Battle of the Clearwater The Battle of the Clearwater ( July 11 – 12 , 1877 ) was a battle between the Nez Perce under Chief Joseph and the United States army . The army under General O . O . Howard surprised a Nez Perce village . The Nez Perce counter - attacked and inflicted significant casualties on the soldiers , but they were forced to abandon the village . After the battle , the Nez Perce retreated in good order and undertook to cross the Bitterroot Mountains via Lolo Pass 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 , 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 , 1877 and continued eastward for another 25 miles . Along their route they burned 30 ranches and farms . The proprietors had fled to nearby Mt . 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 the present day town of Stites . There , on July 7 , they were joined by Looking Glass and other Nez Perce bringing their total strength up to about 800 persons and 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 all together 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 gun s 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 . On the morning of July 12 Howard ’ s entire force was facing the Nez Perce on the prairie . He drove the Nez Perce away from a spring and was able to provide water and food to his men . Howard prepared an attack on the Nez Perce left flank by Captain Marcus Miller and his battalion . Unexpectedly , a pack train of 120 mules bearing supplies for Howard appeared on the battlefield . Miller moved forward to protect the pack train and , taking advantage of his advanced position , he suddenly ordered a charge on the Nez Perce . The Nez Perce retreated and soon were in full flight as Howard ’ s men advanced all along his lines and into the village near the river . The Nez Perce men crossed the Clearwater River with their women and children and as many of their possessions as they could gather . Howard declined to continue the pursuit of the Indians beyond the river . The battle was over . Aftermath . The day after the battle , General Howard pursued the Nez Perce about 12 miles northward to the village of Kamiah where he saw the Nez Perce crossing the Clearwater River . Howard rushed his forces forward , but was too late . One cavalryman was wounded . On July 15 , Howard received the surprising message that Joseph and his band wished to surrender , while Looking Glass , White Bird , and Toohoolhoolzote planned to continue eastward to November . However , Joseph failed to appear the next day to surrender , but 35 Nez Perce , including 14 men , did which bolstered the Army ’ s view that the Nez Perce were disintegrating as a fighting force . Howard learned that the Nez Perce had moved their camp to Weippe Prairie , about 15 miles away from Howard ’ s position and he set off in search of them . The Nez Perce called Howard General - Day - After - Tomorrow because of his slow , careful movements . The Nez Perce seem to have undergone a crisis in leadership in the last hours of the Clearwater battle and the days which followed . Joseph was by no means the undisputed leader . Five different bands and five leaders were represented among the Nez Perce , and each warrior reserved to himself his right to fight as he wished and when he wished . Joseph ( and presumably his brother Ollokot ) apparently argued against leaving Idaho and their traditional lands . However , White Bird , Looking Glass , and Toohoolhoolzote prevailed and the Nez Perce decided to follow the rugged Lolo trail to Lolo Pass and Montana . Looking Glass had many friends in Montana and argued that once there the Nez Perce would be safe , not understanding perhaps that Idaho and Montana were states in the same nation . An irony was that 72 years earlier the Nez Perce had greeted in friendship the half - starved Lewis and Clark Expedition on Weippe Prairie . Clark , it was reputed , had a son with a Nez Perce wife and that son , now an elderly man , was with Joseph . Hearing that the Nez Perce were leaving Weippe Prairie , Howard sent out a strong force from Kamiah on July 17 to ascertain in which direction the Nez Perce were heading . Major Edwin C . Mason and “ Colonel ” Edward McConville , a civilian volunteer , led the force of cavalry , civilian volunteers , and several Nez Perce scouts . Joseph ’ s Nez Perce ambushed the scouts , killing 2 and wounding one , and Mason turned back , but after having learned that the Nez Perce were traveling the Lolo trail . The Nez Perce undertook one last raid in Idaho on July 18 , stealing several hundred horses at Kamiah . On July 16 , the main body of the Nez Perce departed Weippe Prairie on the arduous Lolo Trail through 120 miles ( 200 km . ) of uninhabited mountains . They were about 750 persons in all , two thousand horses , and hundreds of dogs in a column several miles long . They reappeared on the Montana side of the Lolo Pass on July 25 having accomplished the difficult passage with relative ease . Soon , they would again meet up with the U . S . army . Howard , with 700 men , set off after the Nez Perce on the Lolo Trail on July 30 . He telegraphed ahead and soldiers awaited the Nez Perce just over the Montana border at Fort Fizzle . Colonel John Gibbon would intercept the Nez Percé at the Battle of the Big Hole .