At night there on August 8, 1877 there were a lot things that were going on in this village. They had horse races that was going on right here, you had women were up there on the hillside cutting teepee poles, some ladies digging up camas, and some of the men out hunting and so forth. And so a lot of things with typical village life was going on here. That evening of August 8 was a celebration of sorts because they thought the war was over. They headed to a new adventure. There were probably flutes playing here, boys flirting around with the girls and so forth. They talk about stick games that were being played at night as well and bonfires going up. So it was a good time, a good feeling. they stayed up real late, real late.

During the middle of the night, about maybe 3 o’clock or so in the morning August 9, 1877 Colonel Gibbon arrived with his troops who made a march from Fort Shaw. They came through the Bitterroot Valley and came up this area. Along the way they picked up a number of volunteers from the Bitterroot Valley. They were some of the same settlers that the Nez Perce traded with. They were now scouting against them. And now they were coming down into this area in the middle of the night. In fact the soldiers they say were on the base of the hillside. They were very, very scared. These were scared soldiers because they knew that they were in for a fight. Any soldier would be scared.

When we look at history in retrospect, why didn’t the horses up there nicker? Why didn’t they make any noise for the Nez Perce to be alerted what was going on? According to soldiers’ accounts the horses did nicker and then later on they were just kind of scared and they started moving down.

They started working this way toward the village. Again, moving into the swamp area, it was very swampy in some of the locations. There is a lot of flat area too. They were working this way over.

And again another question we ask, why didn’t the dogs bark? But again according to the soldiers the dogs did bark, but again the Nez Perce were out.

But not all of them were out. In fact one of the tents over there to my left way back there somewhere, who knows. Some of the warriors were actually cleaning their weapons, getting their weapons ready and they knew something was wrong. They just kept moving very quietly and very slowly, getting their weapons cleaned up and polished. They knew a battle was going to occur soon.