Legends of the Old West - ENCORE: NEZ PERCÉ WAR Ep. 3 | “Battle of Clearwater”

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

A few days after the Battle of White Bird Canyon, an army unit attacks a Nez Percé village. After the fight, the army unit becomes trapped at an abandoned ranch by the advancing Nez Percé column. The smaller fights lead to a two-day battle along the banks of the Clearwater River. The aftermath forces the Nez Percé to make a monumental choice in their pursuit of freedom.   Thanks to Nord VPN for sponsoring Legends of the Old West! Try it now and receive 4 extra months on a 2-year plan: NordVPN.com/oldwest Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial.   On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage.   For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Coyote is a prominent character. He is Coyote with a capital C. He's a walking, talking figure who is known as a trickster, and he's the central figure in the birth of the Nez Purse. Long ago, before humans were on the Earth, a giant monster entered the area that would be the homeland of the Nez Purse. The monster was eating all the creatures in the area and Coyote thought that was bad. So he armed himself with a fire-making kit and five sharp flint knives. He had a clever tricky plan. He placed himself in the path of the monster and the monster inhaled him. But Coyote didn't die. He explored the inside of the monster until he found its heart.

He lit a fire in the monster, and smoke belched out of the monster's nose and mouth. Coyote started hacking at the monster's heart with his knives to try to kill it, but it was hard. Coyote broke four of his five knives, and now he was down to his last one. With one last slice, he cut the last bit of flesh that held the heart in place, and he killed the monster. Coyote chopped up the monster. Each time he cut off a piece, he threw it in a different direction.

Wherever those pieces landed, a group of humans grew. They became the Blackfeet, the Caius, the Coeur d'Alene, the Shoshone, the Crow, the Sioux, and on and on. Coyote looked like he was done, but then another mythical figure showed up. He was Fox, and he asked Coyote who would live right there, the place where the monster's heart lay. That was the only piece of the monster that was left. Coyote washed his bloody hands with some of the water and sprinkled the blood water over the ground. There, another group of people was born. They were called the Némi Pou,

the real people. Many years later, French-Canadian trappers would call them Nez Perce, which loosely translates to pierced nose. By that time, the Nimi Pu had spread throughout the region, but the heart of the monster remained the heart of their land. Outside the small town of Kamii, Idaho, there's a large basaltic mound that is the heart of the monster. It was the birthplace of the Nez Perce, and then, after hundreds of years of living within its spiritual power, five groups of Nez Perce wondered if they would ever see it again. War had come to Nez Perce country, and those five groups now faced the decision of a lifetime. They could stay and fight for the right to live free on their homeland, or they could

give up all their traditions and ways of life and move to a reservation. But over a two-week period in July of 1877, it turned out there was a third option. It was probably more dangerous than staying and fighting, but it was the only option that still retained the hope of freedom. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling the story of the Nez Perce people and their epic fight to remain free. This is The Nez Perce War, Episode 3, The Battle of Clearwater. The Nez Perce had good relations with Americans for about 30 years, since the first meeting

with explorers Lewis and Clark in 1805 until the arrival of the first Christian missionaries in 1836. For the next 40 years, there was a slow decline. But to be fair, the decline didn't fully apply to all the bands of the Nez Perce. The bands in the northern part of Nez Perce territory were much more accepting of the Christian religion and life on a reservation. The first treaty that proposed a reservation happened in 1855. A second came eight years later, and that one robbed the Bands in the southern part of Nez Perce territory of all their lands. So, the five southern Bands refused

to accept the treaty and resisted moving to the reservation for 13 years. But the breaking point came in May of 1877. The U.S. government ordered the army to move the southern bands to the reservation, by force if necessary. General Oliver Howard arrested the leader of one of the non-treaty bands, and that fanned the flames of war. Then a young warrior and two of his friends killed several white settlers in a spontaneous moment of revenge that sparked two days of bloody attacks by the Nez Perce against the white settlers whom they viewed as invaders.

The attacks culminated in the Battle of Whitebird Canyon on June 17, 1877, and the war was well and truly on. After a small contingent of warriors routed a force of 100 soldiers and 11 civilian volunteers in Whitebird Canyon, the Nez Perce did exactly what the civilians feared they would do. The people gathered their possessions and their 3,000 horses and crossed the Salmon River that ran through the canyon. On the other side of the river, they moved up into the Seven Devils Mountains where they had numerous advantages over the canyon. On the other side of the river, they moved up into the Seven Devils Mountains, where they had numerous advantages over the army. But not all of the civilian spheres came true.

People in the nearby towns of Mount Idaho and Grangeville had pushed the army to attack the Nez Perce in Whitebird Canyon because they feared the Nez Perce would cross the river and then disappear into the mountains. The Nez Perce did cross the river and then disappear into the mountains. The Nez Perce did cross the river and they did move up into the mountains, but they intentionally did not disappear. For a week after the battle, they stayed in plain sight. They wanted the army to see them. They wanted the army to believe that they were resting before they continued west over the mountains toward the Wallowa Valley, the traditional homeland of Joseph's band. But the Nez Perce had no intention of going west,

as General Howard would learn too late. While the Nez Perce waited in the mountains, General Howard began his trip south to see the battle site. Howard had been on the reservation 60 miles north of Whitebird Canyon, waiting for the five non-treaty bands to arrive. When he arrested one of their leaders, he thought he had convinced them to finally move to the reservation. He was wrong, and 34 soldiers died in an embarrassing fight in the canyon. By the time Howard arrived at the canyon on June 26th, he had more than 500 men with him.

They were a mix of soldiers and civilian volunteers, and their first task was to bury the mutilated bodies of the dead that had been laying out in the open for 10 days. When the work was finished, he led his men in pursuit of the Nez Perce, but it took them three days to cross the Salmon River. After the rough crossing, his men began the slow, treacherous climb up the steep mountain trail. He was following three of the five non-treaty bands, and the Nez Perce plan worked just as they had hoped. The slow-moving soldiers followed the trail and assumed it would head west.

By the time they discovered they were wrong, the Nez Perce were already attacking two smaller army units that were separate from Howard's command. And by that time, a fourth non-treaty band had joined the fight. The band, led by Looking Glass, the son of a famous leader with the same name, was unsure about joining the war. But on July 1st, while Howard's troops fell for the fake out, the Army made the decision for them. Hey Legends family, here's a fun fact. I love Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and British TV shows. I have no doubt you've heard of a service called NordVPN, and that's what helps me watch my favorite shows from the UK region. NordVPN is an internet protection service that helps keep you safe from hackers and tracking systems and lots

of other things. It allows you to switch your virtual location, which is what lets you stream shows and movies from other countries. That feature can also help you get better deals on flights, hotels, and subscriptions. NordVPN protects me when I have to use public Wi-Fi at a library or a coffee shop or a hotel. It's also the fastest VPN in the world, so I never have to worry about my internet speed slowing down. This is a long way of saying there are a ton of benefits. Go to nordvpn.com slash old west While Howard pursued the three bands of Nez Perce into the mountains, he sent one of his captains to arrest Looking Glass. The goal was to keep his band from entering the conflict. Captain Whipple had 86 men who were a mix of soldiers and civilians. He wanted to attack Looking Glass' camp at dawn on July 1st, but he arrived too late.

So Whipple sent messengers to propose a meeting with Looking Glass. Whipple hoped to capture the leader with subtlety rather than force, but Looking Glass refused to meet. Whipple's troops were arranged outside the camp, and Whipple continued to demand a meeting, and Looking Glass continued to refuse. But then one of the soldiers fired an errant shot and all the soldiers and civilians followed suit. There were only 11 lodges in the camp

and the volley of gunfire tore through all of them. There were about 150 Nez Perce in the camp and they scrambled out of their lodges and scattered in all directions. They ran into the hills and dove for cover. Tragically, a mother and her baby drowned while trying to rush across the Clearwater River. Captain Whipple didn't arrest Looking Glass, but his soldiers destroyed the village, and they considered their work done. They headed for an abandoned ranch to regroup, and in doing so, put themselves right in the path

of Joseph and the other Nez Perce. Joseph, his brother Ollicutt, and the leaders of two other non-treaty bands had lured General Howard's force into the mountains and then led them along dangerous trails. As the bands came down out of the mountains, they learned about the attack on Looking Glass' camp. Instead of turning left to go west into Joseph's homeland of the Wallowa Valley, they turned right and headed toward Looking Glass' camp. They crossed the Salmon River again,

which ran along the base of the mountains they had just exited. As they headed toward the prairie where Looking Glass lived, the first obstacle in their path was the abandoned ranch where Captain Whipple's men now waited. The ranch had been the home of a family who ran a stagecoach stop. They had been attacked on June 14th and 15th during the two days of bloody attacks that led up to the Battle of Whitebird Canyon. Not surprisingly, the survivors fled the ranch, and now Whipple used it as a base.

On July 3rd, 1877, two days after the attack on Lookingglass, the three bands of Nez Perce ran into two of Whipple's civilian scouts. Warriors killed one, but the other raced back to the ranch and alerted Whipple to the threat. Whipple sent 13 men to scout the advancing Nez Perce, and the scout turned into a fight for survival. The Nez Perce set up an ambush. They cut down some of the soldiers right away and trapped the others behind some rocks and tree stumps. It was a hopeless position and the Nez Perce quickly killed the rest of the group, including the civilian scout that made 14 men of Whipple's 86 who died in probably a matter of minutes.

Captain Whipple organized the rest of his men and marched out to meet the Nez Perce. The two sides traded fire for a couple hours until Whipple pulled his men back to the ranch. At dawn the next morning, July 4th, Captain Perry, who had led the disastrous battle at Whitebird Canyon, arrived at the ranch with 29 men and a gatling gun. Perry was the senior captain and he was now in command, and he told the troopers to dig in and prepare to defend their position. That afternoon, the Nez Perce surrounded the camp, but they stayed out of rifle range. The attackers and defenders traded fire until sunset, but neither side took casualties.

The Nez Perce started firing again at 9 a.m. the next morning, but it was only to cover the advance of the women and children who moved through the area behind the warriors. Before the day was done, Captain Perry learned that 17 civilians from the town of Mount Idaho, about 15 miles down the road, had ridden north to join the fight. They became trapped by the advancing Nez Perce column. Two messengers pleaded with Perry to send help to the civilians, but he still had an army of warriors right outside his door, and he wasn't anxious to deplete his numbers to help a group that never should have left town in the first place. Eventually, he sent Captain Whipple with 60 men.

By the time they arrived, the Nez Perce were gone. Three civilians died from the group that was called, somewhat ironically, the Brave 17. As July 5th ended, the Nez Perce had made it past Captains Whipple and Perry and were about to join up with Looking Glass's band. And behind them, General Howard was finally realizing the Nez Perce had not turned west but instead turned east, back toward the rest of his soldiers and all the white settlers. On July 4th, while the Nez Perce surrounded Perry and Whipple at the abandoned ranch,

General Howard's command finally made it out of the Seven Devils Mountains. At that point, he expected to see the Nez Perce trail turn to the west, but when it turned east and crossed the Salmon River again, he knew he was in trouble. It had taken him three days to get his 500 men across the river the first time. That had been a week ago before they entered the mountains. Now he tried to follow within Nez Perce's footsteps and cross the river at the same spot they had crossed, but failed miserably. Joseph and the other leaders had moved hundreds of people and 3,000 horses across the river in a single day. Howard's force couldn't do it at all. After trying to make rafts and other flotation devices, Howard gave up.

He turned his men around and marched all the way back through the mountains and down to the crossing in Whitebird Canyon. They trudged back up through the canyon and arrived at the town of Grangeville on July 8th, two weeks after they started their chase and without ever getting within rifle range of the Nez Perce. While Howard regrouped at Grangeville, the Nez Perce continued moving east toward the home of Looking Glass's band. Along the way, they burned homes and fences and crops. They turned back a group of civilian scouts who had been tracking them and stole more

than 40 of their horses. The three non-treaty bands arrived at Looking Glasses Camp somewhere between July 8th and July 10th. That meant they had been fighting and marching for three straight weeks. They had crossed a range of small mountains, made two river crossings, and never faced any real danger from the roughly 600 American soldiers in the field. When they joined with Looking Glass's band, they had approximately 750 people in their camp and the additional leadership of a highly respected warrior in Lookingglass. But now they had to decide what to do. Every decision over the past three weeks had been in reaction to one thing or another. There had been no time to plan any kind of strategy,

or even to discuss the most basic elements of their situation. What exactly was happening here? Were they actually in a full-blown war with the US Army? It certainly felt like it, but that was a massive step that hadn't really been debated or agreed to. It just kind of happened. And if they were in a real war, how far were they prepared to take it? Those were all unanswered questions, but there wouldn't be much time for debate. Thanks to the civilians who had briefly skirmished with the group, General Howard now had a really good sense of where the Nez Perce were. They were in camp along the Clearwater River near its junction with Cottonwood Creek. But instead of taking

the most direct route to the camp, Howard marched his men two miles north of the camp, crossed the Clearwater River, and then marched back down the other side. He was on high ground on some bluffs above the camp, but he was also on the wrong side of the river. The Nez Perce spotted him and sounded the alarm. It was about noon on July 11th, and Howard fired the first shots of the Battle of Clearwater. His artillery lobbed shells toward the camp from his small howitzers, but he was too far away and the shells exploded in the air instead of destroying the camp.

And now, with the element of surprise gone and his cannon useless, Howard was in a nearly identical position to Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. His men were on high ground above the village, but on the wrong side of the river. They would have to try to charge down one of two ravines and then cross the river to attack the village. But one or both of those ravines could quickly turn into death traps. And while Howard tried to put his plan in motion, warriors splashed across Cottonwood Creek and rode up one of the ravines. They poured fire on the troops from the same ravine

that the troopers were trying to use to attack the camp. At the same time, a second group of warriors, partially led by Joseph's brother, raced up the other ravine and unloaded on the troopers from a different direction. Now, both avenues down to the village were blocked, and the battle turned from a replica of Custer's last stand to a replica of the siege of Reno Hill. For many businesses, the holiday season can be both an exciting and stressful time. With so many balls in the air, one thing you definitely want to know you can rely on is how you're selling your products. And with Shopify, you can rest easy knowing it's the home of the number one checkout on the planet.

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In a matter of minutes, Howard's force of roughly 500 men went from attackers to defenders. There was no way to reach the village and warriors were swarming up through the ravines and finding firing positions behind trees and rocks. Howard redeployed his men in a semi-circle and ordered them to set up defensive positions. They were now in the same situation that the men of Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen had been in one year and three weeks earlier. Several companies of the 7th Cavalry found themselves trapped on a hilltop above the Little Bighorn River, and they set up crude barricades to protect themselves from the onslaught of the Sioux and Cheyenne. Here, Howard's position

was worse. His men were on high ground when compared to the village, but not when compared to the landscape around them. They were on a relatively flat plateau, and all they could do was dig little pits in the ground or pile up rocks to act as shelters. In the center of the semicircle of soldiers was Howard's headquarters and a field hospital, just like on Reno Hill at the Little Bighorn. But Howard's men had two things that the men on Reno Hill did not. Howitzers and a Gatling gun, though Howard's men nearly lost both.

Warriors laid down heavy fire from multiple angles and then charged at the guns. The soldiers let loose with a roar from the Gatling gun and cut down a host of warriors. It was the worst loss of life in the battle, and the soldiers maintained control of the weapons. At another point, again like Reno Hill, a captain led a small group of troopers as they leapt over their barricades and charged the warriors. The surprise assault drove the warriors out of their position. Another captain led a charge into the heaviest concentration of warriors with similar effect. Those charges counterbalanced the attacks of the warriors.

The Nez Perce used modern sniper tactics to surprise the soldiers. They tied grass to their heads to act as camouflage, and then crawled and slithered across the ground to get into rifle range, and then opened fire. Others galloped toward the troopers on horseback, and then threw themselves off their animals, hit the ground and fired, and then dashed away. All the while, warriors screamed battle cries and sang death songs. For Howard's largely new, untrained soldiers, the tactics of the warriors were totally unlike anything they were prepared for. But the soldiers held their ground. Despite a poor performance in the Battle of White Bird

Canyon and missteps by their leaders, the soldiers performed heroically on day one at the Battle of Clearwater. By nightfall, they still held their position and they had captured a critical piece of ground. They gained control of a small waterhole that was between the battle lines. Under the cover of darkness, every soldier, including General Howard, made trips to the spring to get water for the wounded and the horses and mules. At dawn the next morning, the battle resumed, but it was more tame than the previous day. Many warriors drifted back down to the camp during the night and were not yet back in the fight. Despite

the reduced fire, Howard's men were still trapped. By three in the afternoon, the general was determined to make one big push to try to break through the Nez Perce lines. But as he was about to try, he saw a dust cloud on the far side of the battlefield. A company of cavalry, led by Captain Perry from the abandoned ranch, was bringing a wagon train of supplies to the besieged soldiers. One of the captains who had led a charge the previous day mobilized his men to secure the supply train. They marched two miles beyond the lines, but then made a move that shocked everyone, including

Howard. Instead of joining the supply train, they turned and charged the warriors. The sudden assault turned the tide of the battle. Warriors in the path of the soldiers fled back to the village. Other infantry units jumped up and charged. The howitzers and the gatling gun opened fire and pounded the village. Down below in the camp, Joseph sprinted through the lodges and guided women and children away from the village.

Warriors retreated back to the camp and acted as a rear guard for the families as they rushed toward the Clearwater River. As they bounded into the water and hurried toward the other side, Perry's cavalry and Howard's forces did not follow. They had captured the village and virtually all of the Nez Perce's possessions. The soldiers took what they could use and burned the rest. On day one, the battle looked like a clear victory for the Nez Perce. By the end of day two, it was a devastating defeat. And now it was decision time for Joseph and Looking

Glass and the others. For the next two days, the Nez Perce fled north. They crossed the Clearwater River again near the present-day town of Camii, Idaho, the town that is close to the earthen mound called the Heart of the Monster. It's arguably the most sacred place in Nez Perce tradition, but now they moved in the opposite direction, away from the Heart of the Monster and away from the Clearwater River. They crossed into an open area called Wee Ipe Prairie, and that's where they stopped to hold a council. They didn't know how much time they could afford to lose, but they also

knew Howard was not right on their heels. He spent the rest of July 12th, the second day of the battle, and half of July 13th at the Nez Perce camp he had captured. By the time he resumed his chase, the Nez Perce were already across the Clearwater and heading into the prairie. On the night of July 15th, 1877, the five non-treaty bands of the Nez Perce held the council that was probably the most important in their history. This was the place where the Nez Perce first met Lewis and Clark.

There were still Nez Perce alive who remembered that meeting. Whatever decision they made that night, it would change their lives forever. Whatever decision they made that night, it would change their lives forever. Reports came out later, mostly by the army, that said Joseph considered surrendering. His band was farthest from home, and he might have fallen into a depression. But most Nez Perce traditions say that there was no talk of surrender. There were three options, but surrender was not one of them. The first was to stay and fight. The second was to run west into some rugged territory,

then make new lives or fight from a place where they might have an advantage. The third option was to run east, cross the Bitter Root Mountains, and try to link up with their old friends the Flathead and the Crow in western Montana. That option had never been tried, to this extent, by a Native American society. The Nez Perce knew about Sitting Bull, but his story was different. After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull led his followers north to Canada and chose to live in exile rather than submit to life on a reservation.

But Sitting Bull was still roughly within the confines of his ancestral homeland. The Nez Perce were talking about leaving their homeland and possibly never seeing it again. Running east could mean a permanent move away from their lands. It had been exactly one month since the two days of bloody attacks by Nez Perce warriors that sparked the war. So much had happened since then, it was almost hard to believe. But even as the third option became the more popular during the debate, there was one massive flaw

in their thinking. It wasn't their fault, but their severely limited understanding of the world outside their domain produced a giant blind spot. They thought that if they ran to the east and crossed the mountains and started new lives in what they called Buffalo Country, they would be free again. They could live as they pleased and their troubles would be done. They thought General Howard's jurisdiction, even though they didn't know that word,

stopped at the mountains. They didn't think he would follow them. And if they encountered soldiers in Montana, those were different soldiers. Those soldiers should have no quarrel with the Nez Perce. And the Nez Perce had no quarrel with them. There was no reason for any more fighting. Of course, none of those thoughts were the reality of the situation, but the Nez Perce didn't know it. They made their decision that night. They would go east. They would leave their homeland behind and start new lives in the Buffalo country of Montana. Seventy-two years after the first white people visited Wee Ipe Prairie, where the Nez Perce now sat, the Nez Perce were leaving.

And many, if not most, would never see their lands again. Next time on Legends of the Old West, the Nez Perce begin the journey of a lifetime. They cross the mountains and see some rays of light in their situation and then learn that all their assumptions were wrong. They were now hunted by two American armies and there was much more fighting and running ahead. That's next week on Legends of the Old West. And members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week to receive new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials. And they also receive exclusive bonus episodes.

Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. Original music by Rob Valier. I'm your writer, host, and producer, Chris Wimmer. If you enjoyed the show, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website blackbarrelmedia., for more details and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And all our episodes are available on YouTube. Just search for Legends of the Old West Podcast.

Thanks for listening.