The human costs accumulated in other ways too.

People were exhausted.

The wounds from Big Hole and subsequent skirmishes were still affecting those who had survived them.

Elderly people and small children were suffering the consequences of months of forced marching under conditions of cold, inadequate food, and constant anxiety.

It is important to understand the nimíipuu column not as a military formation but as what it actually was: a community in flight.

It included grandmothers and toddlers and wounded warriors and nursing mothers.