After staying at the battlefield for a couple of days after the cessation of hostilities on October 5, Colonel Miles headed back to his home base at Fort Keogh (Miles City) at the junction of the Tongue and Yellowstone rivers. The forty-one Nez Perce who had been captured at the Metis village on the Milk River followed behind.

Hiring some Red River [Metis] carts, we loaded them with women and children and started for Miles's camp on the Missouri near the mouth of the Musselshell....

The weather had become quite cold by that time, especially at night.... The children would cry all night until we killed some buffalo and wrapped them up in the green hides, and fed them and our men with meat without salt, cooked without utensils.

Lt. Hugh Scott

Fort Keogh
After staying at the battlefield for a couple of days after the cessation of hostilities on October 5, Colonel Miles headed back to his home base at Fort Keogh (Miles City) at the junction of the Tongue and Yellowstone rivers. The forty-one Nez Perce who had been captured at the Metis village on the Milk River followed behind.

Hiring some Red River [Metis] carts, we loaded them with women and children and started for Miles's camp on the Missouri near the mouth of the Musselshell....

The weather had become quite cold by that time, especially at night.... The children would cry all night until we killed some buffalo and wrapped them up in the green hides, and fed them and our men with meat without salt, cooked without utensils.

Lt. Hugh Scott

Again, Miles crossed the Missouri River near where the Musselshell River feeds into it. Today the exact crossing lies under the waters of Fort Peck Lake in the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge.

As the force moved across the rolling prairie it appeared like a great caravan. There were three battalions of well-equipped, hardy, resolute soldiers, with artillery, besides upward of four hundred prisoners; and on the opposite flank, some distance away, were driven over six hundred of the captured stock, while in the rear were the travois and ambulances, bearing the wounded, followed by the pack-trains and wagon trains, and all covered by advance guards, flankers, and rear guards.

Col. Nelson Miles


Timeline

Credits

The Nez Perce Flight to Canada - An Introduction

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