Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce (53 page)

McDonald's “Through Nez Perce Eyes” tells of the acts in the camp that led to the warrior attacks. Wilfong's
Following the Nez Perce Trail
brings together many primary source quotes that give the an eyewitness view of the event.

John McDermott's
Forlorn Hope: A Study of the Battle of White Bird Canyon, Idaho, and the Beginning of the Nez Perce Indian War
(Boise: Idaho State Historical Society, 1978) is without peer in dealing with the events of the White Bird engagement. McWhorter, in
Yellow Wolf, His Own Story,
presents them from the Nez Perce point of view. As with all the encounters for which military records are abundant, Mark Brown's
Flight of the Nez Perce
is especially thorough.

8. “We Are Living Here Peacefully and Want No Trouble”

Greene's
Nez Perce Summer, 1877
and Hampton's
Children of Grace
offer short but fascinating chapters on the Clearwater battle. McWhorter's
Yellow Wolf: His Own Story
is especially impassioned on this series of events. Brown's
Flight of the Nez Perce
presents the military maneuvering in great detail. Francis Haines covers it well in
The Nez Percés.
An interesting document that becomes relevant for the first time here is Thomas Sutherland's war dispatches, published as
Howard's Campaign Against the Nez Perce Indians
(1877; reprint, Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press, 1997).

Wilfong's
Following the Nez Perce Trail
again is valuable in bringing together many primary source quotes that give an eyewitness view of the event. McDonald, in “Through Nez Perce Eyes,” offers the Indian point of view well. Gulick's
Chief Joseph Country
does an admirable job of making the entire first stage of the war come alive. McWhorter's
Hear Me, My Chiefs!
offers context and anecdote.

9. “The Most Terrible Mountains I Ever Beheld”

The Lolo crossing and the Bitterroot passage are covered by almost all writers to some extent. A valuable guide to the experiences of travelers on the Lolo itself is
In Nez Perce Country: Accounts of the Bitterroots and the Clearwater After Lewis and Clark,
edited and compiled by Lynn and Dennis Baird (Moscow: University of Idaho Library, 2003). Curtis, in
The North American Indian
(vol. 8), and McDonald, in “Through Nez Perce Eyes,” offer evaluations that include anecdotes that do not appear in other accounts. Personal testimonies can be found in James's
Nez Perce Women in Transition
. Sutherland, in
Howard's Campaign,
and General O. O. Howard, in
Nez Perce Joseph,
provide the military perspective.
The Journals of Lewis and Clark
give the flavor of the terrain.

McWhorter, in both
Yellow Wolf: His Own Story
and
Hear Me, My Chiefs!
provides the Indian experience and point of view. Andrew Garcia's odd and delightful memoir,
Tough Trip Through Paradise, 1878–1879
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967), gives the first-person account of the flight across the Lolo by his Nez Perce wife, In-Who-lise.

Helen Addison Howard's book “Indians and an Indian Agent: Chief Charlot and the Forged Document” in
Northwest Trailblazers
(Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1966) offers insight into the Flathead decision to assist the army. Brown, in
Flight of the Nez Perce,
and Greene, in
Nez Perce Summer, 1877,
provide competent background, with Brown emphasizing the military strategy.

Much of the salient material here is archival, most of which is contained in the Montana Historical Archives in Helena, which contain perhaps the best collection of articles and testimonies on the West of the Great Plains and Rockies. Montana newspaper archives also come into play here, the most interesting being the
Helena Daily Herald
and the
Helena Independent,
the
Fort Benton Record,
and the
Missoulian.

Harper's Weekly
magazine contains many stories from this stage of the journey forward. Many were published months, even years, after the fact, but contain first-person accounts by men such as Colonel Gibbon as well as somewhat florid but always fascinating reconstructions of events.

I have also taken much of my material from personal contacts and conversations.

10. “In a Dream Last Night I Saw Myself Killed”

The entire period from the exit of the Lolo through the battle of the Big Hole is admirably documented by Aubrey Haines in
An Elusive Victory: The Battle of the Big Hole
(Helena, MT: Falcon Publishing, 1999). The Big Hole battle is thoroughly analyzed through artifacts and material culture in Douglas Scott's
A Sharp Little Affair: An Archaeology of the Big Hole Battlefield
(Lincoln, NE: J and L Reprint Company, 1994). Brown in
Flight of the Nez Perce
gives a dispassionate military overview.

Helen Addison Howard's fanciful and Joseph-centric
Saga of Chief Joseph
does the best job of making the battle dramatic rather than clinical. McWhorter's
Yellow Wolf: His Own Story
is by far the best Nez Perce–oriented source. It contains not only Yellow Wolf's story but also the recollections of many other Indian participants. Garcia's
Tough Trip Through Paradise
contains a haunting recreation of his wife's return to the site years later. The
New Northwest
newspaper out of Deer Lodge, Montana, did perhaps the best job of collating soldier testimony. Much telling testimony exists also in the newspapers of the time from Helena and Missoula.

It should be noted that the Big Hole battlefield is the most extensively researched and marked of any western battlefield other than the Little Bighorn. Exceedingly informative interpretive walks are available at the site, and a ghostly monument of skeletal lodge poles marks the places where the Indian teepees were pitched on the morning of the attack.

The post–Big Hole travels to the Dry Creek crossing are covered best in McWhorter's
Hear Me, My Chiefs!
and Hampton's
Children of Grace,
which gives a feel for the events of this stage of the journey. Brown's
Flight of the Nez Perce
is especially good on factual information. McWhorter's
Yellow Wolf: His Own Story
is sparse but telling in its details. For the entire Big Hole journey onward all the way to the Bear's Paw, Wilfong's
Following the Nez Perce Trail
is not only essential but also illuminating in its pithy compilation of first-person quotes from soldiers, settlers, and Nez Perce alike.

11. “Pursue Them to the Death”

Greene's
Nez Perce Summer, 1877
is good on the Camas Meadows encounter, as is Helen Addison Howard's account in
War Chief Joseph.
McDonald's “Through Nez Perce Eyes” analyzes the Indians' thinking. McWhorter's
Yellow Wolf: His
Own Story
tells how the raid felt and offers a distinctly contrary point of view to Howard's.

Brown's
Flight of the Nez Perce
is excellent on this whole period from the Big Hole to Yellowstone because it explicates the military issues beyond the battlefield. Beal too, in
I Will Fight No More Forever,
makes this period accessible.

The time in the park is brought alive by McWhorter's
Yellow Wolf: His Own Story.
David Lavender, in
Let Me Be Free,
presents a compelling explanation of the Nez Perce's slow movement through the park, as does William Lang in “Where Did the Nez Perces Go in Yellowstone in 1877?” published in the winter 1990 edition of
Montana, the Magazine of Western History.
Park historian Aubrey Haines presents a discussion of the Nez Perce journey in
The Yellowstone Story
(Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1977).

The single most enjoyable document about the Yellowstone period, and one of the only real glimpses we get into the Nez Perce camp organization, comes in the remarkable book by Frank D. Carpenter,
Adventures in Geyser Land
(Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1935), in which first Carpenter and then Emma Cowan recount their capture and detention by the Nez Perce.

“The Journals of S. G. Fisher, Chief of Scouts to General O. O. Howard during the Nez Perce Campaign,”
Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana
, vol. 2, 1986, presents the point of view of a scout for the military.

Much of the most interesting first-person material, including military letters and personal recollections, is either archival and unpublished or mentioned only in articles. Of special note, however, is the work of John W. Redington, a self-styled journalist who attached himself to the pursuit and wrote many journal entries that are both fascinating and self-serving. His work can be found in the magazines
Frontier
, vol. 3, 1933;
Sunset
, vol. 15, 1905; and The Archives of Lucullus McWhorter at Washington State University, Pullman, Washington.

As always, Beal's
I Will Fight No More Forever
is clear, lucid, and unadorned. Howard himself gives a detailed account of the Camas Meadows and Yellowstone events in
Nez Percé Joseph.

12. Alone in a Strange Country

The complexities of military command structure are admirably simplified by Brown in
Flight of the Nez Perce.
Miles's role and actions are explained in
Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles
(1896; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1969). Robert Utley's
Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848–1865
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988) provides essential background on the military.
Cheyenne Memories,
by John Stands In Timber and Margot Liberty (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967), looks at the pursuit through Cheyenne eyes.

McWhorter, in
Hear Me, My Chiefs!
provides a point of view that argues against Looking Glass's visit to the Crow. “Journal of S. G. Fisher, Chief of Scouts to General O. O. Howard During the Campaign against the Nez Perce Indians, 1877,” reprinted from volume 2 of
Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana
(Boston: J. S. Canner, 1966), is insightful for the military scout's perspective. McWhorter's
Yellow Wolf: His Own Story
offers interesting anecdotes. Beal's
I Will Fight No More Forever
breaks this phase down into manageable conceptual blocks.

13. “Our People Are Hungry and Weak”

Here Indian accounts dominate, including McWhorter's
Yellow Wolf: His Own Story
and
Hear Me, My Chiefs!
and Duncan McDonald's “Through Nez Perce Eyes.” Good secondary sources are those that lean toward literary reconstruction, including Lavender's
Let Me Be Free,
Hampton's
Children of Grace,
and Gulick's
Chief Joseph Country.
One exceptional article is from the
Havre Plain Dealer,
October 30, 1920, “The Battle of Cow Island: How a Platoon of Soldiers Held Off Chief Joseph's Band,” in which Michael Foley, the freight agent at Cow Creek, provides a first-person account of his encounter with the passing Indians. The Moellers' photographs in
Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce,
which are always stunning, are especially helpful in understanding the Missouri Breaks and Cow Island crossing.

14. “I Think We Will All Be Caught and Killed”

The military aspects of this stage are best discussed in Miles's
Personal Recollections,
Brown's
Flight of the Nez Perce,
and Greene's
Nez Perce Summer, 1877.
William Zimmer, in
Frontier Soldier: An Enlisted Man's Journal of the Sioux and Nez Perce Campaigns, 1877
(Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 1998), gives an unadorned, day-by-day account of the soldiers' lot.

Again, the most enjoyable secondary sources are those that involve narrative reconstruction: Hampton's
Children of Grace
and Gulick's
Chief Joseph Country.
McWhorter, in
Hear Me, My Chiefs!
and
Yellow Wolf: His Own Story,
also enriches the understanding.

Much of the relevant material here is archival or in reminiscences printed in regional newspapers and is not readily available to the general reader.

15. “Soldiers Are Coming”
16. “Colonel Miles Wants to Meet with Chief Joseph”
17. “It Is Cold and We Have No Blankets”

Miles's
Personal Recollections,
Zimmer's
Frontier Soldier,
and Captain Henry Romeyn's “Capture of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Indians,”
Montana Historical Society Publications
2 (1896), offer the best first-person military accounts of the Bear's Paw episode.

Chief Joseph in
His Own Story
and McWhorter's
Yellow Wolf: His Own Story
and
Hear Me, My Chiefs!
present Indians' views,
Yellow Wolf
perhaps best of the three. All secondary sources focus heavily on the siege and surrender, and each does well. Greene's
Nez Perce Summer, 1877
does the best job of sorting out the controversies surrounding this event.

Oliver Knight's
Following the Indian Wars: The Story of the Newspaper Correspondents Among the Indian Campaigners
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960) offers interesting background to press coverage. The most interesting general press coverage is in
Harper's Weekly,
but accounts in the
New York Herald
and regional papers such as the
Bismarck Tri-Weekly Tribune
as well as local papers such as the
Benton County Record
and the
Helena Herald
offer fascinating insight into public attitudes and response. Sutherland's
Howard's Campaign Against the Nez Perce Indians
provides the general's point of view, as does Charles Erskine Scott Wood's
The Pursuit and Capture of Chief Joseph: A Story of the End of the Nez Perce War
(Wallowa, OR: Bear Creek Press, 2002).