Fort Fizzle

By editor

Lolo, Missoula County

Now, if you’re a connoisseur of military blunders, or perhaps just a student of human nature’s peculiar twists, you’ll find the tale of Fort Fizzle a most edifying, if somewhat farcical, chapter in the grand American saga. It’s a story that proves, once again, that even the best-laid plans of generals and common men alike can often go astray, especially when common sense decides to take a holiday.

Our little drama unfolds in the summer of 1877, a time when the United States government, with its usual delicate touch, was attempting to persuade the Nez Perce people , or the Nee-Mee-Poo as they knew themselves, to pack up their ancestral lands and settle down on a reservation in Idaho. Some, with a practicality born of long experience, went along. Others, with a stubborn attachment to their homes and a healthy skepticism of government promises, did not. This latter group, after a few rather unpleasant skirmishes back in Idaho, decided a change of scenery was in order and headed for the Bitterroot Mountains, following a trail their ancestors had known for centuries.

They arrived near what is now Lolo, Montana, in late July, likely breathing a sigh of relief, thinking they’d left the fuss and feathers of war behind. Montana, after all, had always been a friendly sort of place. But alas, peace, like a good poker hand, is often fleeting. Word had reached the ears of the military men in Montana, specifically one Captain Charles Rawn of the 7th Infantry in Missoula. Orders came down from on high , from General O.O. Howard himself, who on July 25, 1877, dispatched a rather urgent telegram: “Sir: AII reports seem to indicate that what are left of the hostile Indians, with their stock and plunder, have escaped by the Lolo Trail, and may reach you before this dispatch.... if you simply bother them and keep them back until I can close in, their destruction or surrender will be sure.” A clear directive, if ever there was one: bother them, keep them back, and the rest would sort itself out.

Captain Rawn, a man of duty, set about his task with commendable zeal. He marched his 35 regulars up Lolo Creek and, on July 25, picked a spot he deemed suitably defensible. There, with the help of a motley crew of citizen volunteers , over 200 of them all told, they threw up a breastworks of earth and logs, dug a few rifle pits, and christened their little stronghold, in effect, Fort Blockade. The idea was simple: the Nez Perce would come this way, they’d hit the fort, and that would be that. Simple, yes. Effective? Well, that’s where the story gets its fizz.

Now, these citizen volunteers were a peculiar bunch, as volunteers often are. They’d answered a frantic call from the Governor, a plea that Missoula’s newspaper had trumpeted with all the subtlety of a brass band: “HELP! HELP! COME RUNNING!” And run they did, from all corners, electing their own officers in a fine display of frontier democracy. The regulars, naturally, viewed them with a certain disdain, seeing them as a disorganized rabble. The volunteers, in turn, considered the soldiers a collection of illiterate immigrants and shiftless Easterners. An uncomfortable alliance, to be sure, but one forged in the face of a common, if somewhat exaggerated, threat.

Parleys were held a few miles west, at Woodman Flats. The Nez Perce leaders , Chief Joseph, White Bird, and Looking Glass, met with Rawn. They promised to pass peacefully through the Bitterroot Valley if left unmolested. Rawn, however, insisted on a full surrender of arms, ammunition, and horses. No deal, said the Nez Perce. They would pass, but on their own terms. And here’s where the “fizzle” truly began to bubble.

Many of the citizen volunteers, perhaps swayed by the Nez Perce’s promise, or perhaps simply not keen on the idea of a full-blown battle, started to drift away. They had families, farms, and a distinct aversion to getting shot. Captain Rawn, bristling at this democratic desertion, found his forces dwindling. He had orders, mind you, from an Army still smarting from the Little Bighorn debacle of the previous year and now stung by Nez Perce victories in Idaho. But orders, it seems, are little comfort when your fighting force is melting away like snow in July.

On the morning of July 28, the Nez Perce, with a cunning born of necessity and a deep knowledge of the land, simply bypassed the fort. They climbed a low ridge to the left, traveled out of sight behind another, and descended into the Bitterroot Valley, leaving Fort Blockade , or rather, Fort Fizzle as the locals sarcastically dubbed it, behind them. As Nez Perce warrior Yellow Wolf later recounted, “It was no trouble, not dangerous, to pass those soldiers.” Indeed. The battle few wanted was avoided, and the Nez Perce proceeded south, believing they had secured a non-aggression pact. The fort had fizzled, a successful failure, as some would say, for it prevented bloodshed, even if it failed utterly in its military objective.

And so, the tale of Fort Fizzle stands as a gentle reminder that history is rarely a straight line, and human endeavors, especially those involving grand pronouncements and hastily dug trenches, often end not with a bang, but with a quiet, almost comical, sidestep. The Nez Perce moved on, the volunteers went home, and Captain Rawn was left to ponder the vagaries of frontier warfare, a lesson in the art of the bypass, delivered with a certain dry wit by the very people he was tasked to stop.