urse have retreated so soon as they found that
he had arrived in their neighborhood. What would have been thought of
such a course by his superiors? What would have been thought of it by
these same pretentious newspaper critics? They would doubtless have
raised the cry of cowardice as promptly as they raised that of
rashness.

General Gibbon is not one of the kind of soldiers who stops to count
hostile Indians under such circumstances as these. He fights them at
sight, just as any other brave commander does, and takes the chances.
His brilliant record in the civil war, as well as on the frontier, has
long since convinced his superiors that he was made of this sort of
material, and this is why he had so often been intrusted with commands
in which he was required to exercise just this kind of generalship.
While he is a cautious commander, within due and reasonable bounds, he
is brave as a lion, and knows no such thing as disobedience of orders.
He felt himself and his little army equal to a contest with the band of
hostiles in his front, and the result proved that he was correct in his
estimate.

The St. Paul _Pioneer Press_ replied to an editorial which appeared in
the New York _Herald_, soon after the fight, and written by one of
these carpers, in these cogent terms:

"Both in its conception and execution, the plan of campaign followed by
General Gibbon was a master-piece of Indian fighting. Nothing can be
further from the brilliant folly of Custer's dash than Gibbon's march
and attack. It was wisely planned, and boldly carried out. The
necessities of an Indian war are simple. They are to move swiftly,
strike suddenly and hard, and to fight warily, but perseveringly and
vigorously. All these things Gibbon did. He made a forced march, and
completely surprised the enemy at the end of it. He fought the savages
after their own fashion, retiring to cover after the first onset, and
fighting singly, rifle in hand, officers and men alike, from the
commander down, becoming sharpshooters for the time, and picking off
the Indians like born frontiersmen. And the battle was a victory, a
brilliant success, in that it inflicted a terrible punishment on the
Nez Perces, strewed the valley with dead Indians, and sent the crippled
remnant of the band fleeing to the mountains. General Gibbon is a
shrewd and bold Indian fighter--and the _Herald_ writer is an ass."

General Gibbon took into the action, six companies of infantry. Had
the