General Sherman wanted to hang Joseph, treating him far more harshly than the United States had treated Jefferson Davis. Instead he just broke General Miles’s promises to the Nez Perce and exiled them to Indian Territory. The Nez Perce paid a greater price for defending their homeland than the Confederates had for trying to destroy the Union. They endured a slow execution. Before their release eight years later, half of the captured Nez Perce died, including nearly all their young children.
