Ollokot, Joseph’s younger brother and the Wallowa band’s warrior leader, had been killed in the first day’s fighting.

Toohoolhoolzote was also dead — killed in the initial assault.

The deaths of these leaders, alongside the cold and the hunger and the confinement and the artillery fire, were systematically destroying the coherence of the nimíipuu resistance.

Miles had also attempted to negotiate.

He met with Joseph under a flag of truce on October 1, and the meeting did not end well — Miles held Joseph and refused to release him until the nimíipuu returned a soldier they were holding.

The exchange was eventually made, but the episode demonstrated to the nimíipuu leadership that Miles was willing to violate the protocols of truce negotiation when it served his purposes.