Hallakallakeen (Eagle Wing) or Joseph, the Nez Percé Chief.
By T. W. Tolman.
Howard’s tireless pursuit in the rear and the active and intelligent co-operation of Gibbon and Miles, who ascended the Missouri to meet the fleeing Nez Percés, resulted at last in their capture at Bear Paw Mountain on the Milk River in Montana.
General Howard says that the campaign from the beginning of the Indian pursuit across the Lolo trail until the embarkation on the Missouri for the homeward journey, including all stoppages and halts, extended from July 27th to October 10th, during which time his command marched one thousand three hundred and twenty-one miles. He says that Joseph, encumbered with women, children, and possessions, traversed even greater distances, “for he had to make many a loop in his skein, many a deviation into a tangled thicket, to avoid or deceive his enemy.” Howard pays the highest tribute to his Indian foe and declares that some of his operations are not often equalled in warfare.
Joseph’s subsequent career was a melancholy one. Transported with his band to Oklahoma, the wild eagle of the Wallowa so pined away on the flat prairie and begged so piteously to be allowed to return to the waters of the Columbia, that his request was granted. But so intense was the feeling among the people who had suffered from their dangerous enemy that this poor fragment of the Nez Percés was placed on the Colville Reservation in Northern Washington. There the restless heart of the Nez Percé Bonaparte was eaten out by bitter yearnings for his loved Wallowa.
He had an occasional proud and interesting hour. At the time of General Grant’s obsequies at New York, Joseph was in Washington to see the “Great Father” about his reservation. General Miles, who greatly admired the hero of the Lolo trail, asked him to ride with himself at the head of the funeral procession. Mounted on a magnificent charger, Joseph rode solemnly through the streets of the metropolis by the side of the conqueror of Bear Paw Mountain, and there were not wanting those who said that the Indian was the finer horseman and the finer-looking man.
But Joseph died at his camp on the Nespilem without ever seeing Wallowa. His last request was that he be buried there. He remained an Indian to the last, not ordinarily living in a house or wearing civilised costume or even speaking English, though perfectly able to do so. His life might have been happier had he never been known to fame.
Camp of Chief Joseph on the Nespilem, Wash.
Photo. by T. W. Tolman, Spokane.
The next year after the Joseph War, or in 1878, occurred the Bannock War, the scene of which was mainly Umatilla County in Oregon and other parts adjoining the River. Though at first, as has happened so many times, the Indians met with successes, the end was their inevitable defeat.