Outwitted and Outflanked

By editor

Lolo, Missoula County, Montana, July 1877

Captain Charles C. Rawn, commanding thirty-five regulars of the 7th Infantry and a collection of citizen volunteers from Missoula, arrived at Lolo Creek in July 1877 with orders to stop the Nez Perce from entering the Bitterroot Valley. To accomplish this, he built a barricade of pine logs and earth across the canyon floor, a structure that would later be known as "Fort Fizzle," a name that perfectly captures the military genius of the enterprise. Rawn and his men waited behind their wooden wall, confident that Chief Joseph and his band of eight hundred men, women, and children, along with two thousand horses, would either surrender or dash themselves to pieces against the fortifications.

When Chief Joseph arrived, he took one look at the barricade, assessed the situation with the calm detachment of a man who had better things to do, and simply led his people up the steep, timbered ridge to the north, bypassing the fort entirely. The soldiers watched in astonishment as the entire Nez Perce nation, complete with their massive herd of horses, filed past them, just out of rifle range, leaving Rawn and his men sitting behind their logs like a collection of heavily armed garden gnomes.

The "Soldiers' Corral" was thus rendered entirely useless without a single shot being fired. The volunteers, realizing that the war had moved on without them, went home to their farms, and Rawn was left to explain to his superiors how an entire tribe had managed to outflank a stationary pile of wood. It was a masterclass in military strategy, provided entirely by the people the army was supposed to be fighting.

The Nez Perce continued their journey through the Bitterroot Valley, trading peacefully with the settlers who had only days before been preparing to shoot them. The citizens of Missoula, having been assured of their safety by the very people they had feared, went about their business, while the army scrambled to catch up with an enemy that had already proven itself far more capable than anyone had anticipated.

See also

• Outwitted and Outflanked at Lolo, Missoula County (Montana Historical Society, erected 1965)
• [Fort Fizzle] - The site of the barricade that failed to stop the Nez Perce.