The Battle of White Bird Canyon: First Fight of the Nez Perce

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Captain David Perry of the 1st Cavalry anxiously waited for the first rays of sunshine to spill over the foothills into White Bird Canyon so he could better see the terrain on which his troops might have to fight. His civilian guide, Ad Chapman, had assured him the valley floor was smooth enough for the cavalry to operate on.

Perry, however, had neither the U.S. Army’s finest horsemen nor top skirmishers; many were troopers who passed the day doing odd jobs or construction work at Fort Lapwai in northern Idaho Territory. The Nez Perce warriors camped somewhere in White Bird Canyon were expert riders, and their hunting skills made them superior adversaries. Still, Perry was relatively confident. With any luck, he hoped, there would be no fighting and the Nez Perces responsible for killing settlers (at least 18 had been killed) would peacefully give up.

As the sun rose and Perry got a glimpse of the land below his position, he ordered his 99 troopers and nearly a dozen volunteers to saddle up and advance down the hill. A few miles away, Nez Perce warriors–at least 50 and possibly as many as 140–patiently waited for the troopers. They planned to talk first, but fight if attacked. To show their good intentions, six braves were chosen to carry a white flag.

It was ironic, in a way, that soldiers and Nez Perce warriors would even find themselves in such a predicament on the morning of June 17, 1877. For many years the Nez Perce people had been good friends with both settlers and the U.S. Army, serving as scouts with Army units during several Indian wars. They had given up much of their land to the U.S. government in a treaty completed in the mid-1850s and then some more in an 1863 treaty. A good number of the Nez Perces had become Christians, living on the Presbyterian-controlled reservation at Lapwai. Some, however, had much earlier embraced the Dreamer religion and refused to follow the white man’s ways or adopt his faith. The Dreamers believed that one day the white man would be driven away forever, and all Indians, both living and dead, would reside together in a heavenlike world.

The Nez Perce Dreamers continually visited their relatives at Lapwai, and there, before reservation officials, they argued that since the white man was not going to be around much longer, why listen to his rules. Many whites thought of the Dreamers as malcontents and troublemakers.

One Dreamer was Old Chief Joseph, whose tribe lived in northeastern Oregon’s Wallowa Valley much of the year. He steadfastly refused to deal away his land or live on the Lapwai Reservation. Old Chief Joseph died in 1871, but his son, Chief Joseph, continued to hold onto the Wallowa. Miners and ranchers streaming into the region, however, made life between the Indians and the pioneers very difficult. Incidents occurred between the two peoples, giving U.S. government officials reason to fear that it was only a matter of time before a major event would ignite a war.

Consequently, President Rutherford B. Hayes’ administration moved decisively. Brigadier General Oliver Otis Howard, in May 1877, ordered Joseph and four other chiefs to pack up their clans and move onto the Lapwai Reservation. The non-Christian Nez Perces did not like the decree, but they were acutely aware that struggling against the U.S. Army was foolish. All the Dreamer Nez Perces seemed to resign themselves to the inevitable except for the elderly Chief Toohoolhoolzote, who put up such a fuss that Howard felt compelled to jail him.

In early June, the Dreamer bands congregated at Rocky Canyon, a Nez Perce gathering spot south of Grangeville, where a grand council was held. The 10-day assembly allowed those with grievances against the white man to speak up. The finale of the affair was a cavalcade in which warriors defiantly paraded through the village. On that particular day, June 13, 1877, two young men, members of Chief White Bird’s band, rode tandem at the end of the procession, a ritual place of honor.

One of the braves was Wahlitits, a mild-mannered and popular man who liked to swim the Salmon River in winter and run long distances. Accompanying him was his cousin, Sarpsis Ilppilp. As their horse strode past a tepee, the animal stepped on a blanket covered with drying kouse roots. Quickly an old man leaped out at them. ‘See what you do?’ he yelled, directing his tirade at Wahlitits. ‘Playing brave you ride over my woman’s hard-worked food! If you are so brave, why don’t you go kill the white man who killed your father?’ Stunned out of his bravado, Wahlitits told the old man that he would regret his words and rode off. That night, Wahlitits wept, recalling the murder of his father, Eagle Robe.

Eagle Robe had owned acreage near White Bird Canyon and gave some of it to a miner named Larry Ott. When Ott tried to stake more land, an argument ensued and Eagle Robe was gunned down. In his dying words, he instructed Wahlitits not to seek revenge, and the young brave reluctantly complied. But now Wahlitits told his cousin it was time to show the rest of White Bird’s people what true warriors they were. The pair plus Wahlitits’ 17-year- old nephew, Swan Necklace, rode into the canyon looking for Ott.

The warriors first stopped at J.J. Manuel’s home, where they sharpened their knives and exchanged friendly words with the white settler. Next they tried trading a horse for a rifle at Harry Mason’s store. Mason, who had once whipped two Nez Perce braves, warily kept a gun handy until the three Indians left. The warriors made their way to Ott’s cabin, but Ott evidently had been tipped off about Wahlitits’ presence in the area and had escaped.

The trio decided to head for the cabin of Richard Devine, an ex-sailor who lived along Slate Creek. Notorious for his hatred of Indians, Devine had once shot a Nez Perce woman over the trivial matter of a horse trespassing on his property. They surprised the old man in his cabin after dark and shot him with his own gun.

The next morning, June 14, the warriors arrived at the ranch of Henry Elfers, another white man deemed unfriendly, and placed themselves along a trail that led to his fields. During a half-hour period, they picked off Elfers and two laborers. Elfers’ wife, Catherine, who was churning butter on the banks of John Day Creek, was unaware of the ambushes. The three Indians ransacked the house, took several horses and fled. Some miners and farmers in the area heard the shooting and converged on the Elfers ranch, where they found the three bodies. Word about the killings quickly spread, but Wahlitits and his companions were moving much faster.

Near the mouth of White Bird Creek, the hostiles encountered Samuel Benedict, a local rancher out looking for some of his livestock. Ilppilp quickly recognized Benedict as the man who had wounded him months earlier during a disagreement. The brave shot Benedict off his horse. Playing dead, Benedict fooled his assailants and, after the three warriors left to tell their people what they had done, managed to reach his home.

Benedict’s wife, Isabella, saw her wounded husband riding up to the ranch house later that morning and ran outside to help him. She could see that he had been shot through the legs and that the pain was unbearable. Not long afterward, Mrs. Benedict saw Nez Perce renegades approaching–the trio had been joined by more than a dozen other warriors–and warned her husband and a friend, August Bacon. Benedict ordered his wife and children to run for a neighbor’s home, but gunfire drove them back.

Meanwhile, Bacon was gunned down at the front door, ending his brief stand. Isabella entered the living room and saw Bacon’s body in the doorway. She glanced out a window and saw her husband trying to crawl across a bridge over White Bird Creek. One accurate bullet sent him tumbling into the water, and his body floated out of Isabella’s view. She and her children hurried outside into the brush, where they watched the Indians ransack the house.

The raiders, all but one of whom were from White Bird’s band, roamed up to the camass-covered prairie near Grangeville and raided a freight wagon, confiscating a large load of alcohol. They also attacked some settlers heading for safety in nearby Mount Idaho and, in a drunken state, killed and wounded several, including a young boy.

Arthur Chapman lived near Mount Idaho and was married to a Nez Perce woman. As a young man, he had been a messenger during Oregon’s Rogue River War and later ran a ferry service across the Salmon; the latter profession earned him the nickname ‘Ad,’ short for admiral. Soon after the first killings, Chief Looking Glass rode to Chapman’s ranch to inform his old friend. Chapman then brought the news to the settlers in Mount Idaho, and a messenger was sent to Fort Lapwai with an urgent plea for help. Frightened settlers throughout the region gathered behind a stockade on Slate Creek, at Grange Hall in Grangeville, and also at Mount Idaho.

General O.O. Howard had docked at Lewiston on the morning of June 14 following his voyage from Fort Vancouver. He anticipated a smooth transition of the non-Christian Nez Perces onto the reservation, but his presence at Lapwai seemed to be a good idea just in case something went wrong. The West Point graduate had lost his right arm at the Battle of Fair Oaks in 1862 but later led the Union right wing during Maj. Gen. William Sherman’s march through Georgia. After the war, Howard served as head of the Freedmen’s Bureau, where he was investigated for alleged corruption. Although he was vindicated, the controversy had tarnished Howard’s career. Now that he was out West, however, he was far away from those who sought his head.

From the moment he arrived at Fort Lapwai, Howard received reports about the whereabouts of the Dreamer Nez Perces, but it wasn’t until the evening of June 15 that he got word of the killings. He quickly dispatched Captain Perry, the commanding officer at the fort, and a force of 99 troopers from 1st Cavalry Companies F and H, barely one-third of whom had previous combat experience with Indians.

Perry was a veteran combat officer, having served in the Civil War and the Modoc Indian campaign. He had been wounded against the Modocs in 1873, but his experience in the brief war left him confident in his ability to defeat hostile natives. He was known among his troops as a good officer, a little flamboyant, but still someone totally capable of leading men into battle. As Perry led his command away from Fort Lapwai, Howard wished him well and added: ‘You must not get whipped.’ The captain pivoted in his saddle and looked at Howard. ‘There is no danger of that, sir,’ he replied, and the troopers followed their 36-year-old leader south toward Grangeville, about 24 hours away.

First Sergeant Michael McCarthy was not nearly so confident. He was among the soldiers concerned because many of his comrades had had very little instruction in the use of guns and horses. Most were employed on extra duty as carpenters, blacksmiths, clerks and officers’ servants. Those men and women remaining at Fort Lapwai were just as concerned as they watched the troops ride off in search of the Nez Perce troublemakers. ‘I hope and pray,’ Emily Fitzgerald wrote to her mother, ‘it won’t be another Modoc War.’

Howard likely thought the violence was the work of many non-Christian Nez Perces. He was unaware that the instigators were members of White Bird’s band only. The other bands had accepted their fate. Looking Glass’ people had for many years lived in the Lapwai area, and Joseph’s clan was ready to live with their Christian brothers. Howard feared that the violence would spawn an even bigger Indian uprising, so as a precaution, he sent the women of Fort Lapwai to Lewiston and ordered up troops from Fort Walla Walla, in southeastern Washington, and from the Wallowa Valley.

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Tags: 19th Century, American Indian Wars, Historical Conflicts, Native American History, Wild West

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