The Nez Perce withdrew in good order from the battlefield and continued their long fighting retreat that would result in their attempt to reach Canada and asylum.

After the Battle of the Clearwater in Idaho Territory on July 11–12, the Nez Perce leaders led their people on an extensive trek to escape the soldiers of Brigadier General Oliver Otis Howard.

The Nez Perce crossed into Montana Territory via rugged Lolo Pass, and after a brief confrontation at Fort Fizzle on July 28, they entered the Bitterroot Valley and proceeded southward.

They left the Bitterroot Valley, crossed a mountain range, and camped in the Big Hole Basin, pausing to replenish their tipi poles from the surrounding forest.

[citation needed] Unknown to the Nez Perce, Colonel John Gibbon had left Fort Shaw with 161 officers and men and one howitzer.

[4] On August 8, a detachment led by Lieutenant James Bradley discovered the Nez Perce camp along the North Fork of the Big Hole River.

[5] That night Gibbon marched overland to the Nez Perce camp, reaching it at dawn, leaving his twelve-pound (5.4 kg) howitzer and a pack train to follow behind with a guard of twenty men.

[4][6] Between Gibbon's position and the Nez Perce encampment, which consisted of 89 tipis in a V-shaped pattern, was the waist-deep and willow-lined North Fork of the Big Hole River.

Leaderless, his men did not continue their advance and left the northern part of the village unoccupied, giving a refuge and a rallying point to the Nez Perce.

That afternoon the Nez Perce continued sniping at the soldiers while their women packed up, gathered the horse herd, and moved out south, going about 18 miles to Lake Creek where they made camp – this time with defensive works.

Howard, and an advance party of 29 cavalrymen and 17 Bannock scouts, found Gibbon the next morning after a 71-mile (114 km) ride in a day and a night.

No precise estimate of Nez Perce casualties exists although their total dead probably amounted to between 70 and 90, of whom less than 33 were warriors and most were women and children.