As an evidence of the severity of this fight, and of the courage displayed by the officers, attention is called to the fact that of the seventeen engaged, seven of them were hit fourteen times, as follows:
General Gibbon, thigh 1 Captain Williams, head and body 2 Captain Logan, head (killed) 1 Lieutenant Bradley, head (killed) 1 Lieutenant Coolidge, both hands and legs 3 Lieutenant English, head, wrist, and back (died of wounds) 3 Lieutenant Woodruff, both thighs and heel 3 --- Total 14
Veterans of the civil war, and men who have been years on the frontier, who have participated in many of the most sanguine Indian campaigns ever fought, say this was the most hotly-contested field they were ever on. They tell us that never have they seen such cool and determined fighting, at such short range, kept up for so long a time, by Indians; that never have they known so many bullets placed with such deadly accuracy, and so few to fly wild as in this fight. Nearly every man engaged in the action, white or red, officer, private soldier, or citizen, seemed a cool, deliberate sharpshooter; and the fact that after the first assault both parties kept closely covered all day, alone accounts for the fact that so many survived the fiery ordeal. The Indians did splendid work and elicited from the beleaguered soldiers expressions of admiration for their marksmanship, as well as for their bravery and prowess in fierce, close work.
An old sergeant, who was with the Seventh at Gettysburg, when it aided so nobly in holding Little Round Top, says there was no hotter place on that historic hill than he found in the Big Hole on the 9th of August, 1877.
After the battle General Gibbon issued the following congratulatory order to his men:
HEADQUARTERS SEVENTH INFANTRY, BATTLE-FIELD OF THE BIG HOLE, _Montana Territory, Aug. 11, 1877_.
The regimental commander congratulates the regiment upon the result of the conflict here with the hostile Nez Percés on the 9th and 10th inst. While mourning for the dead, Capt. William Logan and First Lieut. James H. Bradley and the twenty-one enlisted men, who fell gallantly doing a soldier's duty, we can not but congratulate ourselves that after a stern chase of over 250 miles, during which we twice crossed the rugged divide of the Rocky Mountains, we inflicted upon a more numerous enemy a heavier loss than our own, and held our ground until it gave up the field.