The Yellowstone National Park: Historical and Descriptive

by Hiram Martin Chittenden

Weikert and Wilkie, who had hastened back to camp after their own encounter, found every thing in confusion, and all the party gone. They soon fell in with several of them, and together they set out for Mammoth Hot Springs.

And now began another series of wanderings through the trackless wilderness of the Park. Two of the party made their way by way of the Madison River, where they were given food by soldiers, to Virginia City and thence to Helena. The rest of the survivors after much hardship reached Mammoth Hot Springs, and soon after left the Park with the exception of Weikert, Dietrich, the colored cook, Stone, and a man named Stoner.

On August 31st, Weikert and one McCartney, owner of the first hotel ever built in the Park, went to the Falls of the Yellowstone in order if possible to learn the fate of the missing members of the party. Shortly after their departure from the Springs a band of Indians prowled across the country from the Yellowstone to the Gardiner and went down the latter stream as far as Henderson’s Ranch near the present town of Cinnabar. After a brief skirmish and a general pillage here, they went back to Mammoth Hot Springs. Stoner and the colored cook fled precipitately, but Dietrich, believing the Indians to be friendly scouts, remained behind and was shot dead in the door of the hotel. Stone made a lucky escape by climbing a tree, and his subsequent ludicrous recital of his experience became a standing jest among the inhabitants of the Yellowstone.

Weikert and McCartney went back to the old camp on Otter Creek, where they buried Kenck’s remains and gathered up whatever of value the Indians had left. On their way back, when on the head waters of Black Tail Deer Creek, they met the band of Indians who had just slain Dietrich at Mammoth Hot Springs. A lively skirmish ensued, in which Weikert lost his horse. The two men succeeded in finding refuge in some neighboring brushwood.

Just as the Indians went into camp on the night of August 23d, their first day in the Park, they captured one Shively who was on his way to Montana from the Black Hills. As Shively professed to know the country, which the Nez Percés had never seen before, they impressed him into their service as guide. He was with them thirteen days and claims to have served them faithfully, as well as to have received fair treatment from them. At any rate he won their confidence by his behavior, and was watched so carelessly that he escaped one dark night just as the Indians were crossing the north-east boundary of the Park.

As soon as the command at Henry Lake had become recuperated, the pursuit was vigorously resumed. Howard followed in the track of the Indians as far as to the ford of the Yellowstone; but instead of crossing at this point, he descended the river by the left bank to the site of Baronett’s celebrated first bridge over the Yellowstone. From the Lower Geyser Basin to this bridge a road had to be opened for the wagons. It was a prodigious undertaking, but was performed with astonishing rapidity under the direction of Capt. W. F. Spurgin, Twenty-first Infantry. The bridge was found partially destroyed by the Indians and had to be repaired, after which the line of march was continued up the Lamar and Soda Butte Valleys, and across the divide to the valley of Clark’s Fork.

The authorities had been widely warned of the probable route of the Indians and were lying in wait to intercept them. Gen. Sturgis expected to do this as they emerged from the Absaroka Mountains; but unfortunately he stationed himself in the wrong pass and left the one which the Indians took unguarded. By this loss of time he fell in behind both the Indians and Howard, who was now in close pursuit. The Indians crossed the Yellowstone September 12th. Here Sturgis overtook them with a company of cavalry and a slight conflict ensued. The Indians then struck north, apparently for the British line. On September 23d they crossed the Missouri at Cow Island and resumed their march north. But they were intercepted by Gen. Miles in the Bear Paw Mountains and a severe fight followed, at the northern base of the range on Snake Creek, less than thirty miles from the boundary. The Indians were utterly defeated and Looking Glass was killed. Most of the survivors surrendered unconditionally and the rest escaped across the line. This was on October 5, 1877.

Since the first outbreak, June 13th, three months and twenty-two days had elapsed. The flight and pursuit had extended over 1,500 miles. There had been no fewer than fifteen engagements. The whites had lost 6 officers and 121 soldiers and citizens killed, and 13 officers and 127 soldiers and citizens wounded. A large part of the Indian losses could never be ascertained, but their known losses were 151 killed, 88 wounded and 489 captured.

This celebrated campaign is well intended to elicit the fullest sympathy for the unfortunate Nez Percés. A vast deal of sentiment has been wasted upon the cause of the red man. Opinions have ranged from the extreme views of Catlin, who could see no wrong in the Indian, to those of the rabid frontiersman whose creed was “no good Indian but a dead one.” But, if there ever was a case where sympathy might well incline to the side of the Indian, it is the one under consideration.

The Nez Percés had always been friendly to the whites, and it was their boast that they had never slain a white man. They were intelligent, brave, and humane. In this campaign they bought supplies which they might have confiscated; they saved property which they might have destroyed; they spared hundreds of lives which other Indians would have sacrificed. If some of the more lawless element committed various outrages, they might justly reply that the whites had fired into their tents where their women and children were sleeping. In short, their conduct in this campaign places them in all respects vastly nearer the standard of civilized people than any other of the native tribes of the continent.