The Dying Grass, page 158
I invented Toohhoolhoolsote’s wives, and made my best conjecture about the name of Joseph’s elder wife. All the private family politics among the Nez Perces had to be made up. The incident when Springtime was nearly left behind at Clearwater, and Joseph’s later separation from her and from Good woman, are attested. I guessed what I could.
Looking-Glass has been reviled for his arrogant blindness, which twice brought the Army upon the Nez Perces when they were unprepared. I tried to see things from his point of view—which is not to excuse him. His embassy to the Crows [see “They Are the Ones Who Did Wrong Things”] may well be “one of the romantic myths”; yet to me it makes such strong psychological sense, given what I think I have gathered about his character, that I decided to let it happen.
Very often the names of Indians who murdered civilians are not known. I chose to attach their roles to this or that real character (such as Red Spy) who seemed capable of committing such acts.
As in other Dreams, I have generally privileged the weather and light conditions I met with at historical sites over the ones described in primary sources. Since this series has much to do with the effects of specific landscapes on our consciousness (hence the series subtitle), when I visit, say, the Camas Meadows battleground, I can best bring the place to life by describing what I see and feel. The Nez Perce attack took place on a moonless night; I happened to encounter a spectacular moon, and recorded matters thus. Global warming prevented me from ever experiencing the early August night frosts which afflicted Gibbon’s soldiers on their approach to Big Hole; and when I arrived at Bear’s Paw on an early autumn day the place was quite hot. Since the Bear’s Paw episode is associated with cold, I had to make another trip there in late winter to describe the place as I wished to do. But when the weather divergences from 1877 were not so extreme as to alter the fundamentals of a given scene, I have generally let them stand.
My hope is that all these imaginings bring a kind of life to the raw sources, and help a reader feel not that this was not precisely how it was, but simply that the situation was all too real, as were the various motives.
THE DYING GRASS
Epigraph: “For the most part, a civilized white man . . .”—Francis Parkman, The Oregon Trail and The Conspiracy of Pontiac (New York: Library of America, 1991; orig. text 1849 [1st ed.]), p. 242.
The maps I have drawn for this book are based in part upon nineteenth-century originals, in part upon contemporary commercial maps and driving atlases of the relevant states, and to some extent upon James Truslow Adams, editor-in-chief, and R. V. Coleman, managing editor, Atlas of American History (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943). I highly recommend this clear and elegant volume of line drawings, for its beauty as much as its information value.
Grass-Texts: A Speech and a Report (1877–78)
Grass-Text I: An Inaugural Speech (1877)
Extracts from the President-elect’s speech—[U.S. Congress], Congressional Record, Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the Forty-Fifth Congress, First Session, also Special Session of the Senate, vol. VI, Part VI (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1877), p. 3.
Whitman’s lines—Walt Whitman, Complete Poetry and Collected Prose (New York: Library of America, 1982; orig. texts 1855–92), p. 593 (“Old War-Dreams, 1865–66, rev. 1881).
Description of President Hayes—After Lally Weymouth, America in 1876: The Way We Were, designed by Milton Glaser (New York: Vintage, 1976), p. 107. Various descriptions of Washington, D.C., are drawn from illustrations, etc. in this book. I have taken a few Hayes word-constructions from Charles Richard Williams, ed., Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Nineteenth President of the United States, vol. III: 1865–1881 (Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1924).
“The dark horse from Ohio . . .”—Weymouth, p. 120 (Louisville Courier-Journal, June 17, 1876).
Summary of events culminating in Hayes’s inauguration—After the same source, pp. 122–43.
Footnote: Congressional reduction in army size from 54,000 in 1866 to 25,000 in 1876—John M. Carroll and Colin F. Baxter, eds., The American Military Tradition from Colonial Times to the Present (Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1993), p. 99. See also Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr., The Civilian and the Military (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 114.
“I can myself almost remember negro slaves in New York . . .”—Whitman, p. 1173 (“Some Diary Notes at Random”).
My understanding of the lay of the land at Chancellorsville, Yorktown, Fair Oaks and Gettysburg, here and throughout the book, is partially indebted to (a) Capt. Calvin D. Cowles, 23d U.S. Infantry, comp., Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Published Under the Direction of the Hons. Redfield Proctor, Stephen B. Elkins, and Daniel S. Lamont, Secretaries of War, by Maj. George B. Davis, U.S. Army, Mr. Leslie J. Perry, Civilian Expert, Mr. Joseph W. Kirkley, Civilian Expert, Board of Publication (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1891–1895), especially Plates XVII, XVIII, XX and XLI; (b) Department of Military Art and Engineering, United States Military Academy, comp., The West Point Atlas of the Civil War, chief ed. Col. Vincent J. Esposito (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962 abr.? repr. of 1959 ed.), Map 43; and (c) William C. Davis and Bell L. Wiley, under direction of the National Historic Society, Civil War: A Complete Photographic History (New York: Tess Press, 2000 repr. of orig. 1981–84 6-vol. ed.), pp. 408–15.
Fleeing deer at Chancellorsville—Bevin Alexander, Lost Victories: The Military Genius of Stonewall Jackson (New York: Hippocrene Books, Inc., 2004 repr. of 1992 ed.).
“When you’re forbidden to call a man tyrant . . .”—Common pro-slave appellations for Lincoln at this period were “mountebank,” “old ape,” “consummate tyrant.” See the Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, Major General United States Army (Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, Black Heritage Library Collection, 1971; orig. pub. 1907), vol. 2, p. 169.
Crow mutilations of Dakota corpses—Parkman, p. 117.
Grass-Text II: A Report (1878)
“The ‘Report of Civil and Military Commission’ . . .”—Supplementary Report (Non-Treaty Nez-Perce Campaign) of Brigadier-General O. O. Howard, Brevet Major-General U.S. Army, commanding Department of the Columbia. January 26, 1878. (Portland, Oregon: Assistant Adjutant-General’s Office, Department of the Columbia, 1878), p. 3.
I. Indian Service
Epigraph: “The Indian service now devolving upon our army is necessarily arduous and unpopular . . .”—Oliver Otis Howard, Brig. Gen. U.S.A., Nez Perce Joseph: An Account of His Ancestors, His Lands, His Confederates, His Enemies, His Murders, His War, His Pursuit and Capture (Charleston, South Carolina: BiblioLife, n.d.; ca. 2009; facsimile repr. of: Boston: Lee & Shepard Publishers, 1881), p. ix.
Many of my descriptions of U.S. Army routines, drills, ranks, tactics, etc., are derived from August V. Kautz, Capt. 6th U. S. Cavalry, Brig. and Brevet Maj. Gen. of Volunteers, The 1865 Customs of Service for Officers of the Army: A Handbook of the Duties of Each Grade, Lieutenant to Lieut.-General (Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 2002; org. ed. [w/ slightly different title] 1866). A helpful introduction (which I have drawn on much less) is Jeremy Agnew, Life of a Soldier on the Western Frontier (Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing Co., 2008). You will find a few specific tidbits from these two books sourced in the following notes.
Descriptions of buffalo are based in part on my own observation, in Yellowstone and other places, and in part on information in Parkman and in Mari Sandoz, The Buffalo Hunters (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press/Bison Books [very appropriately], 1978 repr. of 1954 ed.).
The diction used is as much as possible contemporary to the Nez Perce War, and drawn from too many different sources to list, from Walt Whitman’s essays to soldiers’ diaries and letters. Very occasionally I have hazarded borrowings from such later sources as the Montana poet Badger Clark’s Sun and Saddle Leather, Including Grass Grown Trails and New Poems, 9th ed. (Boston: Richard G. Badger/Gorham Press, 1922; orig. copyright 1915). Since he seemed to be helping himself to the phraseology of old cowboys, and since veterans of the Nez Perce War were certainly still alive in 1915, I saw no reason to deny myself the pleasure of “let’s go a-courtin’ in the mountains.”
And the Water and the Grass
Descriptions of water—After a visit to Lake Easton State Park, Washington, in August 2009.
Description of the dying grass—First seen going farther east in that state, where the forest country ends.
Plenty of Indians All Over the Country
Descriptions of the Grande Ronde Valley, here and throughout—After visits in 2006, 2009, 2011.
Re: Nez Perce: “Don’t ask me how they got their name.”—But see Gary Moulton, ed., The Definitive Journals of Lewis and Clark (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001, 13 vols. incl. index), vol. 7: “From the Pacific to the Rockies,” p. 223 (Clark, Wednesday May 7th 1806), in which Chief Cut Nose is mentioned. The captains also describe an occasional fashion of affixing a “wampum shell” to a nose-piercing. [Note: Cited “Lewis and Clark.”]
“An immense tract of six thousand square miles . . .”—Dennis Baird, Diane Mallickan and W. R. Swagerty, eds., The Nez Perce Nation Divided: Firsthand Accounts of Events Leading to the 1863 Treaty (Moscow: University of Idaho Press, Voices from Nez Perce Country ser., no. 1, 2002), p. 36 (letter from Indian Superintendent Edward Geary, March 1st 1860). I have added a comma out of kindness.
George Catlin’s map of 1833—Derek Hayes, Historical Atlas of the American West, with Original Maps (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), p. 146. Below the river of the Nez Perces live the Shoshonies [sic]. A second band of Shoshonies seems to dwell in the Rockies, east of the Snakes. South and southwest of the Shoshonies are two bands of Shosokies.
The long snake of Nez Perce riders—Description after Robert H. Ruby and John A. Brown, Indians of the Pacific Northwest (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, The Civilization of the American Indian ser., vol. 158, 1981), p. 136 (sketch: “Nez Percés arriving for the Walla Walla Council in May, 1855”).
Charles Preuss’s map of 1846—Derek Hayes, p. 92.
Descriptions of Farewell Bend, here and throughout—After a visit in August 2011.
Sherman to Grant, 1868: “The chief use of the Peace Commission . . .”—Quoted in Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier 1846–1890, rev. ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003; orig. ed. 1984), p. 117.
Joseph’s boundaries—Information from Scott M. Thompson, ed., I Will Tell of My War Story: A Pictorial Account of the Nez Perce War (Seattle: University of Washington Press, in assoc. w/ the Idaho State Historical Society, 2000; orig. cashbook ill. ca. 1879–82), p. 18.
“Certainly no right to the soil can be obtained before confirmation by the Senate.”—Reports on the Aftermath of the 1863 Nez Perce Treaty by Chief Lawyer, Governor Caleb Lyon, General Benjamin Alvord and Indian Agent James O’Neill, transcribed from the original ms. in the National Archives. Editing and intro. by Dennis Baird. Published by the University of Idaho Library. Transcription and introduction copyright 1999, University of Idaho Library. Northwest Historical Manuscript Ser. Original source: NARA, RG 393 (Continental Army Commands), Dept. of the Columbia Letters Received (1860–1870) and Fort Lapwai Letters Received, and RG 75 (Indian Affairs), Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs from the Idaho Superintendency, 1863–1880. Microfilmed as Project M-234, Roll 337 (1863–1867). Page 5 (Benjamin Alvord to Governor Wallace, 1863).
Description of orchards in the Hood River country—After a visit there in August 2009.
“And at that time we had 105 men able to handle a rifle . . .”—Oregon Historical Society, Mss. 1508. Blurick, John. Blurick, William H. Recollections 1876. Page 21. I have turned him into Blurick, Wittfield, and made up almost everything about him. Some details of his journey derive from the 1876 crossing made by Amanda Wimpy Nelson, ms. repr., in My Sister and I (Fairfield, Washington: Ye Galleon Press, 1973), and a few matters relating to wagons generally, which I have also applied to Army muleteers, from Washington State University Libraries, Pullman. Holland Library Archives. Cage 3080. Wimpy, Mary Ann Sida Anderson, 1844–1948.
The softness of the voice of the Crow squaw Kills-Good—Information from Frank B. Linderman, Pretty-shield: Medicine Woman of the Crows (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press/Bison Books, 2003; orig. ed. 1932), p. 13. [Since there is as much of Linderman as of Pretty-Shield in it, this book, in contradistinction to my usual practice for such edited volumes of testimony, will be cited as “Linderman.”]
The Flathead belief that our shadows are our souls—Information from H. J. Lee Humfreville, Twenty Years Among Our Hostile Indians: Describing the Characteristics, Customs, Habits, Religion, Marriage, Dances, and Battles of the Wild Indians in Their Natural State . . . , intro. by Edwin Sweeney (Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 2002; orig. text 1903 rev. of 1899 1st ed.), p. 233.
Naked-Footed Bull [whose name I have written in this book as “Naked-Footed,” in nineteenth-century fashion] to White Thunder: “My young brothers were not warriors . . .”—simplified and otherwise altered from Cheryl Wilfong, Following the Nez Perce Trail: A Guide to the Nee-Me-Poo National Historic Trail with Eyewitness Accounts, 2nd ed., rev. & exp. (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2006), pp. 317–18 (words of Yellow Wolf [White Thunder]). I have folded in another account of this murder told in L. V. McWhorter, Hear Me, My Chiefs!: Nez Perce Legend & History [inside book, this subtitle reads History & Legend], ed. Ruth Bordin (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Press, 2001; orig. ed. 1952), p. 439. The names of Naked-Footed Bull’s siblings are invented.
Details on White Thunder’s parents—L[ucullus].V[irgil]. McWhorter, Yellow Wolf: His Own Story, rev. enlarged ed. (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Press, 2000; orig. ed. 1940), p. 25. The book’s account of Dietrich’s murder occurs on pp. 177–78. My version makes some use of it.
“Concealed by the thick timber of the mountains . . .”—John Gibbon, From Where the Sun Stands: A Manuscript of the Nez Perce War (Texas: Friends of the Sterling C. Evans Library, Keepsake Number 17, 1998), p. 39. Bancroft call numbers are genuine, but for clarity I have altered “his camp” to “Joseph’s camp.”
“By noon we top the main divide of all . . .”—A Vision of the “Big Hole,” by John Gibbon, Colonel, 7th Infantry. Facsimile. Privately printed? Signed [to?] A. Snelling, August 9th 1882. Poem refers to “five years past,” so wr. ca. 1882. Montana Historical Society call numbers in my text are genuine. This verse comes from p. 4.
Shooting Thunder’s Winchester—McWhorter, Yellow Wolf, p. 11. [Catalogue copy in 1875 for Winchester rifles: “The pioneer, the hunter and trapper, believe in the Winchester, and its possession is a passion with every Indian.”—Harold F. Williamson, Winchester: The Gun That Won the West (Washington, D.C.: A Sportsman’s Press Book pub. by the Combat Forces Press, 1952 “by association with the U.S. Army”), p. 71.]
Comanche lassooing and torture-killing of U.S. soldiers, 1867—Humfreville, p. 178.
Behavior of thirsty horses—[Walter Mason Camp.] Kenneth Hammer, Custer in ’76: Walter Camp’s Notes on the Custer Fight (Salt Lake City: Brigham Young University Press, 1976; orig. interviews early 20th cent.), p. 58.
General Canby: “Listen to me, you Indians . . .”—Jeff C. Riddle, The Indian History of the Modoc War (San Jose, California: Urion Press, 1998 repr. of 1914 ed.), p. 65.
“The bold dragoon he has no care . . .”—Elizabeth B. Custer, Following the Guidon (New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, 1890), p. 50.
Doings of McLaughlin & Co.—Idaho [Semi-Weekly] World, vol. 2, Friday, March 9, 1877, and Friday, April 20, 1877.
Charles Nordhoff [of the New York Herald] to Hayes: “The darkies you’ll have any how; the white Whigs are what you want to capture.”—Quoted in Michael A. Bellesiles, 1877: America’s Year of Living Violently (New York: New Press, 2010), p. 29.
Notice of sheriff’s sale—Altered and abridged from Saint Louis Dispatch, number 221, Tuesday evening, January 4, 1876, p. 3.
“CHEAP LANDS”—Ibid., Wednesday evening, January 5, 1876, p. 1.
Comparative costs of Chicago laborer’s cottage and Nebraska dugout (1872)—Thomas J. Schlereth, Victorian America: Transformations in Everyday Life, 1876–1915 (New York: HarperPerennial/The Everyday Life in America ser., 1992 repr. of 1991 ed.), pp. 90–91. The exact price of the dugout was $2.78.
Blurick’s food—After Louis M. Bloch Jr., comp. and ed., Overland to California in 1859: A Guide for Wagon Train Travelers (Cleveland: Bloch and Company, 1984), p. 19. A few bits of emigration-craft in the Blurick section, horse- and wagon-craft in the military sections, and hunting-craft here and there, derive from Randolph B. Marcy, Captain, U.S. Army, The Prairie Traveler: A Hand-Book for Overland Expeditions, Published by Authority of the War Department (Bedford, Massachusetts: Applewood Books, 1993 repr. of orig. 1859 ed.).
Nez Perce horse-trading with emigrants, to the Indians’ frequent advantage—Archer Butler Hulbert and Dorothy Printup Hulbert, eds., Overland to the Pacific, vol. 8: Marcus Whitman, Crusader, Part Three, 1843 to 1847 (Denver?: The Stewart Commission of Colorado College and the Denver Public Library, 1941), p. 14.
The horse die-off of 1871—Information from Schlereth, p. 21.
