“Fort Ellis, M. T., August 3, 1877.
“Dear Sir: I wrote you last from the steamboat Rosebud, coming down the Big Horn in company with General Terry and others on the 25th of July. We had concluded that the current of the Big Horn was too swift to be managed economically, and that the garrison at Post No. 2, at the mouth of the Big Horn, could best be supplied by establishing a depot on the Yellowstone, just above the mouth of the Big Horn, where stores could be hauled thirty miles to the new post. A company of the Eleventh Infantry was left there to establish and guard the depot when the steamer Rosebud dropped down to the point just below the mouth of the Big Horn, where Company L, Second Cavalry, Captain Norwood, was camped with an outfit. This consisted of six Indian horses, two light spring wagons, and one light baggage wagon. The Rosebud landed us at 2 p. m., when she started down the river, leaving us to begin our real journey. In a few minutes the escort saddled up, and we started on horseback up the Yellowstone.
“The valley is strongly marked, about three miles wide, flat, with good grass, the banks of the river and the streams well wooded with cottonwood trees. In this valley, the Yellowstone, a broad, strong stream, meanders back and forth, forming on both sides strong, perpendicular bluffs of rock and clay, forcing the road constantly out of the flat valley over the points, and causing wide deflections in the road to head the ravines or ‘coolies,’ which flow to the river. There is a strongly-marked wagon trail, but no bridge or cuts, a purely natural road, with steep ascents and descents, and frequent gullies, about as much as wagons could pass. We sometimes shifted into our light wagons, to save the fatigue of travel.
“Thus we journeyed for four days, when we sent a courier from Fort Ellis with a copy of General Townsend’s dispatch to me, saying that the President desired my immediate return, unless I had information that the serious riots then in full career had ceased.
“Light wagons can out-travel horses and baggage wagons. Up to that date we averaged twenty-five miles a day. I therefore turned the courier back with a fresh horse, and orders to reach Fort Ellis in two days with answer, to be sent from Bozeman by telegraph, and, with my immediate party, I followed, taking one more day, being time for answers. On reaching Fort Ellis the day before yesterday (August 1), I was delighted to hear that the riots had ceased, and that you and the President had consented that I should go on as originally intended.
“The escort company came in yesterday, so that we are now all here at Fort Ellis. When we arrived there was but one company of the Seventh Infantry here, Captain Benham, thirty men. The arrival of the escort gives an addition of sixty men.
“There is no seeming danger here or hereabouts, but the Nez Perces are reported to have entered Montana, from Idaho, and are now in the valley of the Bitter Root, about 300 miles west of this; they are reported en route to the buffalo range, east and north of this point. It seems that for many years these same Nez Perces, along with some Flatheads from the western part of Montana, have been accustomed to come to the sources of the Musselshell and Yellowstone to gather meat for the winter, traversing the whole of Montana, doing little or no damage. But the buffaloes of the great northern herd, like that of the southern, are being rapidly slaughtered for their skins, so that now they are becoming scarce. We only saw four buffaloes, two of which were killed, in our course, whereas ten years ago we would have encountered a million.
“The time has come when these restless Indians must cease to look to buffaloes as a means of maintenance, and they should not be allowed to traverse the scattered and explored settlements of Montana, where hunger will sooner or later compel them to kill tame cattle and steal horses, thus leading to murder and war.
“Besides these the Nez Perces should be made to answer for the murders they committed in Idaho, and also to be punished as a tribe for going to war without just cause or provocation.
“Hitherto all danger to Montana has come from the north and the Sioux to the east, and the few troops stationed in the territory were posted, as it were, at the eastern doors or passes through the mountains, over Ellis, Baker, Benton and Shaw, but last year a new post was selected at or near Missoula, the door of the western frontier. Two small companies, not over sixty men, of the Seventh Infantry, under Captain Rawn, were sent to Missoula to build a post there, but he had hardly arrived when the Nez Perces war began. When it was reported that General Howard had defeated the hostiles and that they were retreating to Montana by what is known as the Lo-Lo trail, some of the citizens of the neighborhood joined the soldiers for the purpose of stopping the Indians until the troops from Idaho could come up with them. But it seems the Indians passed around Captain Rawn’s fortified point and then entered the Bitter Root valley, but in such force (300 armed warriors) as to claim to be able, if opposed, to force their way through.