Sitting Bull. Courtesy of The American Bureau of Ethnology.Sitting Bull.Courtesy of The American Bureau of Ethnology.
Sitting Bull. Courtesy of The American Bureau of Ethnology.Sitting Bull.Courtesy of The American Bureau of Ethnology.
To be the first to count coup on a fallen enemy was high honor. Frequently a wounded warrior only pretended to be dead, and when his foe approached him close, he shot.
Upon their return home, old Sitting Bull gave a feast, and distributed many horses, and transferred his own name to Jumping Badger.
After this, although young Sitting Bull counted many coups, he practiced making medicine until he gained much reputation as a future-teller. He openly hated the whites. His hate was as deep as that of O-pe-chancan-ough, the Pamunkey.
He grew to be a burly, stout man, with light brown hair and complexion, a grim heavy face pitted by small-pox, and two shrewd, blood-shot eyes. He limped, from a wound.
His band was small; but his camp was the favorite gathering place for the reservation Indians, on hunting trips. They took presents to him, that he might bring the buffalo.
Thus matters went on, broken with complaints. It was hard to tell which were reservation Indians and which were wild Indians. When the Sitting Bull people and other bands came in to the reservation, and drew rations of flour, they emptied the flour on the prairie and used the sacks as clothing. This helped to make the reservation Indians ill content. The wild Indians evidently were living very well indeed.
Along in 1871 the Northern Pacific Railroad wished to build westward. The route would take them through the country given to the Sioux, and the Sioux said no. Their treaty protected them against the white man's roads. They attacked a surveying party escorted by soldiers, and killed two. This was in 1872.
It was a brutal killing. Rain-in-the-face was arrested for this, on the reservation; but he escaped and vowed vengeance. He went to Sitting Bull, and was safe.
In 1874 the United States began to ask for the Pah-sap-pa, or Black Hills, in South Dakota. To the Sioux and the Cheyennes, Pah-sap-pa was medicine ground. Spirits dwelt there; it was the home of the Thunder Bird and other magic creatures; it contained much game, and quantities of tent poles, for lodges.
Spotted Tail of the Brulés went in. He hung around the white men's mining camps, and found out that the white men were crazy for the gold.
The United States had been accustomed to buying Indian land cheap, and getting rich out of it. Now it offered to buy the Black Hills for six millions of dollars, or to rent them for four hundred thousand dollars a year.
Coached by Spotted Tail and by Red Cloud, the Sioux laughed, and asked sixty millions of dollars. So the deal did not go through, this time. However, the Sioux lost Pah-sap-pa, just the same.
The United States Government was unable to keep the gold-seekers out. They dodged through the troops. There were fights with the Sioux, and the Sioux became angered in earnest.
They saw their Black Hills invaded by a thousand white men. Other white men, guarded by soldiers, were planning to run a railroad right through the Powder River country. On the Great Sioux reservation Spotted Tail and Red Cloud were the head chiefs; but out on the hunting grounds the Sitting Bull people stayed and prepared to make war and hold the Sioux lands.
The Sioux on the reservations began to leave, and join Sitting Bull. They felt that Red Cloud's heart was with them. He had notified the United States that it must keep the white men out of Sioux country.
The United States also was alarmed. The Sioux seemed to be using the reservation as a sort of supply depot; they got provisions and clothing there, and took them to the hunting grounds.
General Alfred H. Terry, who commanded the Military Department of Dakota, sent scouts to inform Sitting Bull that unless he came in, with all his people, out of the Big Horn Valley and the Powder River country, before a certain time, troops would bring him out. There would be war.
Sitting Bull answered:
"When you come for me you need bring no guides. You will easily find me. I shall be right here. I shall not run away."
In February, this 1876, the United States started to go after him, but the cold weather delayed the plans. Then, in May, matters were all arranged. There were to be three columns, to surround the unruly Sitting Bull.
General George Crook, the famous Indian fighter, was to march into the Big Horn country from the south with thirteen hundred men; Colonel John Gibbon was to march in from the west with four hundred men; General Terry's infantry, and General George A. Custer's Seventh Cavalry, one thousand men, were to march in from the east.
They were to meet at the Powder River, and capture Sitting Bull.
A great many Indians had rallied to Sitting Bull and his comrade chief Crazy Horse—an Oglala who commanded the Cheyennes. Sitting Bull was making medicine. He told the warriors that in a short time there would be a big fight with the soldiers on the Big Horn, and that the soldiers would be defeated.
Crazy Horse struck the enemy first. He met General Crook's column and stopped it. Then he joined Sitting Bull again.
Now in June the Sitting Bull camp upon the Little Big Horn River in the Big Horn Valley of southern Montana was three miles long and contained ten thousand people. It had twenty-five hundred good fighters. It was not afraid, but its people were here to hunt and dance and have a good time. Although they listened to the prophecy of Sitting Bull, they really did not expect that the soldiers would find them.
Chief Gall, a fine man, of the Hunkpapas, was head war chief; his aide was Crow King. Crazy Horse commanded the Northern Cheyennes. The head of the Miniconjou Sioux was Lame Deer. Big Road commanded the Oglalas. There were other Sioux also—some Brulés, and some Without Bows; and a few Blackfeet and Arapahos.
General Custer, whose regular rank was lieutenant-colonel, found the village with his Seventh Cavalry. He had left General Terry, in order to scout across country; and when his scouts told him that the Sioux camp was before him, he rode on to the attack.
About noon of June 25th he divided his troops into three columns, to attack from different directions. The largest column, of five companies, he led, himself.
Not until that morning did the Sitting Bull people know that the soldiers were near. There was much excitement. The ponies were saddled, and the women began to pack their household stuff; but the warriors did not intend to run away.
Sitting Bull was certain that the white men would be defeated. The night before, his medicine had been very strong. An eagle had promised a great victory. Now he said that during the fight he would stay in the village and make more medicine. So Chief Gall it was who commanded.
But Sitting Bull did not stay in the village. When the bullets of the soldiers pelted into the lodges he lost faith in his own prophecy. Taking his two wives and whatever else he might gather, he bolted for a safer place. He missed one of his twin boys, but he did not stop to look for him.
He was ten miles out, when he received news of the victory. And a terrible victory that had been: of the five companies of General Custer, the Long Hair, only one man had escaped—although the Sioux did not know of that escape. He was Curly, a Crow scout. At any rate, the Long Hair's warriors, to the number of two hundred and twelve, had been killed in an hour.
The other soldiers were penned up, and could be killed, too.
So Sitting Bull rode back again, with his family. He said that he had not intended to run away. He had been out in the hills, making his medicine; and the bodies of the soldiers would prove it.
That certainly seemed true. The Indians had lost only twenty, and had killed more than two hundred.
Sitting Bull was greater than ever. Never before had such a victory been won at such little cost. This night the village danced and sang, and Sitting Bull kept by himself, and accepted the presents given to him.
Chief Gall had thought to starve out the soldiers who were penned up, and were being watched by warriors. These were the two other columns, of the Seventh Cavalry. But the next day, General Terry and Colonel Gibbon approached, in order (they had planned) to meet the Custer detachment. When Chief Gall heard that the "walking soldiers" were nearing, he decided that there had been fighting enough.
So he ordered the village to be broken, and the warriors to come in; they all left before dark, depending upon the medicine of Sitting Bull to lead them to new hunting grounds.
Soon Crazy Horse took his band and branched off for himself. He was a nephew of Chief Spotted Tail, but fierce against the whites. The rest followed Chief Sitting Bull and Chief Gall.
For a while they saw no more soldiers. Now and then other Indians from the reservation joined them, bringing supplies; and now and then parties left, to scout by themselves. Sitting Bull and Gall and all knew this country very well; it was Sioux country. They knew it far better than the soldiers did. There were many hiding places.
When the weather began to grow cold, in the fall, the Sitting Bull people commenced to think of winter. They received word that the soldiers were stopping everybody from leaving the reservation. This cut down the supplies.
The Gray Fox, who was General Crook, struck several bands in the midst of the hunting grounds. He had wiped out American Horse and had pressed Crazy Horse very hard. More soldiers were pouring in.
The Sitting Bull band numbered three thousand. They used lots of meat. The buffalo were being frightened by so much travel of soldiers, and for the band to stay long in one spot was dangerous. Some of the women and men got faint-hearted, and deserted. They carried word to the soldiers, and asked to be sent to the reservation. Sitting Bull's medicine did not prevent them from running away.
He and Gall planned to march farther northward, across the Yellowstone River, to a better buffalo country, and make camp for a big hunt. A store of meat ought to be laid in, before winter.
A new fort was being located on the Yellowstone at the mouth of the Tongue River, southeastern Montana. They marched to cross the Yellowstone below; this fort; and while near the Yellowstone they drove back a soldiers' wagon-train that was trying to reach the fort.
The wagons tried again, five days later, and there was another fight. Sitting Bull sent a note to the white chief.
Yellowstone.
I want to know what you are doing traveling by this road. You scare all the buffalo away. I want to hunt in this place. I want you to turn back from here. If you don't, I will fight you again. I want you to leave what you have got here and turn back from here.
I am your friend.SITTING BULL.
I mean all the rations you have got and some powder. Wish you would write as soon as you can.
This was a "feeler," to see what kind of a man the white chief was. The white chief, whose name was Lieutenant-Colonel E. S. Otis, of the Twenty-second Infantry, answered at once.
To Sitting Bull:
I intend to take this train through to Tongue River, and will be pleased to accommodate you with a fight at any time.
Sitting Bull and his chiefs held council. If they might make a peace, they could stay out all winter with their families, and when the grass greened in the spring they could travel as they pleased. The white soldiers had the advantage, in the winter.
So two Indians were sent forward with a flag of truce, to say that the Sitting Bull people were hungry and tired, and to propose a peace talk. The white chief said that there was a higher chief at the mouth of the Tongue River, with whom they must talk, but he sent them some bread and bacon.
Sitting Bull and Chief Gall, Low Neck, Pretty Bull and the others did not go to find the white commanding chief; they continued on, and in a few days the American commander caught up with them, himself, north of the Yellowstone.
He agreed to meet Sitting Bull between the lines, for a talk. They each took six men. The white chief was Colonel Nelson A. Miles. He had only about four hundred soldiers, and one cannon. Sitting Bull had one thousand warriors, and was not afraid.
"What are all these soldiers doing in this country?" he demanded. "Why don't they stay in their forts, where they belong? It is time they went there, for the winter."
"The soldiers are in this country to bring you and your men out and put them on the reservation," replied Colonel Miles. "We do not wish war. But if you insist on war, then you will be shut up. You cannot roam about over the country, and cause trouble."
"This country belongs to the Indian and not to the white man," retorted Sitting Bull. "We want nothing to do with the white man. We want the white man to go away, and leave us alone. No white man ever lived who loved an Indian, and no true Indian ever lived that did not hate the white man. God Almighty made me an Indian. He did not make me an agency Indian, and I'll fight and die fighting before any white man can make me an agency Indian. How did you know where I was to be found?"
"I not only knew where you were, but I know where you came from and where you're going," asserted Colonel Miles.
"Where am I going?"
"You intend to remain here three days, and then move to the Big Dry and hunt buffalo."
This showed Sitting Bull that he had been betrayed by spies. He flared into a rage, and his words were hot. He hated the whites; he had a thousand warriors at his back, and his power was great.
He would make peace, but only if all the white men got out of the country. There must be no forts or roads or towns. He wanted no presents of food or clothing from the United States. If the United States would leave a few trading posts, he would trade for powder and flour, but he would live free, to do as he chose.
So this talk and other talks amounted to nothing new. The white chief told him to prepare for war, and there was a battle. At one moment, the Sitting Bull warriors had the soldiers surrounded; but the cannon shells were too much to face, the walking soldiers stood stanch, and finally the Sioux had to retreat with their families.
The white chief, Miles, proved to be a stubborn fighter. He pursued and captured almost all the camp supplies. This broke the hearts of the Sitting Bull band. His medicine had grown weak. Five chiefs, with two thousand of the warriors and women and children, surrendered, so as to be kept warm and to be sure of food. But Sitting Bull and Gall went on, leading four hundred northward.
The weather got very cold and snowy. They stayed for a time near the Missouri River in northern Montana. Sitting Bull's medicine failed entirely. The soldiers marched upon them right through the blizzards, and no place seemed safe.
The other bands were being captured. The walking soldiers and the big-guns-that-shot-twice were everywhere, to south, east and west. The Crazy Horse Cheyennes and Oglalas were taken. They agreed to go upon the reservation.
When Sitting Bull heard of this, he resolved to get out of reach of the Americans altogether. He and Gall headed north again, and crossed into Canada.
This was Sioux country, too. The Sioux never had had any dispute with the Great White Mother; she seemed better than the Great White Father. Accordingly Sitting Bull plumped himself and his band down upon Canada ground, and defied the United States to meddle with him.
Other runaways joined him. It was now spring. Some of the runaways were from the reservation. They reported that they had almost starved, there, during the winter.
So when the United States sent up after Sitting Bull, he laughed. General Terry, his old enemy, was in the American party, and did the talking.
The President invited the Sioux to come back into the United States, and give up their arms and their horses, in exchange for cows. Sitting Bull replied scornfully.
"For sixty-four years you have kept me and my people, and treated us bad. What have we done that you should wish us to stop? We have done nothing. It is all the people on your side who have started us to do as we did. We could not go anywhere else, so we came here. I would like to know why you come here? I did not give you that country; but you followed me about, so I had to leave and come over to this country. You have got ears, and eyes to see with, and you see how I live with these people. You see me. Here I am. If you think I am a fool, you are a bigger fool than I am. You come here to tell us lies, but we don't want to hear them. I don't wish any such language used to me. This country is mine, and I intend to stay here and raise this country full of grown people. That is enough, so no more. The part of the country you gave me, you ran me out of. I don't want to hear two more words. I wish you to go back, and to take it easy going back. Tell them in Washington if they have one man who speaks the truth to send him to me and I will listen. I don't believe in a Government that has made fifty-two treaties with the Sioux and has kept none of them."
Back went the commission, to report that they could do nothing at all with Sitting Bull.
Other parties from the American side of the line crossed over to talk with Sitting Bull. He laid down the law to them.
"If the Great Father gives me a reservation I don't want to be held on any part of it. I will keep on the reservation, but I want to go where I please. I don't want a white man over me. I don't want an agent. I want to have a white man with me, but not to be my chief. I can't trust any one else to trade with my people or talk to them. I want interpreters, but I want it to be seen and known that I have my rights. I don't want to give up game as long as there is any game. I will be half white until the game is gone. Then I will be all white."
"Did you lead in the Custer fight?"
"There was a Great Spirit who guided and controlled that battle. I could do nothing. I was supported by the Great Mysterious One. I am not afraid to talk about that. It all happened—it is past and gone. I do not lie. Low Dog says I can't fight until some one lends me a heart. Gall says my heart is no bigger than a finger-nail. We have all fought hard. We did not know Custer. When we saw him we threw up our hands, and I cried, 'Follow me and do as I do.' We whipped each other's horses, and it was all over."
By this it is seen that Sitting Bull was a poser, and had lost the respect of the Sioux. Chief Gall despised him. The camp was getting unhappy. The life in Canada was not an easy life. The Great White Mother let the red children stay, because it was Indian country, but she refused to feed them, or help them against the United States.
There were no buffalo near. When the Sioux raided into the United States, the soldiers and the Crow scouts were waiting. Their old hunting grounds were closed tight.
Rain-in-the-face and other chiefs surrendered, to go to the reservation. Chief Gall defied Sitting Bull, and took two thirds of the remaining Indians and surrendered, also.
Sitting Bull now had only forty-five men and one hundred and forty women and children. They all were starving. A white scout visited them, with promise of pardon by the United States. So in July, of 1881, after he had stayed away four years, he surrendered, at Fort Buford at the mouth of the Yellowstone River.
He came in sullen and sour and unconquered, but not as a conqueror. They all were dirty and shabby and hungry. With Sitting Bull there rode on ponies his old father, Four Horns, and his elder children. In a wagon piled high with camp goods rode his two wives, one of whom was named Pretty Plume, and his small children.
A long train of other wagons and carts followed. There was no glory in this return.
At the Standing Rock Sioux agency he found that Chief Gall was the real ruler. The people there now thought little of Sitting Bull. His medicine had proved weak. He tried to make it strong, and he was laughed at.
Soon the Government deemed best to remove him and his main band, and shut them up for a while. Sitting Bull was kept a prisoner of war for two years. After that he took a trip through the East, but he was hissed. He rode in the Buffalo Bill Wild West show for a short time. But the white people never forgot the Custer battle, and looked upon Sitting Bull as a thoroughly bad Indian.
He assumed to settle down, at peace, upon the Standing Rock reservation, in a cabin not far from the place where he had been born. But as he had said, he was not "an agency Indian," and did not want to be an agency Indian.
There is another chapter to be written about Sitting Bull.
After Colonel Nelson A. Miles of the Fifth Infantry had driven Sitting Bull and Chief Gall of the Sioux into Canada and his troops were trying to stop their raids back, at present Fort Keogh near Miles City on the Yellowstone River in southeastern Montana he received word of another Indian war.
The friendly Pierced Noses of Oregon had broken the peace chain. They had crossed the mountains and were on their way north, for Canada.
That the Pierced Noses had taken the war trail was astonishing news. For one hundred years they had held the hand of the white man. Their proudest boast said: "The Nez Percés have never shed white blood."
They spoke truly. During the seventy years since the two captains Lewis and Clark had met them in 1805, only one white man had been killed by a Pierced Nose. That was not in war, but in a private quarrel between the two.
Hunters, traders and missionaries had always been helped by the Pierced Noses. The white man's religion had been favored. The Good Book had been prized.
Young Chief Joseph was now the leader of the Pierced Noses upon the war trail. His Indian name was Hin-ma-ton Ya-lat-kit—Thunder-rising-from-the-water-over-the-land. But his father had been christened Joseph by the missionaries; so the son was called Young Chief Joseph.
A tall, commanding, splendid-looking Indian he had grown to be, at forty years of age. He was every inch a chief, and had a noble face.
His people were the Lower Nez Percés, who lived in the beautiful Wallowa Valley—their Valley of the Winding Waters, in northeastern Oregon. Here they raised many horses, and hunted, but put in few crops. Old Chief Joseph had believed that the earth should not be disturbed; the people should eat only what it produced of itself. The earth was their mother.
He believed also that nobody owned any part of the earth. The earth had been given to all, by the Great Creator. Everybody had a right to use what was needed.
Twenty years ago, or in 1855, Old Chief Joseph had signed a paper, by which the United States agreed to let the Pierced Noses alone on their wide lands of western Idaho, and eastern Oregon and Washington.
But it was seen that the Pierced Noses did not cultivate the better portion of this country; the white men wanted to plough the Valley of Winding Waters; and eight years later another treaty was made, which cut out the Winding Waters. It narrowed the Nez Percés to the Lapwai reservation in Idaho.
Old Chief Joseph did not sign this treaty. Other chiefs signed, for the Nez Percés. The United States thought that this was enough, as it considered the Pierced Noses to be one nation. The Valley of the Winding Waters was said to be open to white settlers.
The Old Chief Joseph Pierced Noses continued to live there, just the same. They asserted that they had never given it up, and that the Upper Pierced Noses had no right to speak for the Lower Pierced Noses.
As Young Chief Joseph afterwards explained:
"Suppose a white man comes to me and says: 'Joseph, I like your horses and I want to buy them.' I say to him: 'No; my horses suit me; I will not sell them.' Then he goes to my neighbor, and says to him: 'Joseph has some good horses. I want them, but he refuses to sell.' My neighbor answers: 'Pay me the money and I will sell you Joseph's horses.' The white man returns to me and says: 'Joseph, I have bought your horses and you must let me have them.' That is the way our lands were bought."
When Old Joseph died, Young Joseph held his hand and listened to his words:
My son, my body is returning to my mother earth, and my spirit is going very soon to see the Great Spirit Chief. When I am gone, think of your country. You are the chief of these people. They look to you to guide them. Always remember that your father never sold his country. You must stop your ears whenever you are asked to sign a treaty selling your home. A few years more, and white men will be all around you. They have their eyes on this land. My son, never forget my dying words. This country holds your father's body. Never sell the bones of your father and your mother.
Young Joseph promised.
"A man who would not love his father's grave is worse than a wild animal," he said.
After that he was careful never to accept any presents from the United States.
Even before the treaty of 1863 which was supposed to cover the Winding Waters valley, the white men had invaded the Pierced Nose country. Gold had been discovered in Idaho. In 1861 the white man's town of Lewiston had been laid out, among the Nez Percés—and there it was, without permission.
The Black Hills were being taken from the Sioux, in the same way.
Now trouble occurred between the Indians and the whites in the Valley of the Winding Waters, also. The Government started in to buy the settlers' claims, so that the Pierced Noses might remain undisturbed, but Congress did not appropriate the money.
In order to force the Indians off, the settlers stole their horses, and their cattle; Indians were whipped, and killed. Chief Joseph's brother was killed. The murderer was not brought to trial, because Joseph would not allow his people to appear in court.
"I have decided to let him escape and enjoy life," said Joseph. "I will not take his life for the one he took. I do not want anything in payment for what he did. I pronounce the sentence that he shall live."
All that the Nez Percés asked, was that the white men get out.
Among the Indians of this Columbia River region there had sprung up a prophet, as in the days of Tecumseh. His name was Smo-hal-la. He preached the doctrine that the land belonged to the Indians, and that the red man was the real child of the Great Spirit. A day was nearing, when the Great Spirit would repeople the earth with Indians, and the white race would be driven out. In the meantime the red men must live in their own way, and have nothing to do with the white men. They must not dig into the body of their "mother," the earth.
The followers of Smohalla were called Dreamers. Chief Joseph was a member of the Dreamers: so were many of his band.
As the Chief Joseph people would not come in upon the Lapwai reservation, and the missionaries and Indian agent and soldiers could not persuade them, General Oliver O. Howard, who commanded the Military Department of the Columbia, met in council with them, at Fort Lapwai, in April and May, 1876.
General Howard was a brave soldier who had lost his right arm in the battle of Fair Oaks, during the Civil War. He was a kind, just man, one whom the Apaches and other tribes greatly trusted; but he could do little with the stubborn Pierced Noses.
They usually dressed like white people. When they came to the council they were painted, and wore buckskins and blankets, according to the custom of the Dreamers.
Chief Joseph finally appeared. His younger brother, Ollicut, whom he dearly loved, was here. So were Hush-hush-cute, chief of the Palouse tribe who mingled with the Pierced Noses in friendship; and Sub-Chiefs Looking Glass and White Bird; and old Too-hul-hul-so-te, a Too-at, or Drummer Dreamer chief.
In the principal councils Too-hul-hul-so-te was the most out-spoken, for the Pierced Noses. Chief Joseph and Ollicut his brother were more quiet. But General Howard and Toohulhulsote had several tilts.
The white chiefs stated that the Nez Percés were to go upon the Lapwai reservation; then they would be given the privilege of hunting and fishing in the Winding Waters country.
"The earth is our mother. When the earth was made, there were no marks or lines placed upon it," grunted the surly, broad-shouldered Toohulhulsote. "The earth yields enough, of itself. It is not to be disturbed by ploughs. It is not to be bought or sold. It carries its own chieftain-ship. Nobody can sell possession of it. We never have made any trade. Part of the Indians gave up their land. We never did. The Great Spirit made the earth as it is, and as he wanted it, and he made a part of it for us to live upon. I don't see where you get the right to say we shall not live where he placed us."
"You have said twenty times that the earth is your mother," replied General Howard, growing angry. "Let us hear no more about it, but come to business."
"Who are you, that you ask us to talk and then tell me I sha'n't talk?" retorted the saucy old Toohulhulsote. "Are you the Great Spirit? Did you make the world? Did you make the sun? Did you make the rivers to run for us to drink? Did you make the grass to grow? Did you make all these things, that you talk to us as though we were boys? If you did, then you have the right to talk as you do."
"But," argued General Howard, "you know very well that the Government has fixed a reservation and that the Indian must go upon it."
"What person pretends to divide the land and put me on it?" growled old Toohulhulsote.
"I am the man," General Howard answered. "I stand here for the President."
"The Indians may do as they like, but I am not going on the reservation," announced Toohulhulsote.
His words were causing much excitement and bad feeling, and General Howard ordered him arrested. The young men murmured among themselves, and would have begun war at once by rescuing him; but Chief Joseph spoke to them and quieted them.
Toohulhulsote was kept locked up for five days. Meanwhile Chief Joseph had resolved to permit no war.
"I said in my heart," related Joseph, "that rather than have war I would give up my country. I would rather give up my father's grave. I would give up everything, rather than have the blood of white men on the hands of my people."
Thirty days was named as the time within which he must gather his people and goods and remove to the reservation. He counseled everybody to obey. When Toohulhulsote came home he urged the Nez Percés men to fight, and not be driven like dogs from the land where they were born; but Joseph stood with a strong heart.
The time seemed too short for moving so many families, their horses and cattle. Still, he worked hard, and all was going smoothly, when without warning some bad white men raided the gathered cattle, and killed one of the herders.
This aroused the young men, again. A grand council of the Pierced Noses met, and talked war and peace both. Chief Joseph talked peace. He was very anxious to get his people into the reservation before more killings took place. The thirty days were almost up.
Then, on the very last day, or June 13, his young men broke away from him. There was one, whose father had been killed by the settlers. There were the young man's father's relatives. There were two Indians who had been whipped.
The young man rode away from the council, vowing war. He and his friends went out; they killed the white murderer, and others; they came back and shouted to the council:
"Why do you sit here like women? The war has already begun."
So it had. Joseph and Ollicut were not here, but Chief White Bird hastened about, crying:
"All must join now. There is blood. You will be punished if you stay back."
More went out. The man who had whipped the two Indians was killed. A dozen of the settlers were killed. Chief Joseph found that war had been declared; plenty of ammunition had been collected without his knowing it; there was no use in any peace talk now.
He tried to make his people agree not to injure more settlers. Then he moved the camp to White Bird Canyon, at the Salmon River in Idaho just across from the northeast corner of Oregon.
They did not have long to wait. General Howard at once sent two troops of the First Cavalry against him. Troop F was commanded by Captain David Perry, and First Lieutenant Edward Russell Theller of the Twenty-first Infantry; Troop H was commanded by Captain J. G. Trimble and First Lieutenant William B. Parnell. The two troops numbered ninety men. Ten settlers joined them, so that the whole number was one hundred.
Chief Joseph and Chief White Bird his assistant had sixty warriors. At dawn of June 17 Ollicut, through a spy-glass, saw the soldiers entering the narrow canyon.
Ollicut and White Bird wished to cross over the Salmon River with the women and children, and fight from the other side.
"No, we will fight them here," said Joseph.
He had never fought a battle. The soldiers and settlers did not expect him to do much; he himself did not know what he could do; but he was a born general, he had watched the white soldiers drill, and, as he explained: "The Great Spirit puts it into the heart and head of man to know how to defend himself."
Now he stowed the women and children in a safe place, and posted his warriors. White Bird commanded the right flank; he, the left. He cleverly seized upon the high ground on the broken sides of the canyon.
The soldiers rode in, by column of twos, until at the wide spot they changed to column of fours. Chief Joseph's men suddenly fired. Captain Perry used all his military skill, but in short order he was thoroughly defeated.
Joseph missed not a point. No white man could have done better. He threatened the right flank—Captain Perry hastened men to strengthen it and then White Bird turned the left flank. The volunteers ran away, Chief Joseph grabbed the best position; now he had the soldiers under his thumb, and they retreated helter-skelter.
He cut off the rear guard, and every one in it was killed fighting. Captain Perry had worked hard to rally his men. No use. The Chief Joseph men pressed furiously.
The actual battle had occupied only a few minutes. The soldiers lost Lieutenant Theller and thirty-two men shot dead, out of the ninety; seven were wounded. The volunteers lost four men. The Pierced Noses did not try to take any scalps.
Chief Joseph's warriors pursued for twelve miles, and quit. During the battle his wife was presented by the Great Spirit with a little daughter. So now he had a baby to look out for.
Captain Perry was much mortified by the easy victory over him. The Pierced Noses of Joseph and White Bird rejoiced. They had done better than they had expected. The soldiers had proved to be not very great.
Joseph had planned to take his people only beyond the Bitter Root Mountains of northeastern Idaho, by the Pierced Noses' Road-to-the-buffalo, and stay in the Powder River country of Montana until he might come to terms with the United States. He was willing to risk the Sioux.
But General Howard did not sleep. He summoned troops from all his wide department of the Columbia. The telegraph carried the word into California, and down into Arizona.
When he had two hundred soldiers he led them, himself. Chief Joseph ferried his women and children over the roaring Salmon River on skin rafts towed by swimming ponies, and put the river between him and General Howard.
General Howard viewed the position, and was puzzled. His rival general was a genius in defense. He crossed the river, to the attack. Chief Joseph dodged him, crossed the river farther north, and circling southward cut his trail and his communications with Fort Lapwai; fell upon Captain S. G. Whipple's First Cavalry, which was in his path—surrounded it, wiped out Lieutenant Sevier Rains and ten cavalrymen, scattered the reinforcements, and passed on, for the Road-to-the-buffalo.
General Howard heard that he had been side-stepped, and that the Nez Percés were beyond his lines. With almost six hundred men, two field-pieces and a Gatling gun he followed at best speed. The "treaty" or friendly Pierced Noses aided him; so did the Bannock Indians.
Chief Joseph had been joined by his friend Chief Looking Glass. Now he had two hundred and fifty warriors—also four hundred and fifty women and children, two thousand horses, as many cattle, and much lodge baggage. In all the history of wars, no general carried a greater burden.
On July 11 he turned at the banks of the south Clearwater, in northern Idaho, to give battle again. He had thrown up dirt entrenchments, and was waiting for General Howard's infantry, cavalry, artillery and scouts.
General Howard formed line. He had graduated with honors at West Point in 1854, and had won high rank in the Civil War. But Joseph wellnigh defeated him—nearly captured his supply train, did capture a spring and keep him from the drinking water; and had it not been for reinforcements coming in and creating two attacks at once on the Pierced Noses' position, he would have made General Howard retire.
The battle lasted two days. It was really a victory for Chief Joseph.
"I do not think that I had to exercise more thorough generalship during the Civil War," General Howard confessed.
Chief Joseph withdrew his people in good order. General Howard in desperation sent the cavalry, under Chief-of-Staff E. C. Mason, to find the Pierced Noses and hold them. Colonel Mason did not find them—they foundhim, and he was very glad to return in haste to General Howard.
The Joseph people were now safely in the Lo-lo Trail, or the Road-to-the-buffalo, that wound up the Bitter Root Range, and down on the other side. On this trail the two captains Lewis and Clark had almost perished. What with the great forest trees fallen crisscross, the dense brush and the sharp tumbled rocks, no trail could be rougher.
Over and under and through the trees and rocks Chief Joseph forced his women and children, his ponies and cattle and baggage. Behind him he left blood and disabled horses and cows. One hundred and fifty miles behind him he left the toiling, panting soldiers, whose forty axe-men were constantly at work clearing a passage for the artillery and the packs.
Even at that, the soldiers marched sixteen miles a day; but the Pierced Noses marched faster.
The telegraph was swifter still. Fort Missoula, at the east end of the trail, had been notified. Captain C. C. Rawn of the Seventh Infantry hastily fortified the pass down, with fifty regulars and one hundred volunteers. Chief Joseph side-stepped him also, left him waiting, and by new trails turned south down the Bitter Root Valley on the east side of the mountains! The Bitter Root Valley was well settled. The Pierced Noses molested no ranches or towns. They traded, as they went, for supplies.
Colonel John Gibbon, who had campaigned against Sitting Bull, now took up the chase. Chief Joseph did not know about Colonel Gibbon's troops, and made camp on the Big Hole River, near the border in south-western Montana. He was preparing lodge-poles, to take to the buffalo country.
Here, at dawn of August 9, Colonel Gibbon with two hundred regulars and volunteers surprised him completely. A storm of bullets swept his lodges, before his people were astir. Everybody dived for safety.
Some of the warriors left their guns. The white soldiers charged into the camp. All was confusion; all was death—but the warriors rallied.
In twenty minutes the white soldiers were destroying the camp with fire. In an hour they were fighting for their lives. The Pierced Noses had not fled, as Indians usually fled in a surprise; they had stayed, had surrounded the camp place, and were riddling the soldiers' lines.
The squaws and boys helped. On the other side, Colonel Gibbon himself used a rifle. He ordered his troops into the timber. The Chief Joseph people rushed into their camp, packed up under hot fire, and bundled the women and children and loose horses to safety. The warriors remained.
The soldiers threw up entrenchments. Colonel Gibbon was wounded. The Indians captured his field-piece, and a pack mule loaded with two thousand rounds of rifle ammunition. They disabled the cannon and drove off the mule. They fired the grass, and only a change of wind saved the soldiers from being driven into the open.
All that day and the next day the battle lasted. At dusk of August 9 Colonel Gibbon had sent out couriers, with call for reinforcements. "Hope you will hurry to our relief," he appealed, to General Howard. Couriers rode to the Montana forts, also. The whole country was being stirred. Even Arizona was getting troops ready.
This night of August 10 Chief Joseph learned from one of his scouts who had been posted on the back trail, that General Howard was hurrying to the rescue. So he withdrew his people again, to make another march.
He had lost heavily. Eighty men, women and children were dead. Out of one hundred and ninety men in the battle of the Big Hole, Colonel Gibbon had lost sixty-nine in killed and wounded, including six officers.
But the white men could easily get more soldiers; Chief Joseph could get no more warriors. He decided to join with Sitting Bull's Sioux, in Canada.
Canada was a long way; maybe a thousand miles. General Howard and Colonel Gibbon pursued. Joseph crossed the mountains again, into the southward. He veered east for the Yellowstone National Park. On the road he found two hundred and fifty fresh ponies. General Howard sent Lieutenant G. B. Bacon with cavalry to cut in front of him and defend a pass; and camped, himself, for a short rest, on the Camas Meadows, one day's march behind the enemy.
Chief Joseph turned on him, deceived his sentries with a column of fours that looked like Lieutenant Bacon's men coming back, and ran off all of General Howard's pack mules.
"I got tired of General Howard, and wanted to put him afoot," said Chief Joseph.
And he almost did it; for had not the cavalry horses been picketed close in, they would have been stampeded, too.
General Howard had to wait for mules from Virginia City. Lieutenant Bacon wearied of watching the pass; left it—and Chief Joseph marched through, into the Yellowstone Park.
Now Colonel Miles, at Fort Keogh, far in the east, had been notified. He sent out Colonel S. D. Sturgis and six companies of the fighting Seventh Cavalry, with Crow scouts, to head Joseph off.
Colonel Sturgis made fast time to the southwest. But Chief Joseph fooled him; pretended to go in one direction and took another, leaving the Seventh Cavalry forty miles at one side.
Colonel Sturgis obtained fresh horses from General Howard, and started in chase. On September 17 he came up with Chief Joseph's rear guard, captured several hundred ponies and sent back word to General Howard that there was to be a decisive battle.
General Howard hurried. He marched all night. When he got to the battle-field he found only the Seventh Cavalry there, with three killed and eleven wounded, and everybody exhausted. Chief Joseph was marching on, north, in a great half circle. Somebody else must head him off.
General Howard sent a dispatch to Colonel Miles.
"The Nez Percés have left us hopelessly in the rear. Will you take action to intercept them?"
From Fort Keogh on the Yellowstone, one hundred and fifty miles eastward, Colonel Miles sallied out. It was a relay race by the white chiefs. He took four mounted companies of the Fifth Infantry, three companies of the Seventh Cavalry, three companies of the Second Cavalry, thirty Cheyenne and Sioux scouts and some white scouts, a Hotchkiss machine gun, a twelve-pounder Napoleon field-piece, a long wagon train guarded by infantry, and a pack train of mules.
A steamboat was ordered to ascend the Missouri, and meet the troops with more supplies. Telegraph, steamboats, trained soldiers, supplies—all the military power of the United States was fighting Chief Joseph.
Joseph reached the Missouri River first, at Cow Island. There was a fort here, guarding a supply depot. He seized the depot, burned it, and leaving the fort with three of its thirteen men killed, he crossed the river.
Canada was close at hand. Pretty soon he thought that he had crossed the line, and in the Bear Paw Mountains he sat down, to rest. He had many wounded to care for; his women and children were worn out. He had marched about two thousand miles and had fought four big battles.
"I sat down," said Joseph, "in a fat and beautiful country. I had won my freedom and the freedom of my people. There were many empty places in the lodges and in the council, but we were in a land where we would not be forced to live in a place we did not want. I believed that if I could remain safe at a distance and talk straight to the men sent by the Great Father, I could get back to the Wallowa Valley and return in peace. That is why I did not allow my young men to kill and destroy the white settlers after I began to fight. I wanted to leave a clean trail, and if there were dead soldiers on it I could not be blamed. I had sent out runners to find Sitting Bull, to tell him that another band of red men had been forced to run from the soldiers, and to propose that we join for defense if attacked. My people were recovering. I was ready to move on to a permanent camp when, one morning, Bear Coat and his soldiers came in sight, and stampeded our horses. Then I knew that I had made a mistake by not crossing into the country of the Red Coats; also in not keeping the country scouted in my rear."
For he was not in Canada. The Canada border lay a day's march of thirty-five miles northward yet. And he had not known anything about Colonel Miles, the Bear Coat.
Colonel Miles brought three hundred and seventy-five soldiers, and the cannon. Chief Joseph had already lost almost one hundred of his men and women. But his brother Ollicut, Chief White Bird, and the Drummer Dreamer, old Too-hul-hul-so-te, were still with him; and one hundred and seventy-five warriors.
The first charge of the Bear Coat cavalry, early in this morning of September 30,1877, scattered the camp and cut off the pony herd. Chief Joseph was separated from his wife and children. He dashed for them, through the soldiers. His horse was wounded, his clothes pierced, but he got to his lodge.
His wife handed him his gun.
"Take it. Fight!"
And fight he did; his people fought. They dug rifle-pits, the same as white soldiers would. There was fighting for four days. The Bear Coat lost one fifth of his officers and men. He settled to a close siege, shooting with his cannon and trying to starve the Pierced Noses. He was much afraid that Sitting Bull was coming down, and bringing the Sioux. He sent messages to notify General Terry, in the east, and General Howard, in the south.
Chief Joseph's heart ached. His brother Ollicut was dead. Old Toohulhulsote was dead. Looking Glass was dead. Twenty-four others had been killed, and forty-six were wounded. He had over three hundred women and children. Of his own family, only his wife and baby were left to him. Sitting Bull did not come.
"My people were divided about surrendering," he said. "We could have escaped from the Bear Paw Mountains if we had left our wounded, old women and children behind. We were unwilling to do this. We had never heard of a wounded Indian recovering while in the hands of white men. I could not bear to see my wounded men and women suffer any longer."
So he rode out, on the morning of October 5, and surrendered. General Howard had arrived, at the end of his long thirteen-hundred-mile chase, but the surrender was made to Colonel Miles.
Chief Joseph handed over his gun.