as messengers to Sitting Bull. Perhaps if he came, together they could repel the soldiers and still reach their destination.
The situation also was uncertain for Miles and his men. They had endured heavy casualties, and the wounded were suffering mightily in the cold. During the afternoon, a brisk north wind rose and snow started falling, with 5 inches piling up by morning. They still had not succeeded in defeating Joseph, and they also realized that Sitting Bull might appear. After all, he was only 80 miles away. If his forces arrived to defend the Nez Perce, Miles’s men knew well that they might be facing another Little Bighorn. Time might actually be on the side of the Nez Perce, Miles realized, so he decided to apply pressure to force a surrender.
The following morning, October 1, the Nez Perce found themselves under fire, not from rifles, but from the army’s Hotchkiss guns. In reality, these guns were hard to position so that they could hit the Indians below, but the pounding reverberations of the shells were at least unsettling and a sharp reminder to Joseph and the rest of the Nez Perce huddled in the draw that they were surrounded. The concussion from shells also threatened to cause the pits in which women and children were hiding to collapse, potentially burying them alive.
Miles had his men stay alert but hold their rifle fire unless they had a clear target. Such a target presented itself when Looking Glass saw a figure in the distance. He thought that it might be one of Sitting Bull’s men, so he stretched up to get a better look. Among the bad decisions that Looking Glass made on the trek toward Canada, this one was the worst for him personally: A sharpeyed soldier snapped off a shot and hit Looking Glass in the forehead, killing him.
Joseph and Miles
In the morning of October 1, discussions began between the Nez Perce and Colonel Miles. Yellow Bull was sent to meet an emissary from Miles, who entered the camp under a flag of truce. Miles was requesting a meeting with Joseph. Joseph, acutely concerned about the welfare of his people, was willing to talk with Miles, but White Bird opposed any discussion between the two. Joseph promised that he would enter into no agreement, but merely hear what Miles had to say and then report back to the Nez Perce.
Tom Hill, a part Nez Perce and part Delaware warrior who spoke English, was sent to Miles to arrange the meeting. After discussing the arrangements, Hill and Miles walked partway toward the Nez Perce, and Hill called for Joseph to join them. Miles still considered Joseph the primary leader and strategist of the Nez Perce, the individual responsible for both the military victories by the Nez Perce over the summer and their until now successful flight toward Canada.
Joseph and Miles shook hands and walked together to the colonel’s tent. Miles promised Joseph that the Nez Perce could return to their homeland in the spring; until then, he said, they would stay in the Yellowstone area. He insisted that they give up their weapons, however—a demand that drew Joseph’s quick opposition for both philosophical and practical reasons. Joseph was prepared to stop fighting, but he was not prepared to surrender. In addition, the weapons were needed for hunting so that the Nez Perce could feed themselves.
As Joseph started to leave, soldiers blocked his departure, forcing his return to Miles’s tent. Tom Hill relayed the bitter news to the Nez Perce that despite the white flag of truce, Joseph had been taken prisoner. Fortunately for Joseph, Lieutenant Lovell Jerome, who had been sent by Miles to observe what the Nez Perce were doing, rode so close that he was easily captured. The next day, Joseph was freed in exchange for Jerome.
White Bird argued that the Nez Perce should attempt to escape. He was confident that at night they could secretly kill enough soldiers to open a gap in the lines large enough to allow their exodus. Relying on justice from the soldiers, White Bird contended, was foolish. Joseph, as always, was concerned about those who were most vulnerable. He knew that women, children, and the elderly could not move rapidly enough to escape the soldiers; moreover, he did not want to leave his dead unburied.
Resumption of shelling on October 3 helped push the Nez Perce closer to a decision. Yet there was no good option unless Sitting Bull appeared, so Joseph and White Bird decided to wait another day and hope for what must increasingly have seemed like a desperately unlikely miracle.
The End of the Fighting
General Howard finally arrived on October 4. He had with him two treaty Nez Perce, Jokais and Meopkowit, known to the soldiers as Captain John
And Old George, respectively. Both of the Indians had daughters among those holding out with Joseph. The following day, Howard sent them as emissaries to Joseph. Although the two were welcomed, the Nez Perce found it difficult to trust either them or Howard.
Joseph wanted the fighting to stop, but he was not willing to surrender. Peace for him meant a ceasefire and an agreement that would permit his people to return home. With that message, Captain John and Old George were sent back to Miles. Before long, the two returned, carrying Miles’s invitation to Joseph to confer personally with him and an assurance from Miles and Howard that they did not want any more fighting.
At that point, Joseph made the remarks that have come down through history as one of the most famous and poignant speeches ever made within the history of the Indian wars. History generally has misrepresented the remarks, in large part because of the translation and editorial commentary by Howard’s aide, Lieutenant Charles Erskine Scott Wood. After Captain John relayed the remarks, Wood turned them from a conclusion shared with fellow Nez Perce to a surrender speech directed toward Miles and Howard. According to Kent Nerburn, Joseph addressed his comments initially to Old John and Captain George and then turned to White Bird, Yellow Bull, and Husis Kute:
Tell General Howard that I know his heart. What he told me before, I have in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Too-hoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men [Joseph’s brother, Ollokot] is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.13
As eloquent as Joseph was (although the words attributed to him may, in fact, have been only somewhat his), not everyone was convinced. White Bird disagreed strongly, arguing that Joseph was foolish to trust the army and expressing his continued determination not to give up.
The subsequent meeting between Joseph and the army officers involved two translators: Tom Hill for Joseph and Ad Chapman for Howard and Miles. Miles agreed that Joseph and his people would be able to return home in the spring. The coming winter they would spend in a safe location. Joseph negotiated a gradual turning over of his people but, of course, did not admit his rea-son—that it would give White Bird and others who wished to do so an opportunity to escape.
Joseph gave up his rifle to Miles, and the two men shook hands. Then other soldiers also shook hands with Joseph. Howard charged Lieutenant Wood with seeing to Joseph as a prisoner but one who was to be treated well. During
The night, a group led by White Bird carefully made their way through the army lines and on toward Canada.
World History
