The Battle of Camas Creek, August 20, 1877, was a raid by the Nez Perce people on a United States Army encampment in Idaho Territory and a subsequent battle during the Nez Perce War. The Nez Perce defeated three companies of U.S. cavalry and continued their fighting retreat to escape the army.
After sustaining heavy casualties at the Battle of the Big Hole on August 9–10, the Nez Perce proceeded southward though Montana Territory, crossed into Idaho Territory again at Bannock Pass, and descended into the valley of the Lemhi River. The Nez Perce were aware that the U.S. Army was in pursuit; to confound them, they took a circuitous route less familiar than their usual direct route to the Montana Great Plains. During this section of their retreat, their guide and the leader of their march was a half-Nez Perce, half-French man of several names, the most common being Poker Joe.[4] The White settlers in the Lemhi Valley had been warned that the Nez Perce might be coming their way and most of them had fled to the town of Lemhi.
The route of the Nez Perce (red) and General Howard (purple) to the Battle of Camas Meadows.
The pursuer of the Nez Perce, Brigadier General Oliver O. Howard, did not follow them directly, but rather took a shorter route to the east across southern Montana to intercept them near Yellowstone National Park. Howard had 310 soldiers plus a varying number of civilian volunteers, usually several dozen, and Indian scouts, primarily Bannocks, but also some Nez Perce friendly to the U.S. Howard detached 50 men, including Indian scouts, under Lt. George R. Bacon to rush ahead and guard Red Rock Pass, thus hoping to catch the Nez Perce between his and Bacon's soldiers.[5][6] Howard was coming under severe criticism for his failure to defeat the Nez Perce during a campaign that had now lasted two months.[7]
The Nez Perce pursued by Howard probably numbered, after their losses at the Big Hole battle, about 700 persons with fewer than 200 warriors.
Birch Creek
The death of many Nez Perce women and children at the Big Hole Battle caused a thirst for revenge among the young warriors of the Nez Perce and their leaders were not able to restrain them.[8]
On August 12, the Nez Perce killed five ranchers on Horse Prairie, Montana. On August13, after crossing into Idaho over Bannock Pass, the Nez Perce encountered a stockade full of White settlers at Junction. Leaders Looking Glass and White Bird met with the settlers and expressed their friendship for the settlers.[9]
Two days later, the Nez Perce on Birch Creek encountered a caravan of eight covered wagons and eight men. The initial contact was friendly, but after the Indians demanded and were served whiskey the situation became ugly and five of the Whites were killed. One White escaped and two Chinese were released. One Nez Perce was killed, apparently in a drunken brawl with another warrior. The leaders poured the remainder of the whiskey on the ground and burned the wagons.[8][10]
Race to Camas Meadows
From Birch Creek the Nez Perce turned eastward and headed toward Henrys Lake. Howard's route paralleled them to the north in Montana on the other side of the continental divide. Howard's plan was to cross into Idaho at Monida Pass (present-day Interstate 15) and intercept the Nez Perce at Camas Creek near Dubois. On August17, Howard was overtaken by 39 Virginia City volunteers under the command of James E. Callaway, who joined Howard's cavalry.[11][12]
That same day, Captain Randolph Norwood and fifty fresh cavalry men, designated as Company 4 of the Second Infantry, also overtook Howard's command. Howard expended all energy to intercept the Nez Perce near Camas Creek. He was a day late. Bannock Indian scouts, ahead of Howard's cavalry, observed the Nez Perce rear guard cross the road toward Camas Meadows. Chief Buffalo Horn, one of Howard's scouts, obtained a view of their camp.
On August18, the Nez Perce camped at Camas Meadows fifteen miles (24km) to Howard's east in a meadow bisected by Spring and Camas creeks. The Nez Perce name for their camp was Kamisnim Takin, meaning "camas meadows".[13] Howard marched to Camas Meadows on August19. The Nez Perce had departed earlier that day, continuing eastward. Howard set up camp there that night, calling it Camp Callaway, and took "great pains" to "cover the camp with pickets in every direction."[14]
The Raid
The Nez Perce warriors were travel-weary and worn-down during their long fighting retreat.
The exceptional precautions Howard had taken for the protection of Camp Callaway were observed by Nez Perce scouts. Upon returning to their own camp, they reported what they had seen to the chiefs. They decided to carry out a raid with the objective of putting Howard's cavalry on foot. The numbers of the raiders is disputed, although it was at least 28 and possibly many more.[15] The chiefs did not envision a battle. Yellow Wolf described the movements of the band:
We traveled slowly. No talking loud, no smoking. The match must not be seen. We went a good distance and then divided into two parties - one on each side of the creek... Before reaching the soldier camp, all stopped, and the leaders held council. How make the attack? The older men did this planning. Some wanted to leave the horses and enter the camp on foot. Chief Looking Glass and others thought the horses must not be left out. This last plan was chosen - to go mounted. Chief Joseph was not along.[16]
About 4:00a.m., several Nez Perce dismounted and crept among the picketed horses to cut them loose. Then two things happened simultaneously. As the mounted column approached the soldier's camp, a sentry shouted, "Who goes there?" At the same moment, a foot scout named Otskai accidentally discharged his gun in the midst of the camp.[13] Thus, an alarm was sounded from two places before many horses had been released from their picket lines. However, two hundred mules were free and the Indians concentrated upon stampeding them northward. This enabled the raiders to control the loose stock. In spite of all the shouting, several men thought they heard "the great voice of Looking Glass" booming out orders.[17] Bullets were flying about and some of them struck the wagons, but only one soldier was hit, and his wound was slight. Darkness, noise, and surprise compounded the confusion, but the cavalry officers and men quickly dressed and mounted.
General Howard ordered a strong force organized in order to pursue the raiders and recover the stock. Within minutes, three companies of cavalry were assembled. By dawn, nearly 150 horsemen were galloping northward in pursuit of the raiders, who had several miles' head start. In addition to the mules, about 20 horses belonging to the Virginia City volunteers were missing. It was reported that the volunteers received $150 per head from the government in compensation for their lost mounts.[18][19]
A newspaper reporter described the raid:
Oh, I am one of the volunteers, who marched right home on the tramp, tramp, When Joseph set the boys afoot, at the battle of Callaway's camp.[20]
The Battle of Camas Meadows
Under the command of Major Sanford, the cavalry companies of Captains Carr, Jackson, and Norwood, numbering about 150 men, set off at dawn in pursuit of the Nez Perce and the stolen mules. The rear guard of the Nez Perce detected them and set up an ambush eight miles (13km) north of Camp Callaway. Several warriors continued driving the mules on to camp, and others deployed among hillocks of black lava and broken terrain dotted with Aspen trees and sagebrush. A few Nez Perce deployed in a thin skirmish line in a grassy meadow about a half-mile (0.8km) wide. The meadow was bordered on the opposite side by a lava ridge 18 feet (5.5m) high and 500 to 600 feet (150 to 180m) long. Sanford and his three companies took up positions behind the ridge and dismounted to return long-distance fire from the Nez Perce.[21][22]
The distance between these lines was too great for effective marksmanship, but when a shot struck Lt. Benson in the hip the soldiers discovered that the Indians in the meadow were serving as a decoy, while others had been creeping forward on both flanks to enfilade the troops. Hence, Sanford ordered a bugler to call a retreat. The retreat of the cavalrymen whose horses had been taken to the rear was an occasion of excitement and confusion. Captain Randolph Norwood with fifty men, however, declined to obey immediately the order to retreat, but instead backtracked slowly to a strong position where he was forced by the encircling Nez Perce to halt, establish defensive positions, and fight it out. The other two companies had abandoned him, and for the next two to four hours, the two sides sniped at each other.
Meanwhile, Howard received word via messenger that the cavalry companies were in trouble and sallied forth from Camp Callaway with reinforcements. He found the two retreating cavalry companies. Captain Sandford professed ignorance as to the location and fate of Captain Norwood. Howard pushed forward and, mid-afternoon, came upon Norwood and his men crouching in their lava rock rifle pits located a few rods apart along the top and on the edges of a series of ridges that enclosed a protected area for their horses. The Indians melted away and the battle was over.
Norwood had one man dead, two mortally wounded and six to nine wounded.[22][23]Yellow Wolf stated that "no Indian was badly hurt, only one or two just grazed by bullets". Wottolen was wounded in the side, and Tholekt's head was creased.[22]
Plaque at the Battlefield site.
Aftermath
The Nez Perce were disappointed that the spoils of their raid had been mostly mules, but the loss crippled Howard's mobility. Howard had failed to defeat the Nez Perce on several occasions and now, after the battle, he failed to pursue them aggressively. A journalist thought that was for the best. "I candidly think Joseph could whip our cavalry and cannot blame General Howard for not giving him battle."[24]
On the evening after the battle, Howard was reinforced by 280 infantry under Captain Marcus Miller. Two days later on August22, fifty Bannocks, under the leadership of Buffalo Horn, rode into the camp. They were a "gorgeous set of warriors, hair dyed...decorated with...sleigh bells and feathers" and wearing buckskin and brightly colored blankets. They had been promised all the Nez Perce horses they could capture."[25] An unusually talented White scout, Stanton G. Fisher, and the Bannocks explored ahead. Howard followed slowly, so slowly that Buffalo Head and many of the Bannocks quit the army in disgust and went home and Fisher commented, "Uncle Sam's boys are too slow for this business."[26]
After learning that the Nez Perce had crossed into the wilderness of Yellowstone National Park, Howard called a halt to the chase and rested for several days at Henrys Lake. Howard's troops were tired, having marched for 26 days averaging twenty miles (32km) a day. The Nez Perce, burdened with wounded, women, children, and elderly had gone faster and further but, in the words of a journalist, they had the "faculty of stealing fresh horses from the settlers."[27]
Meanwhile, Howard's superior General Philip Sheridan was collecting more than one thousand experienced soldiers and Indian scouts from many tribes to defeat the Nez Perce when they emerged from Yellowstone.[28]
The Nez Perce are an Indigenous people of the Plateau who still live on a fraction of the lands on the southeastern Columbia River Plateau in the Pacific Northwest. This region has been occupied for at least 11,500 years.
Targhee Pass is a mountain pass in the western United States on the Continental Divide. It is located along the border between southeastern Idaho and southwestern Montana, in the Henrys Lake Mountains at an elevation of 7,072 feet (2,156 m) above sea level. The pass is named for a Bannock chief.
The Nez Perce War was an armed conflict in 1877 in the Western United States that pitted several bands of the Nez Perce tribe of Native Americans and their allies, a small band of the Palouse tribe led by Red Echo (Hahtalekin) and Bald Head, against the United States Army. Fought between June and October, the conflict stemmed from the refusal of several bands of the Nez Perce, dubbed "non-treaty Indians," to give up their ancestral lands in the Pacific Northwest and move to an Indian reservation in Idaho Territory. This forced removal was in violation of the 1855 Treaty of Walla Walla, which granted the tribe 7.5 million acres of their ancestral lands and the right to hunt and fish on lands ceded to the U.S. government.
The Battle of the Big Hole was fought in Montana Territory, August 9–10, 1877, between the United States Army and the Nez Perce tribe of Native Americans during the Nez Perce War. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. The Nez Perce withdrew in good order from the battlefield and continued their long fighting retreat that would result in their attempt to reach Canada and asylum.
The Battle of the Clearwater was a battle in the Idaho Territory between the Nez Perce under Chief Joseph and the United States Army. Under General O. O. Howard, the army surprised a Nez Perce village; the Nez Perce counter-attacked and inflicted significant casualties on the soldiers, but were forced to abandon the village.
The Battle of Bear Paw was the final engagement of the Nez Perce War of 1877. Following a 1,200-mile (1,900 km) running fight from north central Idaho Territory over the previous four months, the U.S. Army managed to corner most of the Nez Perce led by Chief Joseph in early October 1877 in northern Montana Territory, just 42 miles (68 km) south of the border with Canada, where the Nez Perce intended to seek refuge from persecution by the U.S. government.
The Bannock War of 1878 was an armed conflict between the U.S. military and Bannock and Paiute warriors in Idaho and northeastern Oregon from June to August 1878. The Bannock totaled about 600 to 800 in 1870 because of other Shoshone peoples being included with Bannock numbers. they were led by Chief Buffalo Horn, who was killed in action on June 8, 1878. After his death, Chief Egan led the Bannocks. He and some of his warriors were killed in July by a Umatilla party that entered his camp in subterfuge.
The Battle of Four Lakes was a battle during the Coeur d'Alene War of 1858 in the Washington Territory in the United States. The Coeur d'Alene War was part of the Yakima War, which began in 1855. The battle was fought near present-day Four Lakes, Washington, between elements of the United States Army and a coalition of Native American tribes consisting of Schitsu'umsh, Palus, Spokan, and Yakama warriors.
The Battle of White Bird Canyon was fought on June 17, 1877, in Idaho Territory. White Bird Canyon was the opening battle of the Nez Perce War between the Nez Perce Indians and the United States. The battle was a significant defeat of the U.S. Army. It took place in the western part of present-day Idaho County, southwest of the city of Grangeville.
Looking Glass was a principal Nez Perce architect of many of the military strategies employed by the Nez Perce during the Nez Perce War of 1877. He, along with Chief Joseph, directed the 1877 retreat from eastern Oregon into Montana and onward toward the Canada–US border during the Nez Perce War. He led the Alpowai band of the Nez Perce, which included the communities of Asotin, Alpowa, and Sapachesap along the Clearwater River in Idaho. He inherited his name from his father, the prominent Nez Percé chief Apash Wyakaikt or Ippakness Wayhayken and was therefore called by the whites Looking Glass.
Dead Indian Pass is a mountain pass on Wyoming Highway 296. The pass is located on Chief Joseph Scenic Byway and crosses the Absaroka Range.
The Battle of Canyon Creek was a military engagement in Montana Territory between the Nez Perce Indians and the United States Army's 7th Cavalry. The battle was part of the larger Indian Wars of the latter 19th century and the immediate Nez Perce War. It took place on September 13, 1877, west of present-day Billings in Yellowstone County, in the canyons and benches around Canyon Creek.
The Camas Meadows Battle Sites, also known as Camas Meadows Camp and Battle Sites, are two sites important to the Battle of Camas Creek, fought August 20, 1877 between members of the Nez Perce tribe and troops of the United States Army. The Nez Perce captured about 150 horses and mules from a campsite of the pursuing army, and for several hours besieged a detachment sent to recover them at a second site. The two sites, each about 40 acres (16 ha) in size, are about 5 miles (8.0 km) apart in Clark County, Idaho. They were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989, and are now part of Nez Perce National Historical Park, a collection of sites important in Nez Perce history.
Henry Wilkens was a German-born soldier in the U.S. Army who served with the 2nd U.S. Cavalry during the Nez Perce War. In the summer of 1877, he received the Medal of Honor for two separate engagements, Little Muddy Creek and Camas Meadows, against Lame Deer and the Nez Perce in the Idaho Territory. Wilkens was one of four men who received the award for taking part in the battle of Little Muddy Creek.
James Jackson was an American officer in the U.S. Army during the mid- to late-19th century. He was a captain with the 12th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War and with the 1st U.S. Cavalry in the Indian Wars. While fighting the Nez Percé at Battle of Camas Meadows in 1877, he risked his life to recover the body of another soldier, preventing its mutilation by the enemy. For this act, he received the Medal of Honor nearly 20 years later.
William H. Jones was an American soldier in the U.S. Army who served with the 2nd U.S. Cavalry during the Indian Wars. He received the Medal of Honor for gallantry in separate battles against the Sioux and the Nez Perce in the Rocky Mountains during the summer of 1877.
Ollokot, was a war leader of the Wallowa band of Nez Perce Indians and a leader of the young warriors in the Nez Perce War in 1877.
The Battle of Cottonwood was a series of engagements July 3–5, 1877, in the Nez Perce War between the Native American Nez Perce people, and U.S. Army soldiers and civilian volunteers. Near Cottonwood, Idaho Territory, the Nez Perce, led by Chief Joseph, brushed aside the soldiers and continued their 1,170 miles (1,880 km) fighting retreat to cross the Rocky Mountains in an attempt to reach safety in Canada.
Fort Fizzle was a temporary military barricade in the western United States, erected by the U.S. Army in July 1877 in Montana Territory. Its purpose was to intercept the Nez Perce in their flight from north central Idaho Territory over Lolo Pass into the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana. The name describes the effectiveness of the fort.
The Nez Perce native Americans fled through Yellowstone National Park between August 20 and Sept 7, during the Nez Perce War in 1877. As the U.S. army pursued the Nez Perce through the park, a number of hostile and sometimes deadly encounters between park visitors and the Indians occurred. Eventually, the army's pursuit forced the Nez Perce off the Yellowstone plateau and into forces arrayed to capture or destroy them when they emerged from the mountains of Yellowstone onto the valley of Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone River.
↑ Beal, Merrill D. (1963). "I Will Fight no More Forever." Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. pp.156, 159–160.
1 2 3 Norwood, Randolph. "Report to Colonel John Gibbon, written on Upper Madison River, August 24, 1877." Document No. 3754 DD 1877, National Archives.
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