Tom Sherrill Bitteroot citizen volunteer
One of the two doctors who came with Howard reported:
... We found a horrible state of affairs.There were 39 wounded men without Surgeons or dressing, and many of them suffering intensely. General Gibbon had not taken any medical officer with him....
The savages sustained greater losses, however, than the soldiers,for we found over 30 dead bodies (mostly women and children). I saw them myself... I was told by one of General Gibbon's officers that the squaws were not shot at until two officers were wounded by them ,and a soldier or two killed. Then the men shot every lndian they caught sight of-men, women, and children. I saw five or six children from 8 to 12 years old, as near as I could determine. I also saw six or seven braves, and the remainder of those I saw were squaws eleven or twelve of them. I was informed that there were some eight or ten more bodies of men further down the stream.
Dr. John FitzGerald surgeon with General Howard
August 14, 1877
According to the Nez Perce count, eighty-seven of their people were killed at Big hole of which thirty-three were warriors.This coincides closely with the military reports of eighty-nine Indian bodies found. Gibbon's losses for the day were twenty-nine killed and forty wounded, two of them mortally. Of the command's seventeen officers, fourteen were either killed or wounded.
The Nez Perce Flight to Canada - An Introduction