Lay the Mountains Low (50 page)
Read Lay the Mountains Low Online
Authors: Terry C. Johnston
J
ULY
15â16, 1877
Fort Lapwai
July 15, 1877
Dearest Mamma,
This is such a bright Sunday morning. The children look so nicely in their best blue stockings and little brown linens, and they are playing on the porch. This is the first day this summer I have felt like fixing them up from top to toe. Even now I am afraid we will hear something horrible before the day is over and spoil all my pleasant feelings. The Indians (friendly ones) who were in that last fight say that one officer had his leg cut off by the officers in the field, and they describe it so plainly, it must be so. Then from the fact that General Howard named the Camp “Williams,” we fear poor Mr. Williams has lost his leg. He is only a young fellow and very fine one ⦠Dispatches came in from General Howard yesterday saying the Indians had recrossed the Clearwater River and were making for the mountains with the troops in pursuit. The trail over the mountains, which the Indians are supposed to be making for, leads over into Montana into what they talk about here as the buffalo country, but from a great many things, nearly everybody thinks Joseph doesn't want to get out of the country around here, but is only withdrawing in that direction to prepare for another fight. You never heard of such daring Indians in your life. In this last fight, they charged to within ten feet of the soldiers, and charged up to the artillery and tried to take the guns from the men
â¦
My head is full of Indians. It was very warm yesterday, and I baked a cake and churned my butter on a
table on my back porch, and I kept one eye and one ear up the ravine watching for Indians all the time. It is a horrible feeling â¦
Everybody here seems to feel a little more cheerful since the last fight ⦠It is like the old cry of “Wolf! Wolf!” and when we don't look for it, the wolf comes
.
We all join in love and hope to hear soon.
Your affectionate daughter,
Emily FitzGerald
BY TELEGRAPH
â
A Run on the Savings Banks of St. Louis.
â
WASHINGTON.
â
Dismissal from the Indian Bureau
WASHINGTON, July 14.âL. S. Hayden clerk in the Indian bureau, was to-day dismissed by the secretary of the interior as the first public result of the pending investigation of the allegation of irregularities and fraudulent practices in the Indian service ⦠Hayden, according to his own evidence, has accepted money and other things of value from contractors â¦
â
Better News.
WALLA WALLA, July 14.â
To Gen. McDowell, San Francisco:
Have been with Gen. Howard in the battle of to-day, which he reports in detail. I consider this the most important success. Joseph is in full flight westward. Nothing can surpass the vigor of Gen. Howard's movements.
(Signed) KEELER, A.D.C.
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Gen. McDowell says that he thinks this defeat will tend to cause the other Indians to remain peaceable, and may make it unnecessary to act under the president's authority
to call out volunteers for temporary service. He will at least defer action till he gets Howard's report.
L
ATE LAST NIGHT AFTER AGENT JOHN MONTEITH AND INDIAN
inspector Erwin C. Watkins arrived from Lapwai, General Oliver Otis Howard dashed off a short dispatch to be wired to his commander, McDowell, in San Francisco:
CLEARWATER, July 15th
Joseph may make a complete surrender to-morrow morning. My troops will meet him at the ferry. He and his people will be treated with justice. Their conduct to be completely investigated by a court composed of nine of my army, selected by myself. Col. Miller is designated to receive Joseph and his arms.
[signed] O. O. Howard
Brig. Gen. U. S. A.
The following morning, a Monday, the general was up before dawn, composing the congratulatory address one of his aides would read before his troops following their battle oil the South Fork of the Clearwater River:
Headquarters Department of the
Columbia,
In the Field, Camp McBeth,
Kamiah, IT., July 16, 1877.
GENERAL FIELD ORDERS NO. 2
The General Commanding has not had time since the battle of the 11th and 12th instants, on the South Fork of the Clearwater, on account of the constancy of the pursuit, to express to the troops engaged his entire satisfaction with the tireless energy of officers and men, that enabled them to concentrate at the right time and place with the promptitude of the first assault; the following up of the first advantage for a mile and a half with inconceivable
speed; with the quickness to obey orders; sometimes to anticipate them, which prevented the first flanking charge of the Indians from being successful; then with the persistency of uncovering their barricades and other obstacles, and clearing ravines, both by open charge and gradual approaches under constant fire, thereby making an engagement of unusual obstinacy of seven hours hard fighting; also his satisfaction with the remaining in difficult position and entrenching a long line at night while fatigued, and almost without food and water, till the afternoon of the second day, when the Infantry and Cavalry of the command cheerfully thinned out their lines so as to cover two miles and a half of extent, and to allow the Artillery battalion to turn the enemy's right and enable an approaching train with its escort to come in with safety; then turning briskly upon the foe, the Artillery battalion, by a vigorous assault, sent him in confusion from his works, and commenced the pursuit in which all the troops, including the new arrivals, immediately engaged
â
through the ravines and rocks and down the most impassible [sic] mountain side to the river; after this crossing, the taking possession of the Indian camp, abandoned and filled with their supplies, and surrounded by their “caches,” causing the Indians to fly over the hills in great disorder.
The battle, with its incidents, is one that will enter into history; its results, immediate and remote, will surely bring permanent peace to the Northwest, so that it is with great satisfaction the General can say that not one officer or soldier that came under his eye on that field failed to do his duty, and more gallant conduct he never witnessed in battle. The General feels deeply the loss of the killed, and sympathizes heartily with the wounded, and unites with their friends in, their anxiety and sorrow. He mentions no one by name in this order, hoping to do justice to individuals after reports shall be received. The command is indebted to the officers of the
staff for their indefatigable work previous to and during the engagement.
W
ITH
that bit of officiousness put behind him, the general gathered with his headquarters staff on the south bank of the Clearwater, waiting for Joseph to bring his people in to surrender.
“This surrender means nothing short of the end to the war,” Howard enthused outwardly, while inside he remained full of doubt.
“We've heard reports from a few Christians that White Bird is driving all those who hoped to surrender before him with the lash,” Monteith admitted. “There's some room for error in these rumors, but ⦠I feel that if Joseph attempts to surrender, it will lead to an open clash between the Non-Treaty bands.”
That's when Watkins declared, “And Agent Monteith doesn't think Joseph will risk such a clash within the Dreamers.”
The hours slowly dragged past that morning. The Nez Perce did not show.
His hopes crushed, Howard sensed his anger simmeringâfiguring that he had been played a fool by Joseph. Not only was the chief a superb military tactician in outmaneuvering Oliver's West Point-trained officers, but Joseph was an unequalled diplomatic strategist in outplaying Howard himself in this ruse
*
at surrender.
“It was nothing more than a well-manufactured lie designed
to hold me in check while he had time to take his hostiles and their livestock toward the terminus of the Lolo Trail,” Howard admitted to his staff later that morning as they gathered for officers' call in the shade of some trees.
“Joseph wants to play cat and mouse again with us,” Captain David Perry said, “we'll show him the cat can catch that mouseâ”
“General Howard! General Howard! Pickets report Indians coming down to the crossing!”
Was it too much to hope?
Howard busted through the circle of officers who barely had time to step aside for him. The moment he had a clear view of the distant hillside, the general stopped in his tracks, staring. A thin column of Indians both on horseback and foot angled down the grassy north slope toward the Kamiah crossing. Not quite a hundred, but close enough from what he could tell. While it was nowhere near all the souls in that hostile camp, it was nonetheless a start. So with Joseph at the head of this first group to surrender, the others would soon see the Tightness in giving up and eventually follow their leader in to turn over their weapons and horses.
But by the time the first leaders had their ponies halfway across the Clearwater, Howard was standing at the edge of the river, shifting from foot to foot, bewildered that he did not see Joseph among those riders.
“Where is Joseph?” he demanded of his translator as James Reuben came up at a lope and dismounted on both feet.
“Joseph isn't with them,” Reuben said after he had spoken to the first arrivals. “He is with the others camped back in the hills.”
“Joseph is coming down later?”
“No, General. These are the only people surrendering today,” Reuben explained. “Their names are Red Heart and Three Feathers. They brought their families in to give up their guns and horses. Don't want to fight the soldiers. No war, so they come in to you.”
Bitterly, with more disappointment than he wanted to admit was boiling in his belly, Howard grumbled at his aides, “Take their guns and dismount them. They are my prisoners of war.”
He whirled on his heel.
“General,” Reuben said, lunging in front of Howard, “these are no fighters. Never fight the army. You can't make them prisoners of war.”
He glared at Reuben as he snapped, “I can make any Nez Perce a prisoner of war when I know they've been with the hostiles in their camp. Who's to say they're not spies? Or that they don't mean to kill me if they had the chance? You tell them they are my prisoners!”
Later that morning Second Lieutenant Charles Wood came up to report that Red Heart's people had only two old guns to turn over.
“Were they completely searched?” Howard inquired.
“Yes, General. The translator told me they said more of their people would be coming in later today or tomorrow.”
“Joseph?”
Wood shook his head. “The one called Three Feathers said Joseph has been compelled to take his people to the buffalo country with White Bird and Looking Glass. He also claimed he lived on the reservation and has never beenâ”
“A reservation Indian, is he?” Howard sniffed. “I want them all arrested and taken off to Lapwai under armed escort. They shall remain my prisoners of war until this war is over.”
*
“I'll see that escort is arranged, sir,” Wood replied. “It seems to me that these people showing up to surrender to you is a good sign.”
“A good sign?”
“Yes, sir. To me it shows that there is dissension in those warrior bands. I think it bodes well that the war is close to an end, General.”
He allowed himself to enjoy a little self-congratulation, at least until midafternoon, when a courier arrived from Fort Lapwai with a leather envelope filled with letters and even a dispatch from division headquarters in Portland. Included was a terse wire from General Irwin McDowell's aide, which read in total:
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See Associated Press dispatches which
state General Howard's removal under
consideration by cabinet.
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That flimsy was attached to several clippings from recent newspapers, all dealing with stories picked up off the wire from Washington City.
His long string of failures, blunders, and misplaced optimism had gotten him nothing but a blackguard's treatment in the press. All at once, the awful specter of those scandals at the Freedmen's Bureau loomed over him once more like a sword suspended on a very thin thread. Everyone, it seemed, had been calling for his removal, and those cries had found ears all the way to Washington itself.
But, as General McDowell himself wrote in a wire to Howard, with that news of his success in the Clearwater fight Howard himself had reversed all that ill will with one fell swoop:
Â
To army heads sorely perturbed over Nez Perce
successes, your telegrams were welcome news
when they reached headquarters a day ago.
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Instead of being the one who would have had to remove Howard by order from Washington, General McDowell now relayed his unbounded elation at Howard's turnaround, writing, in part:
Â
Your dispatch and that of Captain Keeler of your
engagement on the eleventh (11th) and twelfth (12)
gave us all great pleasure. I immediately
repeated them to Washington, to be laid before
the Secretary of War and the President. These
dispatches came most opportunely, for your
enemies had raised a great clamor against you,
which, the press reported, had not been without
its effect in Washington. They have been
silenced, but I think they (like Joseph's band)
have been scotchedânot killedâand will rise
again if they have a chance â¦
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“This is great news, General!” Thomas Sutherland exclaimed as he came up to join the headquarters group. “Those wags with their asses plopped down in some comfortable horsehair sofa back in Washingtonâwhat do they know of Indian fighting?”
The other officers cheered that approbation.
“It's for sure they haven't been reading any of my dispatches!” Sutherland continued. “If they had, those myopic narrow-sighted imbeciles would know better than to criticize a fighting man in the middle of a fight!”