On a June morning in 1877, 109 soldiers and civilian volunteers rode into White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory. They planned to launch a surprise attack on a band of Nez Perce Indians camped in the canyon. In the encounter that followed, a numerically inferior force of Nez Perce warriors inflicted a defeat on the soldiers more complete than the one suffered the previous year by the Seventh Cavalry at the Little Bighorn. The battle at White Bird Canyon was the spark that ignited a four-month, 1,200-mile trek that ended in tragedy for the tribe that only seventy years earlier had saved Lewis and Clark from starvation.Published in a limited edition in 1978, "Forlorn Hope" was named by Indian wars historians as one of the best books ever written on the Nez Perce War. It provides an easy-to-read snapshot of the politics and people involved in a unique chapter in the history of Idaho and the American West.
On a June morning in 1877, 109 soldiers and civilian volunteers rode into White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory. They planned to launch a surprise attack on a band of Nez Perce Indians camped in the canyon. In the encounter that followed, a numerically inferior force of Nez Perce warriors inflicted a defeat on the soldiers more complete than the one suffered the previous year by the Seventh Cavalry at the Little Bighorn. The battle at White Bird Canyon was the spark that ignited a four-month, 1,200-mile trek that ended in tragedy for the tribe that only seventy years earlier had saved Lewis and Clark from starvation.Published in a limited edition in 1978, "Forlorn Hope" was named by Indian wars historians as one of the best books ever written on the Nez Perce War. It provides an easy-to-read snapshot of the politics and people involved in a unique chapter in the history of Idaho and the American West.
A former National Park Service historian and director of policy of the President's Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, John D. McDermott now lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
"A Body of Men Selected To Perform A Perilous Service... A Desperate Or Extremely Difficult Enterprise."
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