Battle of Camas Creek - Aftermath

Aftermath

The Nez Perce were disappointed that the spoils of their raid had been mostly mules, but the loss crippled Howard’s mobility. Howard had failed to defeat the Nez Perce on several occasions and now, after the battle, he failed to pursue them aggressively. A journalist thought that was for the best. “I candidly think Joseph could whip our cavalry and cannot blame General Howard for not giving him battle.”

On the evening after the battle, Howard was reinforced by 280 infantry under Captain Marcus Miller. Two days later, August 22, 50 Bannocks, under the leadership of Buffalo Horn, rode into the camp. They were a “gorgeous set of warriors, hair dyed…decorated with…sleigh bells and feathers” and wearing buckskin and brightly colored blankets. They had been promised all the Nez Perce horses they could capture.” An unusually talented White scout, Stanton G. Fisher, and the Bannocks explored ahead. Howard followed slowly, so slowly that Buffalo Head and many of the Bannocks quit the army in disgust and went home and Fisher commented, “Uncle Sam’s boys are too slow for this business.”

After learning that the Nez Perce had crossed into the wilderness of Yellowstone National Park, Howard called a halt to the chase and rested for several days at Henrys Lake. Howard’s troops were tired, having marched for 26 days averaging 20 miles a day. The Nez Perce, burdened with wounded, women, children, and elderly had gone faster and further but, in the words of a journalist, they had the “faculty of stealing fresh horses from the settlers."

Meanwhile, Howard’s superior General Philip Sheridan was collecting more than one thousand experienced soldiers and Indian scouts from many tribes to defeat the Nez Perce when they emerged from Yellowstone.