Last Updated on October 23, 2013 by Dennis The winter of 1876-77, following the “Little Big Horn” campaign, was spent by the Seventh Cavalry very quietly in posts along the Missouri and vicinity, resting, reorganizing and awakening to a realizing sense of what the previous season’s campaign had meant to us. Early in the winter […]
Last Updated on June 15, 2014 by On the 24th of June, 1877, seven days after the battle of White Bird Canon, Troop H, First Cavalry, left Mount Idaho by the roundabout way of Florence for the little settlement of Slate Creek on the Salmon River. Slate Creek empties into Salmon about six miles above
Last Updated on October 23, 2013 by Dennis From the Report of Brig.-Gen. H. C. Hasbrouck, United States Army (Retired) I marched from Redding, California, my Battery B, Fourth Artillery, being equipped as cavalry, under the command of Captain John Mendenhall, Fourth Artillery, April 19, 1873, and arrived at Promontory Point, April 28th. April 29th
Last Updated on October 23, 2013 by Dennis There were a great many tragical and pathetic happenings in the lava-beds during the Modoc War in 1873. In fact, all occurrences were tinged more or less with diabolism. Now these matters acquired in the minds of every one the feeling just expressed by reason of the
Last Updated on August 18, 2014 by Xenophon has chronicled the retreat of the ten thousand; De Quinces has romanced about the migration of the Tartars; a thousand pens have recorded the annihilation of the Grand Army of Napoleon: the story of Joseph and his Nez Pierces is my theme – the story of the
Last Updated on June 15, 2014 by I have always considered the disaster to Major Thomas’ command as one of the saddest in our military history. It was a small affair, but so senseless and unnecessary, and such a waste of a good life. About a week or ten days after the last fighting in
Last Updated on June 15, 2014 by The Modocs were a small band of Indians, located on Lost River, Oregon. Lost River empties into Tule Lake, which lies partly in California and partly in Oregon. These Indians, numbering about seventy-five or eighty adult men capable of bearing arms, were camped near the mouth of the
Last Updated on October 24, 2013 by Dennis The Wallowa Valley is fifteen or twenty miles east of the Grande Ronde Valley in eastern Oregon, and had long been a bone of contention between the whites and a band of non-treaty Nez Percé Indians under Chief Joseph. The whites claimed the right of settlement under
Last Updated on October 23, 2013 by Dennis On quitting camp at Slate Creek, Oregon, I marched my troop, consisting of thirty enlisted men and three officers, to a crossing some miles below the settlement on Salmon River and put them across – horses swimming, men and packs by canoe. This movement was in obedience
Last Updated on October 23, 2013 by Dennis Brave old General Gibbon, the hero of South Mountain, was on the war-path. On receipt of General Howard’s despatch that the Nez Percés were coming his way, he hastily summoned Company F, of his regiment, from Fort Benton, and D from Camp Baker, to move with all
Last Updated on October 23, 2013 by Dennis During the memorable campaign against the Nez Perce Indians, in the year 1877, there were many stirring incidents that have never been given to the public, and notably among these is the Camas Meadow fight of Capt. Randolph Norwood’s Company L, of the Second Cavalry. In the
Last Updated on October 2, 2013 by Dennis By Brig.-Gen. David Perry, United States Army (Retired)I was returning July 4th from Fort Lapwai to General Howard’s command in charge of a pack-train loaded with ammunition. It had been expected that Captain Jackson’s troop of cavalry would reach Lapwai in time to furnish a safe escort.
Last Updated on June 15, 2014 by Morn amid the mountains, cold’s the hour before the dawn; also dark. So it was that autumn night on Camas Meadows, away up in Idaho, under the sentinel shadows of the great peaks of the Three Tetons. How still the cavalry camp, with its tired troopers, snatching what
Last Updated on October 23, 2013 by Dennis The Kind of Country They Marched Over Should an officer stationed in Oregon receive an order about the 25th of December to march his company three hundred miles to take part in an Indian war, both he and his men would, most likely, consider the same a
The Epic of the Nez Percé: Refusing life on a government-selected reservation, Chief Joseph, Chief Looking Glass, Chief White Bird, Chief Ollokot, Chief Lean Elk, and others led nearly 750 Nez Perce men, women, and children and twice that many horses over 1,170 miles through Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana mountains, on a trip that lasted from June to October of 1877, until checked by Miles just short of the Canadian border at Bear Paw Mountain (1877). This manuscript depicts their story.
Last Updated on October 23, 2013 by Dennis In the latter part of November, 1872, Mr. Odeneal, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the State of Oregon, appeared upon the scene and sent word to Captain Jack of the Indians that he was at Link ville and to meet him there. Jack not responding, he was
Major Boutelle’s Account of His Duel with Scar-faced Charley Read More »
Last Updated on October 23, 2013 by Dennis Should an officer stationed in Oregon receive an order about the 25th of December to march his company three hundred miles to take part in an Indian war, both he and his men would, most likely, consider the same a very cool proceeding. And they did. Now,
Last Updated on October 23, 2013 by Dennis The Modoc Indians belong generally to the races known as “Digger Indians” – from living largely upon esculent roots which the squaws dig, dry and cache for winter subsistence, – but they are much superior to the average Digger Indian, and are more nearly allied in character
Last Updated on July 13, 2014 by In the Land of Burnt Out Fires A Tragedy of the Far NorthwestBy Dr. BradyThe most costly war in which the United States ever engaged, considering the number of opponents, occurred in the winter of 1872-73 in the lava-beds of Oregon. Fifty Modoc Indians, under the leadership of
Last Updated on October 23, 2013 by Dennis On reading in the North American Review for April the article entitled “An Indian’s View of Indian Affairs,” I was so pleased with Chief Joseph’s statement – necessarily ex parte though it was, and naturally inspired by resentment toward me as a supposed enemy – that at
