"Both in its conception and execution, the plan of campaign followed by General Gibbon was a master-piece of Indian fighting. Nothing can be further from the brilliant folly of Custer's dash than Gibbon's march and attack. It was wisely planned, and boldly carried out. The necessities of an Indian war are simple. They are to move swiftly, strike suddenly and hard, and to fight warily, but perseveringly and vigorously. All these things Gibbon did. He made a forced march, and completely surprised the enemy at the end of it. He fought the savages after their own fashion, retiring to cover after the first onset, and fighting singly, rifle in hand, officers and men alike, from the commander down, becoming sharpshooters for the time, and picking off the Indians like born frontiersmen. And the battle was a victory, a brilliant success, in that it inflicted a terrible punishment on the Nez Perces, strewed the valley with dead Indians, and sent the crippled remnant of the band fleeing to the mountains. General Gibbon is a shrewd and bold Indian fighter--and the _Herald_ writer is an ass." General Gibbon took into the action, six companies of infantry. Had these companies been maintained on a war-footing of 100 men each, as all companies and regiments should be, his force would have been 600 men, instead of less than 200. With such a force, he could easily have surrounded the Indians while they slept and have killed them all; but a pettifogging Congress had cut down the strength of the army to such an extent that the companies numbered less than twenty-five men each, and with this force Gibbon was unable to deal with the Indians as he could have done with a proper force. The fight was prolonged, and the loss of life was much heavier than it would have been with a suitable force of soldiers on the field, so that the Forty-third Congress, which first reduced the army to its present beggarly proportions, is morally responsible for many, if not all, of the lives lost and wounds received by the brave men who participated in that affair.