At 10 o'clock at night the officer of the guard spoke to the General in
a whisper, and he arose with the alacrity of a youth who goes forth to
engage in the sports of a holiday. The men were called at once, and in
whispered orders the line of march was speedily formed. All were
instructed to preserve the most profound silence from that moment until
the signal should be given to open fire on the enemy, and, under the
guidance of Joe Blodgett and Lieutenant Bradley, the little band filed
silently down the winding trail, threading its way, now through dark
groves of pine or fir; now through jungles of underbrush; now over
rocky points; frequently wading the cold mountain brook, waist deep,
and tramping through oozy marshes of saw-grass; speaking only in
whispers; their rifles loaded, eyes peering into the starlit night, and
ears strained to catch the slightest sound that might indicate the
hiding-place of any lurking foe who might perchance be on an outpost to
announce to his followers the approach of danger.
Five miles were thus stealthily marched without giving an alarm. Then
the valley in which the troops had been moving opened out into what is
known as the Big Hole, that is, the valley of the Big Hole River. This
is a beautiful prairie basin, fifteen miles wide, and sixty miles long,
covered with rich bunch-grass and surrounded by high mountains. In the
edge of this valley the soldiers saw the smoldering camp-fires of the
enemy; heard the baying of his hungry dogs responding to the howls of
prowling coyotes, and saw, by the flickering lights, the smoky lodges
of the warriors. The men crept up to within a few hundred yards of the
slumbering camp, when they again crossed the creek down which they had
been marching, and ascended its eastern bluff. Here they encountered a
large herd of ponies, some of whom neighed anxiously as the strange
apparition filed past them, but luckily did not stampede.
General Gibbon suggested to Bostwick, his post guide, that he take four
or five men and drive this herd back up the canyon, but Bostwick replied
that there was probably a strong guard over the herd who were sleeping
at the moment, somewhere near by, but who would be awakened by any
attempt to drive the horses; that it would take several men to whip
them, and that the fight would alarm the camp. The General was so
impressed with the scout's reasoning that he at once countermanded the
discretionary order. It subsequently transpired, however, that the
Indians had felt so secure for the time being that they had not a
herder or a camp-guard out, and had Gibbon known this at the time he
could have captured this entire herd without firing a shot, and thus
have placed his enemy in a most critical situation.
Down the side of this steep bluff, thickly overgrown with sage brush,
mountain laurel, and jack pines; over rocks and through break-neck
ravines and washouts, the soldiers and citizens picked their way with,
all the skill and adroitness of trained hunters, until at last they
reached a position overlooking the Indian camp, and within 150 yards of
the nearest teepees. The camp was pitched on the south bank of the
Wisdom or Big Hole River, which is formed by the confluence here of
Trail and Ruby Creeks. It was in an open meadow, in a bend of the
river, and was partially surrounded by dense thickets of willows. There
were eighty-nine lodges pitched in the form of a V, with the angle up
the stream, and below the camp 400 or 500 ponies grazed peacefully,
tethered to stakes and willows. The Indians had evidently secured them
there in order to be prepared, ready for any emergency. The command
halted here, and laid down to await the coming of daylight, but not to
sleep.
It was now 2 o'clock in the morning, and the men suffered with cold,
for even the summer nights are cold in these mountains, and they had
neither overcoats nor blankets, having left all these with the wagons.
The smoldering camp-fires flickered fitfully in the pale starlight, and
the smoky lodges of the savages presented a most fantastic picture, as
the dying lights blazed with ever-changing weirdness upon them. Eagerly
the soldiers watched the scene, and with bated breath thought of the
awful tragedy that the rising sun would look upon in that now peaceful
valley.
"They have no idea of our presence," said Bostwick, the half-breed
scout. "After a while you will see some fires built up if we remain
undiscovered."
Sure enough, in the course of an hour, squaws began to come forth from
their lodges and replenish their waning fires.
As these blazed up they stood about them, jabbered, turned, and warmed
themselves, yawned, and then one by one returned to their skin couches
and betook themselves again to sleep. And again the soldiers and their
citizen allies were left to meditate, and in whispers to commune with
each other.
Their thoughts and words were serious, for they well knew that where
now all was peace, war in its veriest horror was soon to rage. The men
doubted not that many of them would fill graves in that wild mountain
valley before the morrow's sun should set, and that many others should
suffer with grievous wounds. Yet they faltered not in their duty. On
the contrary, they longed for the coming of the light that should
enable them to see the redskins through the sights of their rifles, and
complained only that it was too slow in coming.
Finally the night ended and the day approached from behind the eastern
hills. As soon as it was light enough to see to move advantageously the
little army was again astir; but its movements were yet as silent as
the grave. Under whispered orders and with stealthy tread Sanno's and
Comba's companies, deployed as skirmishers, descended the bluff into
the valley, groped their way through the willow thickets, waded the icy
river, the water coming nearly to their arm-pits. Logan, Williams, and
Rawn, with their companies, were sent to the extreme right to cross and
attack the camp near Ruby Creek, while Lieutenant Bradley, with his
handful of soldiers and citizen scouts, was sent down the stream with
orders to cross and strike the camp lower down. As the light increased
the troops were advancing cautiously, when an Indian who had crawled
out of his lodge and mounted a horse, rode out of the willows directly
in front of Bradley's men and within a few feet of them. He was en
route to the pony herd on the hill-side above, and so quietly had the
advance been made that even he had not heard or seen the men, and was
within a few feet of them when he emerged from the thicket of willows.
He and his horse were instantly shot down.
The order had been given, "When the first shot is fired charge the camp
with the whole line." And most eagerly was this order obeyed. Volleys
were fired into the teepees, and with an eager yell the whole line
swept wildly into the midst of the slumbering camp. The surprise was
complete. The Indians rushed from their lodges panic-stricken by the
suddenness and ferocity of the attack. They ran for the river banks and
thickets. Squaws yelled, children screamed, dogs barked, horses
neighed, snorted, and many of them broke their fetters and fled.
Even the warriors, usually so stoical, and who always like to appear
incapable of fear or excitement, were, for the time being, wild and
panic-stricken like the rest. Some of them fled from the tents at first
without their guns and had to return later, under a galling fire, and
get them. Some of those who had presence of mind enough left to seize
their weapons were too badly frightened to use them at first and
stampeded, like a flock of sheep, to the brush.
The soldiers, although the scene was an intensely exciting one, were
cool, self-reliant, and shot to kill. Many an Indian was cut down at
such short range that his flesh and clothing were burned by the powder
from their rifles. Comba and Sanno first struck the camp at the apex of
the V, and delivered a melting fire on the Indians as they poured from
the teepees. For a few minutes no effective fire was returned, but soon
the Indians recovered in a measure from their surprise and, getting
into safe cover behind the river banks, and in some cases in even the
very bed of the stream, opened fire on the soldiers, who were now in
the open ground, with terrible effect.
The fire was especially destructive on the right or upper end of the
line where the river made a short bend. As Logan, with a valor equal to
that of his illustrious namesake, swept forward, he and his men found
themselves directly at the backs of the Indians hidden in this bend,
who now turned and cut them down with fearful rapidity. It was here
that the greatest slaughter of that day took place. Logan himself fell,
shot through the head, and at sight of their leader's corpse, his men
were desperate. Regardless of their own safety, they rushed to the
river bank and brained the savages in hand-to-hand encounters, both
whites and Indians in some cases falling dead or wounded into the
stream and being swept away by its current.
In twenty minutes from the time the first shot was fired, the troops
had complete possession of the camp, and orders were given to destroy
it. The torch was applied with a will, and some of the canvas lodges
with the plunder in them destroyed, but the heavy dew had so dampened
them that they burned slowly and the destruction was not as complete as
the men wished to make it. Many of the lodges were made of skins, and
these would not burn at all.
Though the Indians were driven from their camp they were not yet
defeated. Joseph's voice, and that of his lieutenants, White Bird and
Looking Glass, were heard above the din of battle, rallying their
warriors and cheering them on to deeds of valor.
"Why are we retreating?" shouted White Bird. "Since the world was made,
brave men have fought for their women and children. Shall we run into
the mountains and let these white dogs kill our women and children
before our eyes? It is better that we should be killed fighting. Now is
our time to fight. These soldiers can not fight harder than the ones we
defeated on Salmon River and White Bird Canyon. Fight! Shoot them down!
We can shoot as well as any of these soldiers."
Looking Glass was at the other end of the camp. His voice was heard
calling out, "Wal-lit-ze! Tap-sis-il-pilp! Um-til-ilp-cown! This is a
battle! These men are not asleep as those you murdered in Idaho. These
soldiers mean battle. You tried to break my promise at Lo Lo. You
wanted to fire at the fortified place. Now is the time to show your
courage and fight. You can kill right and left. I would rather see you
killed than the rest, for you commenced the war. It was you who
murdered the settlers in Idaho. Now fight!"
Thus praised and railed at by turns, the men recovered their presence
of mind and charged back into the camp. The fighting was now muzzle to
breast. This deadly encounter lasted for some minutes more, when the
Indians again took to the river bank and delivered their fire with
great precision and deadliness on the troops in open ground. In the
hottest of the fight, Tap-sis-il-pilp was killed. Wal-lit-ze, upon
being told of his companion's death, rushed madly upon a group of
soldiers and was shot dead in his tracks. Thus did two of the three
murderers who were said to have brought on the war pay the penalty of
their crimes with their own blood. The implied wish of their chief that
they might be killed was realized.
Before these two men were killed, so says a surviving Nez Perce, an
almost hand-to-hand fight occurred between an officer and an Indian.
The Indian was killed. His sister saw him fall, and springing to his
side, wrenched the still smoking revolver from his hand, leveled it at
the officer and shot him through the head. The Indian who described the
event did not know who the officer was, but every soldier in the
Seventh Infantry knows and mourns the squaw's victim as the gallant
Captain Logan. Another Indian, named "Grizzly Bear Youth," relates a
hand-to-hand fight with a citizen volunteer in these words:
"When I was following the soldiers through the brush, trying to kill as
many of them as possible, a big, ugly ranchman turned around, swearing,
and made for me. He was either out of cartridges or afraid to take time
to load his needle gun, for he swung it over his head by the barrel and
rushed at me to strike with the butt end. I did the same. We both
struck at once and each received a blow on the head. The volunteer's
gun put a brand on my forehead that will be seen as long as I live. My
blow on his head made him fall on his back. I jumped on him and tried
to hold him down. He was a powerful man. He turned me and got on top.
He got his hand on my throat and commenced choking me.
"All turned dark and I was nearly gone. Just then a warrior came up.
This was Red Owl's son, He ran up, put his gun to the volunteer's side
and fired. The ball passed through the man and killed him. I had my arm
around the waist of the man when the shot was fired, and the ball,
after going through the volunteer, broke my arm."
Some of the Indians had, at the first alarm, mounted their horses, and
rode rapidly to the hills on either side and to depressions in the open
prairies of the valley. From these positions, as well as from the
thickets and river banks, now came a most galling fire, which the
soldiers were kept busy replying to. Although much of this shooting was
at long range it was very deadly, and at almost every crack of their
rifles a soldier, an officer, or a scout fell. General Gibbon,
Lieutenant Woodruff, and both their horses were wounded by these
sharpshooters.
Gibbon formed his troops in two lines back to back, and charged through
the brush in opposite directions for the purpose of driving out the
Indians who remained there, but they simply retreated farther into the
jungle, ran by the flanks of the assaulting parties, and kept up their
fire at short range. In this part of the action Lieutenant Coolidge was
shot through both thighs. Lieutenant Hardin and Sergeant Rogan carried
him into a sheltered spot near where the body of Captain Logan lay.
By this time Coolidge had recovered from the shock of his wound
sufficiently to be able to walk, and, although weak from the loss of
blood, picked up a rifle that had belonged to a fallen comrade and
again took his place at the head of his company. While in this
enfeebled condition he attempted to wade the river, but getting into
water beyond his depth was compelled to throw away his rifle and swim.
His failing strength now compelled him to seek shelter and lie down.
It soon became evident to General Gibbon that it would be unwise to
hold his position on the river bottom, where there was no adequate
cover for his men, and he reluctantly ordered them to fall back up the
hill and take cover in the mouth of a gulch, since known as "Battle
Gulch." They withdrew through the willow thickets to a position under
the hill, gallantly carrying their wounded comrades with them, and then
made a push for the timber. It was held by about twenty of the Indian
sharpshooters, who were killed, or driven from it only at the muzzles
of the soldiers' rifles. On the approach of the troops these Indians
took shelter in a shallow washout, not more than a foot deep and two or
three feet wide. Some of them were behind trees which stood beside this
trench.
One had a few large rocks piled about the roots of his tree, and from a
loophole through these he picked off man after man, himself secure from
the many shots aimed at him at short range by the soldiers. Finally,
however, a soldier, who was an expert marksman and cool as a veteran,
took a careful aim and sent a bullet into this loophole which struck
the rock on one side, glanced and entered the Indian's eye, passing out
at the back of his head--a veritable carom shot. This tree was girdled
with bullets, and the plucky Indian who lay behind it is said to have
killed five of the soldiers before the fatal missile searched him out.
While the main body of troops were clearing out this clump of woods,
the valiant band of regulars and volunteers who had been sent down the
river under Lieutenant Bradley to strike the lower end of the camp, now
turned and fought their way up through it; through the willow thickets;
through the sloughs and bayous; through the windings of the river;
killing an Indian and losing a man at every turn, and finally joined
the command in the woods.
But the gallant young leader of the band was not there. He had fallen
early in the fight; in fact, the first white man killed. He was leading
the left wing of the army in its assault on the camp. General Gibbon
had cautioned him to exercise great care going into the brush at that
point, and told him to keep under cover of the brush and river bank as
much as possible, but the brave young man knew no fear and bade his men
follow him. One of them called to him just as he was entering a thicket
where a party of Indians were believed to be lurking, and said:
"Hold on, Lieutenant; don't go in there; it's sure death." But he
pressed on, regardless of his own safety, and just as he reached the
edge of the brush an Indian raised up within a few feet of him and
fired, killing him instantly.
The Indian was immediately riddled with bullets, and then the men
charged madly into and through the brush, dealing death to every Indian
who came in their way, and the blood of many a redskin crimsoned the
sod, whose life counted against that of this gallant young officer.
Thus he, who had led the night march over the mountains; who had by
day, with his comrade, crawled up, located and reconnoitered the Indian
camp, and sent the news of his discovery to his chief; who had on the
following night aided that chief so signally in moving his command to
the field and in planning the attack; who had gallantly led one wing of
the little army in that fierce charge through the jungle and into the
hostile camp, had laid down his noble life, and his comrades mourned
him as a model officer, a good friend, a brave soldier.
Soon after the assault was made on the camp a squad of mounted warriors
was sent to round up the large herd of horses, some 1,500 in number, on
the hill-side, half a mile away, and drive them down the river, General
Gibbon saw this movement and sent a small party of citizen scouts to
turn the horses his way and drive the herders off. A sharp skirmish
ensued between the two parties, in which several whites and Indians
were wounded, but the Indians being mounted and the citizens on foot,
the former succeeded in rounding up the herd and driving it down the
river beyond the reach of Gibbon's men.
During the progress of the fight among the teepees the squaws and young
boys seized the weapons of slain warriors, and from their hiding places
in the brush fought with the desperation of fiends. Several instances
are related by survivors of the fight, in which the she devils met
soldiers or scouts face to face, and thrusting their rifles almost into
the faces of the white men fired point blank at them. Several of our
men are known to have been killed by the squaws, and several of the
latter were shot down in retaliation by the enraged soldiers or
citizens.
A scout who was with Bradley states that, while they were fighting
their way up through the willows, he passed three squaws who were
hidden in a clump of brush. Knowing their blood-thirsty nature, and
that several of his comrades had already been killed by this class of
enemies, he was tempted to kill them, but as they seemed to be unarmed
and made no show of resistance he spared them and passed on.
Two days later, however, while out with a burial party, he found these
same three squaws all dead in their hiding-place. One of them now had a
Henry rifle in her hands, and beside another lay a revolver with five
empty shells in the cylinder. He thought they had recovered the weapons
from slain bucks after he passed and, opening fire on some soldier or
scout, had met the fate to which their conduct had justly subjected
them.
All through that fierce struggle on the river bottom, officers fought
shoulder to shoulder with their men; some of them with their own
rifles, some with rifles recovered from killed or wounded comrades, and
some with revolvers. Even General Gibbon himself--who, by the way, is
an expert rifle shot--from his position on the bluff, devoted all his
spare moments to using his hunting-rifle on the skulking redskins, and
more than one of them is said to have fallen victims to his deadly aim.
Lieut. C. A. Woodruff, his adjutant, dealt shot after shot into the
foe, as he rode from point to point, carrying the orders of his chief.
Captains Comba, Williams, Browning, and Sanno, used their Springfields
with telling effect and put many a bullet where it would do the most
good. Lieutenant Jacobs was as swift as an eagle in search of his prey,
and, with a revolver in each hand, dashed hither and thither hunting
out the murderers from their hiding-places and shooting them down like
dogs.
Lieutenants Jackson, Wright, English, Van Orsdale, Harden, and
Woodbridge were all at their posts, and none of them lost an
opportunity to put in a telling shot. Lieut. Francis Woodbridge was the
youngest officer in the command, then a mere boy, but a few months from
West Point, yet he was as cool as any of the veterans, and displayed,
soldierly qualities that endeared him to everyone who participated in
that day's work.
Captain Rawn was at all times in the thickest of the fight, and was
admired alike by officers and men for the alacrity with which he shared
in every danger. His conduct in that fight gave the lie to the carpers
who had accused him of cowardice in the affair in Lo Lo Canyon. In
short, every officer, every enlisted man, and every citizen volunteer,
fought as though the responsibility of the battle rested solely with
him, and all acquitted themselves most nobly.