Old Missoula

General Sherman in Missoula.

General Sherman, accompanied by his son and General Poe and Colonel Bacon of his staff arrived in Missoula about 10 o’clock a.m. of the [September] 2nd, and proceeded immediately to the post near Missoula. Delegate Maginnis, who was of the party, remained in town, and was warmly greeted by his constituents. A number of our citizens repaired to the post Monday forenoon to pay their respects to the General, and found him busily engaged in writing letters – the last letter he intended to write, he said, until he reached home. After making inquiries respecting the Mullan road, the route he intended to take to Walla Walla, he remarked that that road was built twenty years too soon; that the time had arrived when it must be kept open, and that the mail route must be established along it; that civilization and settlement followed mail routes, and that people got into a habit of traveling over the same roads upon which the mails were carried. He said he anticipated an increase of the army at the coming session of Congress; that the country had always clamored for a reduction of the army at the close of every war until the necessity of an efficient standing army became apparent at some time of public peril.
The General made an unsolicited statement of his purposes in regard to his intentions for the protection and security of this region of country. He said he intended to establish at Missoula the finest post in Montana and would give us plenty of troops; that he had ordered the 3rd Infantry to Montana; that four companies of that regiment, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel John R Brooke, whom the general complimented as one of the most accomplished gentlemen in the service, would be stationed near Missoula, with regimental headquarters at the Missoula post; that he proposed to make this a permanent five-company post, leaving Captain Rawn’s company with the four companies of the 3rd. He said the balance of the regiment would be assigned to duty – two companies somewhere between Bannack and Virginia City, two companies at Shaw, one at Benton and one at Baker. After this very satisfactory statement of the General’s plans, the delegation thanked the General for the interest he had taken in our welfare, and said they would not intrude further on his time, but would be glad to extend to him the hospitalities of the extreme frontier town of the country; to which the General jocularly replied that his pay went on whether he worked or loafed, but that he proposed to take the road early the next morning, and must put his affairs in order for the intended move.
General Sherman arrived in Missoula about nine o’clock Monday morning, under an escort of fifty cavalry, under Captain Winters, and a force of pioneers to clear out the Mullan road for his ambulances. He remained in town for a couple of hours, calling at some of the business houses, and spent a great portion of the time at the residence of Major McCormick, where refreshments were spread and an opportunity given to those who wished to meet the General of the Army to come forward and pay their respects. Standing in the streets in the heart of our beautiful valley, the General said that all roads and trails diverged from this point, and that nature had intended it to be an important military point; that we were on the immediate pathway of empire across the continent; that cities might rise and decay upon the transitory production of mines , but that we possessed the sure elements of prosperity that would soon crowd the land with a population that would make it independent of government aid.
Every reference by the General to this section of country was of the most complimentary character, and when we consider that his position places him far above the demagoguery of empty compliment, these references were of the most satisfactory character to those who have settled upon this frontier edge of the public domain. His sagacious and far-reaching ideas in reference to keeping open and protecting constant communication across the continent, thereby inducing settlement and relieving the government of expensive military movements and transportation charges, are such as people living on the frontier can fully appreciate, and are such as the general government, in its own interest, should adopt.
The party made camp Monday night at Six Mile, and expected to reach Walla Walla in fourteen to fifteen days. Thence the General will proceed to San Francisco and directly to Washington. There is considerable timber in the Mullan road, but the clearing of this away is not expected to delay the party any great length of time.

The above article appeared in The Weekly Missoulian on September 7, 1877.

In terms of timing and distance, the proximity of General Sherman’s Missoula visit to the nearby Battle of the Big Hole is a curiosity whose mention was avoided by this Weekly Missoulian article.
General Sherman had visited what is now Yellowstone Park only a few weeks prior to the famous Big Hole battle that occurred on August 9 & 10, 1877, within 110 miles of Missoula. Twenty-three U. S. soldiers and six civilian volunteers were killed in that battle. It is estimated that close to 100 Nez Perce were killed.
General Sherman’s Missoula visit also occurred while U.S. troops under General Oliver Howard were chasing Nez Perce Chief Joseph and the remainder of his tribe across northern Idaho and central Montana.
General Sherman was quoted in the local Missoula newspaper as saying he was “highly satisfied with General Howard’s Indian campaign. He said that he did not want Howard to attack the Indians – merely to heard them out of the country, and keep them in view until the troops coming up the Yellowstone could strike them.”

Chief Joseph surrendered to Brigadier General Oliver O. Howard and Colonel Nelson Miles on October 5, 1877, at the Battle of the Bears Paw Mountains, 42 miles south of the Canadian border. Chief Joseph gave the following famous speech upon surrendering:
“I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed; Looking-glass is dead. Too-hul-hul-suit is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men, now, who say ’yes’ or ’no’ [that is, vote in council]. He who led on the young men [Joseph’s brother, Ollicut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people–some of them–have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find; maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever!”