Your memory from US history of the life of Chief Joseph will be shaken by this history of the Nez Perce War. The book seemed to have a lot of extraneous information, especially in the first third of the book. ( )

A Greek tragedy in Idaho. Neither General Oliver Otis Howard of the United States Army or Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce wanted a war, but that’s how it came out. Thunder in the Mountains is a parallel biography of Howard (Arm-Cut-Off to the Nez Perce) and Joseph (Heinmot Tooyalakekt – “Thunder Rolling in the Mountains” to the Nimi’ipuu – “Real People”, who the French had named the Nez Perce). Of course, there’s more information about Howard, so he gets the bulk of the text. Author Daniel J. Sharfstein sees Howard’s Christianity and his Civil War experience as defining his character. After losing an arm at Fair Oaks-Seven Pines in 1862, Howard went on to lead a column during Sherman’s March to the Sea. After the capture of Savanah, Sherman had dealt with the thousands of blacks trailing his army by settling them on land abandoned by plantation owners – the famous promise of “40 acres and a mule”. After the war, Howard had been appointed head of the Freedman’s Bureau, and he’d continued this policy, feeling the best route to full citizenship was land ownership (he also participated in founding Howard University, named after him). To his dismay, the Johnson Administration reversed the land distributions and returned land to the former owners; Howard swallowed his disappointment, obeyed his orders, and told the freedmen that they no longer owned their land and were back to being tenant farmers.

Howard left the Freedman’s Bureau in 1872 under a cloud, with accusations of impropriety. A court martial cleared him fully but there must have been gnawing feelings of failure. President Grant ordered him to Arizona to deal with the Apaches under Cochise; rather than using force Howard sought out Cochise’s camp, unarmed (no pun intended) and accompanied only by an aide, a civilian guide, and two Apache interpreters. Impressed by Howard’s bravery and obvious status as a warrior, Cochise negotiated and agreed to a reservation, which he remained for the rest of his life. This may have given Howard a reputation as a negotiator with Native Americans, and his next appointment, in 1874, was as commander of the Department of the Columbia, encompassing Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska.

That led to slow, long, and eventually failed negotiations with Joseph and the Nez Perce. Neither side really understood what the other side wanted and what powers they had. Howard was convinced that what the Nez Perce needed was farm and ranch land, going back to his experience with the Freedman’s Bureau. And, in fact, most of the Nez Perce were content with that and the reservation. However, there were several subgroups – the “Nontreaty Bands” – who wanted the nomadic lifestyle of hunter-gatherers. Joseph belonged to one of these. And Howard just couldn’t see that. Similarly, Joseph seemed to think that Howard had a lot more power than he actually had; that he could arbitrarily change reservation borders or force the removal of existing white settlers. The translation problem must have contributed; Joseph’s speeches are always transcribed as flowery and eloquent but never contain any specific proposals, or at least none that Howard had the power to implement; Howard’s answers are increasingly frustrated and blunt - “You have to go to the reservation”.

In the meantime, white settlers in the area had conflicts with the natives; Nez Perce were insulted and sometimes killed. Eventually, in June 1877, it broke down; one of the bands staged a tel-lik-leen – a war ceremony – and three young warriors, Wahlitits, Sarpsis Ilppilp, and Wetyetmas Wahyakt, set off to avenge insults and murders done by white settlers. Prospector Richard Devine had killed a Nez Perce and never been prosecuted; the three entered his cabin and killed him with a single shot. Rancher Jurden Henry Elfers, his hired man, and his nephew were killed at their ranch (his wife and children were left unharmed). Samuel Benedict, a shopkeeper who had allegedly cheated Nez Perce, was shot twice and left for dead. The next day rest of the warriors from the nontreaty bands joined up, and the elders went along reluctantly. The plan – insofar as there was one - was to head out of the mountains toward the plains and join with the Crow or the Sioux (eventually they realized this wouldn’t work and they headed for Canada). When Howard got the news, he organized his cavalry and went in pursuit.

Sharfstein notes that Nez Perce politics was complicated – by white standards. Chief Joseph, despite later getting credit for being a “military genius”, was never really the leader of the fleeing Nez Perce, until the very end when everybody else was dead. He had some influence during negotiations but was not a “war chief”; perhaps a modern title would be “opinion leader”. Howard, on the other hand, was a “war chief” but his combat experience had been limited to action in the Civil War, which was very different from chasing natives around the mountains of Idaho. He was much too slow – he couldn’t catch the Nez Perce, even though they were encumbered by their families, children, and horse herds – and his men were poorly trained.

The poor performance of the US Army in the campaign is puzzling; I’ve read in other books (Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay) that the Nez Perce were one of the few tribes who were actually good shots, so perhaps that had something to do with it. The Nez Perce won a crushing victory versus two companies of US cavalry at White Bird Canyon, despite being surprised, fighting uphill, and, according to Sharfstein, mostly drunk on looted whiskey. At Clearwater, despite having Gatling guns, howitzers, and being under Howard’s direct command, the army was unable to prevent the Nez Perce from escaping to continue their flight. At Big Hole, a column under Colonel Gibbon had a howitzer and the element of surprise, but still lost half their force – and the howitzer. Howard kept losing ground on the Nez Perce, and kept calling for help. At Canyon Creek, a small rearguard of Nez Perce held off Colonel Sturgis while the rest threaded through the canyon; to his officers’ disgust, Sturgis decline to pursue as it was getting dark. Eventually, within a few miles of the Canadian border at Bear Paw, and with Howard far behind, they were caught by yet another column under Colonel Nelson Miles. All the war leaders – Looking Glass, Lean Elk, Ollokot and Toohoolhoolzote – were already dead or were killed at Bear Paw, leaving Joseph to negotiate the surrender. (Even then a substantial number of Nez Perce escaped the army and made their way to Sitting Bull in Canada).

In the aftermath Joseph was hailed as a native Napoleon – even though he hadn’t been in command until the very end – and Nelson Miles got credit that Howard thought should have been his. The “nontreaty” Nez Perce were eventually relocated to the Colville Reservation in northern Washington. General Howard became involved in a Christian outreach organization for soldiers. In the 1920s, a local rancher befriended Yellow Wolf, visited the battle sites with him, and recorded his version of events.

A good read, well researched. Sharfstein is a professor of law and history at Vanderbilt, and repeatedly notes how Joseph and the Nez Perce never understood how there was one law for them and another for the whites. Endnotes, excellent maps of the campaign and the individual battles, photographs or drawings of the participants, and a large bibliography. ( )

This is a well researched parallel biography of Chief Joseph the inspirational leader of the Nez Perce tribe in the American Northwest and Oliver Otis Howard the man chiefly responsible for trying to force the Nez Perce onto a reservation. Chief Joseph fights him both militarily and politically but ultimately loses. With regard to Oliver Howard the book goes into his Civil War service (He loses and arm), his experience as a leader in the Freedman's Bureau, his Native American campaigns and later life as well as Chief Joseph's celebrity on the east coast late in his life. A wonderful informative book. ( )