The Battle of the Clearwater (July 11–12, 1877) was a battle in the Idaho Territory between the Nez Perce under Chief Joseph and the United States Army. Under General O. O. Howard, the army surprised a Nez Perce village; the Nez Perce counter-attacked and inflicted significant casualties on the soldiers, but were forced to abandon the village.
After the battle, part of the Nez Perce War. the Nez Perce retreated east and crossed the Bitterroot Mountains via Lolo Pass into Montana Territory, with General Howard in pursuit.
Background
After the defeat of the U.S. Army by the Nez Perce at the Battle of White Bird Canyon on June 17, General Oliver Otis Howard took personal command of the army. Howard dispatched a small force to capture the neutral Looking Glass, but Looking Glass and his followers escaped and joined Joseph.
With Howard in pursuit, but several days behind, Joseph, 600 Nez Perce and their more than 2,000 livestock brushed aside a small U.S. military force at the Battle of Cottonwood (July 3–5), and continued eastward for another . Along their route, they burned thirty ranches and farms, and the proprietors had fled to nearby Mount Idaho. The ranches and farms were on the Nez Perce Reservation and illegal in the view of the Nez Perce. They established a camp in the steep-walled valley of the South Fork of the Clearwater River, north of present-day Stites. There on July 7, they were joined by Looking Glass and other Nez Perce bringing their total strength up to about 800, with 200 fighting men.
On July 8, a company of 75 civilian volunteers under Edward McConville, found the Nez Perce camp and reported its location to General Howard. The Nez Perce discovered the volunteers the next morning and attacked them, forcing them to take refuge on a hilltop and exchanging long-distance fire with them. Out of water and their horses stolen by the Indians, the volunteers dubbed their hilltop "Fort Misery." One Nez Perce was wounded. About noon on June 11 the volunteers withdrew from their hill to Mount Idaho without opposition.
The Nez Perce anticipated that Howard and his soldiers would arrive at their village from the northeast, the same direction as the volunteers came from, but instead the General approached them from the south following the east bank of the South Fork of the Clearwater downstream through rugged country. About noon on July 11, Howard spotted the village, spread along both banks of the Clearwater. Perhaps lulled into complacency by their previous successes, the Nez Perce were surprised at his sudden appearance.
To combat approximately 200 Nez Perce warriors, Howard had 440 soldiers plus civilian packers, scouts, messengers, and Indian scouts, amounting to a force that may have exceeded 600 men. Among the Indian scouts were some Nez Perce; many Nez Perce had not joined Joseph and remained friendly with the U.S.
The battle
Howard opened the battle by firing howitzers and Gatling guns at the Nez Perce camp in the valley below from the ridge he occupied. "These only served to announce the presence of the troops to the unsuspecting Indians and 'to send horsemen...scampering over the hills in every direction...[while] herding their stock together, which was afterward driven by old Indians, squaws and children into the hills in the rear."
The old warrior Toohoolhoolzote and 24 Nez Perce, including Yellow Wolf, rode to the top of the ridge to contest the advance of Howard. They built a stone fort and began firing at the soldiers, stalling Howard's cavalry. Soon, they were nearly surrounded and they retreated back to the village. Toohoolhoolzote's delaying action gave other Nez Perce time to set up defensive positions around three sides of a prairie on a tableland, about 1.5 miles wide and two miles long above the east side of the Clearwater River.
About 100 Nez Perce opposed Howard as he advanced and took up positions on the prairie. "Although we outnumbered the Indians," said a correspondent, "we fought to a great disadvantage. The redskins were in a fortified canyon...while our men were obliged to approach them along an open and treeless prairie." After extensive fighting all afternoon, the day ended in a stalemate with Indians and soldiers in their fortified lines. The soldiers spent the night hungry and thirsty. The Nez Perce in the battle line were supplied by women from the village in their rear.