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Still I could not believe that they would begin a war.  I knew my young men did a great wrong but I ask who was first to blame?  They had been insulted a thousand times, their fathers and brothers, their mothers and wives had been disgraced, they had been driven to madness by whiskey sold to them by white men.  They had been told by General Howard that all their horses and cattle which they had been unable to drive out of Wallowa were to fall into the hands of white men.  And added to all this they were homeless and desperate I would have given my own life if I could have undone the killing of white men by my people. I blame my young people and I blame the white man.  I blame General Howard for not giving my people time to get their stock away from Wallowa. I do not aknowledge that he had the right to order me to leave Wallowa at anytime.  I deny that either my father or myself ever sold land.  It is still our land, it may never again be our home but my father sleeps there and I Love it as I Love my mother,I left there hoping to avoid bloodshed, if General Howard had given me plenty of time to gather up my stock and treated Tool-hool-hool-suit as a man should be treated, there would have been no war.  My friends among whitemen have blamed me for the war. I am not to blame when my young men begin the killing.  My heart was hurt although I did not justify them.  I remembered all the insults I had endured and my blood was on fire.  Still I would of taken my people to the buffalo country without fighting if possible.  I could see no other way to avoid war.  We moved to White Bird Creek sixteen miles away and there encamped intending to collect our stock before leaving, but the soldiers attacked us and the first battle was fought.  We numbered in the battle sixty men and the soldiers a hundred.  The fight lasted but a few minutes when the soldiers retreated before us, for twelve miles,they lost thirty-three killed and seven wounded.When an Indian fights he only shoots to kill.  But soldiers shot at random.  None of the soldiers were scalped.  We do not believe in scalping, nor killing wounded men, soldiers do not kill many Indians, unless they are wounded and left upon the battle-field.  General Howard arrived in Nez Perces country bringing several hundred more soldiers.It was now war in earnest, we crossed the Salmon River hopeing General Howard would follow,we were not disappointed he did follow us and we got back between him and his supplies and cut off for three days.  He sent out two companies and cut him off and to open the way.  We attcked them killing one officer and two guides and ten men, we withdrew hoping the soldiers would follow, but they had got enough fighting for that day.  They entreanced themselves and next day we attacked them again.  The battle lasted all day and we renewed the next morning.We killed four and wounded seven or eight.  About this time General Howard found out we were in his rear.  Five days later he attacked us with three hundred, and settlers.  We had two hundred and fifty warriors.  The fight lasted for twenty seven hours....we lost, four killed and several wounded.  General Howard loss was twenty-nine men killed and sixty wounded.  The following day soldiers charged upon us and we retreated with our families and stock, a few miles, leaving eighty lodges to fall into General Howards hands.  Finding we were outnumbered we retreated to Bitter Root Valley country in peace.  We bought provisions and traded stock with whitemen there.  We understand that there is to be no more war.  We intend to go peaceably to buffalo country to be settled afterwords with this understanding.  We traveled on for days and thinking the trouble was over.We stopped and prepared tent poles to take with us.  We started again and at the end of two days we saw three whitemen passing our camp. thinking that peace had been made we did not molest them.  We could of killed them or taken them prisoners, but we did not suspect them of being spies,which they were.  At night, the soldiers surrounded our camp.  About day break one of my men went out to look after his horse.  The soldiers saw him and shot him down like a coyote.  I have since learned these soldiers were not those we left behind.  They had come upon us from another direction.  The new white war chief was Gibbon.  He charged upon us while some of my people were still asleep.  We had a hard fight, some of my men crept around and attacked the soldiers from the rear.  In this battle we lost nearly all of our lodges, but we finally drove General Gibbon back, finding that he was not able to capture us, he sent to his camp,a few miles away, for his big guns, but my men  had captured them and all the ammunition.  We damaged the big guns, all we could and carried away the powder and lead.  In the fight with General Gibbon we lost fifty women and children and thirty fighting men.  We remained long enough to burry our dead.  The Nez perces never make war on women and children.  We could of killed a great many women and children while the war lasted but we would feel ashamed to do so an cowardly act.  We never scapl our enemies but when General Howard came up and joined General Gibbon, their Indian scouts dug up our dead and scalped them.  I have been told General Howard did not order this great shame to be done.  We retreated as rapidly as we could toward the buffalo country, after six days general Howard came close to us and we went out and attacked him and captured nearly all his horses and mules, about two-hundred fifty head.  We then marched onto Yellowstone Basin.