Nez Perce Trail / Mary Mountain Trail, Wyoming
August 25, 1877 - Violence erupts
The relationship between the Nez Perce and the Radersburg tourists became increasingly contentious as some of the younger warriors angered and grief-stricken by the unwarranted assaults on their people sought revenge. Shots were fired and one man was left for dead. Five men escaped and the two women, along with Frank Carpenter, joined the prospector John Shively, as captives of the Nez Perce.
"I was riding beside Albert Oldham a li le ways behind George and Emma. The Indians were all around us. I saw two Indians on horses coming down in front of us at a full gallop. They stopped suddenly and red, and George jumped or fell from his horse. At the same moment, Albert Oldham dropped from his horse, being shot by an Indian a li le ways above and behind us.”
– Ida Carpenter, (thirteen years old, tourist, Radersburg party)
“Those nine prisoners the warriors bothered. The chiefs took the two women away from them. One was full grown, the other young and small. Both good looking. I saw everybody making to travel...then, soon, I heard some gun reports. It was the bad boys killing some of the white men.”
– Hímiin Maqsmáqs (Yellow Wolf)
The main band made camp approximately 10 miles to the east, near Mary’s Lake. The Cowans and Frank D. Carpenter were given food, water, blankets, and were kept withinHinmahtooyahatkekht’s(Chief Joseph) camp to protect them from further assaults from angry warriors. Emma Cowan later related how the night air was filled with the mournful singing of many in the large surrounding camp. During the night as it started to rain, Nez Perce women covered the buffalo-hide blankets with canvas so as to protect those tourists from discomfort.
Two days later General Howard’s scouts reached this point and two days after them, the infantry and cavalry. But before they could get the supply wagons through the Mary Mountain Trail, a road had to be built. While the infantry went on ahead, the teamsters stayed behind with the wagons.
“Here... our wagon-road ended...From this point to the banks of the Yellowstone, and down that river we cut and constructed our own road, the work being done by civilian employees undercharge of Capt. W.F. Spurgin, Twenty-first Infantry. It was a most tedious and laborious task, and may be appreciated in the fact that a wagon-road through that section has been always considered... an impossibility.”
– General Oliver O. Howard
