Bear Paw National Historic Battlefield
After staying ahead of the military for five months and 1,170 miles, months in which they had crossed mountains, suffered hardship, and lost many friends and relatives, approximately 700 Nez Perce made a final camp on Snake Creek, south of present day Chinook, Montana, 40 miles from the Canadian border.
It was growing colder every day as we headed northward. On September 29 when we finally arrived in the Bear Paws at the place we called “Ali-Kos-Pah” (Place of Manure Fires), it was already started to snow. I helped to gather buffalo chips and before long many fires were burning.
– Suhm-Keen (Shirt On, ten years old)
Colonel Nelson Miles, after a hard 12 day’s march, had discovered the Nez Perce trail and was closing in on the camp.
Weather thawing. There’s not as much snow now as there was on going to bed last night… We had marched about 2 ½ hours when we saw the scouts coming back full tilt. The command halted & we learned that the Nez Perces’ camp was about 5 miles ahead….Extra clothing were stripped & every man supplied himself with 100 rounds of ammunition. Cheyenne Indians were making themselves ready at the same time by doing away with their blankets & adorning themselves & ponies with feathers & their war hats. In a short time everything was in readiness & we started off at a brisk trot, leaving one co. of infantry with the pack train.
– Pvt. William Zimmer, September 30, 1877
Word was sent to General Howard and Colonel Sturgis who were just arriving at Carroll sixteen miles east of Cow Island on the Missouri River.
Almost simultaneously with the arrival of the supply steamer, came a courier from General Miles, of whose exact location we had, up to this time, been unaware, telling us that he had the Indians corralled in the Bear Paw Mountains, and asking that all available troops be rushed forward to his assistance.
– Pvt. Theodore Goldin
The attack on the Nez Perce camp began with a charge by Miles’s command.
–Capt. Myles Moylan, August 16, 1878
– Col. Nelson Miles
The Nez Perce were preparing to start north again,con dent that Howard’s army was still well behind them.Some of the men rode off to hunt, while some women left the camp to skin, butcher, and pack the meat from buffaloes killed the preceding day. Still others were out catching horses along Snake Creek or packing while children played and others nished their breakfast whentwo scouts raced in yelling that soldiers were approaching. Immediately the camp sprang to action, arming themselves and hurrying women and children north out of the camp.
Soon, from the south came a noise, a rumble like stampeding buffaloes.
– Yellow Wolf (Hímiin Maqsmáqs)
Shortly after 9:00 a.m. Colonel Nelson Miles and his troops descended on the Nez Perce camp. The warriors, hidden in the coulees and washes, halted the initial charge but the military attacked relentlessly. The battle went on as the days grew colder, with heavy casualties on both sides, until October 5 when Chief Joseph and the approximately 430 remaining Nez Perce surrendered. Those survivors began the last leg of their journey, farther away from their homeland than any of them could have dreamed.
On the morning of October 5, Chief Joseph, believing the Nez Perce would be sent to the Lapwai Reservation,agreed to stop ghting. The often quoted words he sentto General Howard were written down by Howard’s adjutant, Lieutenant C.E.S. Wood. Although Joseph haddetermined that to quit the fight was the best thing to do,each individual was free to decide for himself or herself whether he wished to surrender.
Not all of the remaining non-treaty Nez Perce were among those who surrendered. Red Heart and 33 of his people were still being held prisoner in Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory, where they had been since July. Led by Chief White Bird, nearly 300 Nez Perce men, women, and children managed to escape the battle at Bear Paw and make their way the 40 miles into Canada where, for a time, they joined Sitting Bull and the Lakota near Fort Walsh.
In spite of promises that they would be returned to their homeland, Joseph and the other survivors were relocated first to Fort Leavenworth then Baxter Springs, Kansas,and eventually sent to the Quapaw Agency in Oklahoma. Only 268 survived the the eight years in exile. Their eventual release was bittersweet for although they could leave Oklahoma, they were never allowed to return to their Wallowa homelands.
