Gen. O.O. Howard
Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before I have in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Too-hul-hul-sote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men 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 I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. Chief Joseph |
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The surrender was made about noon of the 4th [5th day of October, and consisted of 113 guns which the Indians had taken from the soldiers.... The Indians then did not want to give up their own guns, and soon shooting was going forward on both sides, after the Government guns had been surrendered. About an hour before sundown, . . . Joseph then came forward with his own gun to where Howard and Miles were seated, side by side, and extended his gun as if to give it up. Howard extended his hand to receive it, but Joseph refused to let him have it, saying, in substance, that he, Howard, had followed him like an old squaw with his troops, that he, Joseph, at any time could have whipped him with one hundred of his own men, and that he would not surrender anything to him. He said that Gen. Miles had whipped him, and that to him he would surrender, and extended to Miles his gun, which Miles took. John Samples Husishusis Kute, the Palouse chief, walked beside Chief Joseph who was riding a horse. |
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Trek students found Joseph's famous rifle in the Fort Benton Museum |