ge; that he had no
quarrel with the people of Montana, only with General Howard, etc.

"Colonel Gibbon was then at Fort Shaw, but by the 27th of July he had
drawn to him what few men could be spared from Benton and Baker,
marched rapidly 150 miles to Missoula, then taking every man that could
be spared from there, he started in pursuit with fifteen officers and
146 men (afterward increased by thirty-four citizens).

"He overtook the enemy on a branch of Big Hole, or Wisdom River,
surprised them at daybreak of August 9, and for a time had the Indians
at his mercy; but their numbers so far exceeded his own that he, in
turn, was compelled to seek cover in a point of timber, where he fought
on the defensive till the Indians withdrew at 11 p.m. of the 10th.

"Colonel Gibbon reports his loss at two officers, six citizens, and
twenty-one enlisted men killed; five officers, four citizens, and
thirty-one men wounded; and on the part of the enemy, eighty-three were
buried on the field, 'and six dead were afterward found in a ravine at
some distance away.' It is otherwise known that the Indians sustained a
very heavy and nearly fatal loss in wounded in this fight, and could
Colonel Gibbon have had another hundred men the Nez Perce war would
have ended right there."

Some newspaper scribblers have accused General Gibbon of rashness in
attacking the Nez Perces when he knew that their force outnumbered his
own so largely. He has been censured for sacrificing the lives of a
large number of men in an action where he could not reasonably hope for
success. But so far as known, no army officer, no military scholar, in
short, no one competent to judge of the merits of the case, has ever
criticised his conduct adversely.

An old maxim, loved and quoted by all Indian fighters is, that the time
to fight Indians is when they are found. In Indian campaigning, a stern
chase is usually not only a long, but a severe and tedious one, and the
case in point is no exception to the rule, save in that General Gibbon
overtook the Indians much sooner than a retreating band is usually
overtaken. Yet he had made a hard march. He had been ordered to
intercept and strike the renegades. In obedience to this order, he had
marched his command more than 250 miles, and now that he had overtaken
the fugitives, must he go into camp, fortify himself, and calmly wait
for reinforcements, or for the Indians to attack him? Had he done so,
the Indians would of co