The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War by Annie Heloise Abel (page 5)

1859-1865, C 1892.]

Creek, about twelve miles south of Fort Scott, was raided by guerrillas;[594] but even that had no effect upon their determination to remain. The Neutral Lands, although greatly intruded upon by white people, were legally their own and they declined to budge from them at the instance of Superintendent Coffin.

Arrangements were undertaken for supplying the Cherokee refugees with material relief;[595] but scarcely had anything been done to that end when, to Coffin’s utter surprise, as he said, the military authorities “took forcible possession of them” and had them all conveyed to Neosho, Missouri, presumably out of his reach. But Coffin would not release his hold and detailed the new Cherokee agent, James Harlan,[596] and Special Agent A.G. Proctor to follow them there.

John Ross, his family, and a few friends were, meanwhile, constituting another kind of refugee in the eastern part of the United States.[597] and were criticized by some

[Footnote 594: Coffin to Dole, November 14, 1862, Indian Office General Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1859-1862.]

[Footnote 595: Coffin to Mix, August 31, 1863, Indian Office General Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1863-1864, C 466. A.M. Jordan, who acted as commissary to the Cherokees at Camp Drywood, reported to Dole, December 6, 1862, that he was feeding about a thousand who were then there [ibid., _Cherokee_, I 847 of 1862].]

[Footnote 596: Charles W. Chatterton, of Springfield, Illinois, who had been appointed Cherokee agent in the place of John Crawford, removed [Dole to Coffin, March 18, 1862, ibid., _Letter Book_, no. 67 pp. 492-493] had died, August 31, at the Sac and Fox Agency [Hutchinson to Mix September 1, 1862, Ibid., General Files, _Cherokee_, H 538 of 1862]; [Coffin to Dole, September 13, 1862, Ibid., C 1827: W.H. Herndon to Dole, November 15, 1862, Ibid., H 605]. Harlan was not regularly commissioned as Cherokee agent until January, 1863 [Coffin to Dole, April 7, 1863, Ibid., C 143 of 1863; Harlan to Dole, January 26, 1863, Ibid., H 37 of 1863].]

[Footnote 597: John Ross asked help for his own family and for the families of various relations, thirty-four persons in all. He wanted five hundred dollars for each person [Ross to Dole, October 13, 1862, Ibid., R 1857 of 1862]. Later, he asked for seventeen thousand dollars, likewise for maintenance [Ross to Dole, November 19, 1862, Ibid.]. The beginning of the next year, he notified the department that some of his party were about to return home (cont.)]

of their opponents for living in too sumptuous a manner.[598]

The removal, under military supervision, of the Cherokee refugees, had some justification in various facts, Blunt’s firm conviction that Coffin and his instigators or abettors were exploiting the Indian service, that the refugees at Leroy were not being properly cared for, and that those on the Neutral Lands had put themselves directly under the protection of the army.[599] His then was the responsibility. When planning his second Indian Expedition, Blunt had discovered that the Indian men were not at all inclined to accompany it unless they could have some stronger guarantee than any yet given that their families would be well looked after in their absence. They had returned from the first expedition to find their women and children and aged men, sick, ill-fed, and unhappy.

It was with knowledge of such things and with the hope that they would soon be put a stop to and their repetition prevented by a return of the refugees to Indian Territory, that John Ross, in October, made a personal appeal to President Lincoln and interceded with him to send a military force down, sufficient to over-awe the Confederates and to take actual possession

[Footnote 597: (cont.) [Ibid., R 14 of 1863] and requested that transportation from Leavenworth and supplies be furnished them [Indian Office General Files, _Cherokee_, R 13 of 1863]. Dole informed Coffin that the request should be granted [see Office letter of January 6, 1863] and continued forwarding to John Ross his share of the former remittance [Indian Office _Letter Book_, no. 69, 503]. To make the monetary allowance to John Ross, Cherokee chief, the Chickasaw funds were drawn upon [Second Auditor, E.B. Trench, to Dole, June 19, 1863, Ibid., General Files, _Cherokee_, A 202 of 1863; Office letter of June 20, 1863].]

[Footnote 598: Ross and others to Dole, July 29, 1864 [Ibid., General Files, _Cherokee_, 1859-1865, R 360]; Secretary of the Interior to Ross, August 25, 1864 [Ibid., I 651]; John Ross and Evan Jones to Dole, August 26, 1864 [Ibid., R 378]; Office letter of October 14, 1864; Coffin’s letter of July 8, 1864.]

[Footnote 599: Blunt to Smith, November 21, 1862.]

of the land. Lincoln’s sympathies and sense of justice were immediately aroused and he inquired of General Curtis, in the field, as to the practicability of occupying “the Cherokee country consistently with the public service.”[600] Curtis evaded the direct issue, which was the Federal obligation to protect its wards, by boasting that he had just driven the enemy into the Indian Territory “and beyond” and by doubting “the expediency of occupying ground so remote from supplies.”[601]

General Blunt’s force continued to hold the northeastern part of the Cherokee country until the end of October when it fell back, crossed the line, and moved along the Bentonville road in order to meet its supply train from Fort Scott.[602] Blunt’s division finally took its stand on Prairie Creek[603] and, on the twelfth of November, made its main camp on Lindsay’s prairie, near the Indian boundary.[604] The rout of Cooper at Fort Wayne had shaken the faith of many Indians in the invincibility of the Confederate arms. They had disbanded and gone home, declaring “their purpose to join the Federal troops the first opportunity” that presented itself.[605] To secure them and to reconnoitre once more, Colonel Phillips had started out near the beginning of November and, from the third to the fifth, had made his way down through the Cherokee Nation, by way of Tahlequah and Park Hill, to Webber’s Falls on the Arkansas.[606] His return was by

[Footnote 600: Lincoln to Curtis, October 10, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 723.]

[Footnote 601: Curtis to Lincoln, October 10, 1862, Ibid.]

[Footnote 602: Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. i, 376-377.]

[Footnote 603:–Ibid., 379.]

[Footnote 604:–Ibid., 380; Bishop, _Loyalty on the Frontier_, 56.]

[Footnote 605: Blunt to Schofield, November 9, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 785.]

[Footnote 606: H.W. Martin to Coffin, December 20, 1862, Indian Office General Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1859-1862, C 1950.]

Dwight’s Mission. His view of the country through which he passed must have been discouraging.[607] There was little to subsist upon and the few Indians lingering there were in a deplorable state of deprivation, little food, little clothing[608] and it was winter-time.

So desolate and abandoned did the Cherokee country appear that General Blunt considered it would be easily possible to hold it with his Indian force alone, three regiments, yet he said no more about the immediate return of the refugees,[609] but issued an order for their removal to Neosho. The wisdom of his action might well be questioned since the expense of supporting them there would be immeasurably greater than in Kansas[610] unless, indeed, the military authorities intended to assume the entire charge of them.[611] Special Agent Martin regarded some talk that was rife of letting them forage upon the impoverished people of Missouri as

[Footnote 607: It was not discouraging to Blunt, however. His letter referring to it was even sanguine [_Official Records_, vol. xiii, 785-786].]

[Footnote 608: Martin to Coffin, December 20, 1862.]

[Footnote 609: The Interior Department considered it, however, and consulted with the War Department as late as the twenty-sixth. See _Register of Letters Received_, vol. D., p. 155.]

[Footnote 610: Coffin to Henning, December 28, 1862, Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Cherokee_, C 17 of 1863.]

[Footnote 611: Coffin’s letter to Dole of December 20 [Indian Office General Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1859-1862, C 1950] would imply that the superintendent expected that to be the case. He said, having reference to Martin’s report, “… The statement of facts which he makes, from all the information I have from other sources, I have no doubt are strictly true and will no doubt meet your serious consideration.

“If the Programme as fixed up by the Military Officers, and which I learn Dr. Gillpatrick is the bearer to your city and the solicitor general to procure its adoption is carried out, the Indian Department, superintendent, and agents may all be dispensed with. The proposition reminds me of the Fable of the Wolves and the Shepherds, the wolves represented to the shepherds that it was very expensive keeping dogs to guard the sheep, which was wholly unnecessary; that if they would kill off the dogs, they, the wolves, would protect the sheep without any compensation whatever.”]

sheer humbug. The army was not doing that and why should the defenceless Indians be expected to do it. As it was, they seem to have been reduced to plundering in Kansas.[612] On the whole, it is difficult to explain Blunt’s plan for the concentration of the Cherokee refugees at Neosho, since there were, at the time, many indications that Hindman was considering another advance and an invasion of southwest Missouri.

The November operations of the Federals in northeastern Arkansas were directed toward arresting Hindman’s progress, if progress were contemplated. Meanwhile, Phillips with detachments of his Indian brigade was continuing his reconnoissances and, when word came that Stand Watie had ventured north of the Arkansas, Blunt sent him to compel a recrossing.[613] Stand Watie’s exploit was undoubtedly a preliminary to a general Confederate plan for the recovery of northwestern Arkansas and the Indian Territory, a plan, which Blunt, vigorous and aggressive, was determined to circumvent. In the action at Cane Hill,[614] the latter part of November, and in the Battle of Prairie Grove,[615] December seventh, the mettle of the Federals was put to a severe test which it stood successfully and Blunt’s cardinal purpose was fully accomplished.[616] In both engagements, the Indians played a part and played it

[Footnote 612: These Indians must have been the ones referred to in Richard C. Vaughn’s letter to Colonel W.D. Wood, December i, 1862 [_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 796].]

[Footnote 613: Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. i, p. 382.]

[Footnote 614:–Ibid., vol. i, chapter xxix.]

[Footnote 615:–Ibid., vol. i, chapter xxx; _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 66-82, 82-158, vol. liii, supplement, 458-461, 866, 867; Livermore, _The Story of the Civil War_, part iii, bk. 1, 84-85.]

[Footnote 616: One opinion is to the effect that the result of the Battle of Prairie Grove, Fayetteville, or Illinois Creek, was virtually to end the war north of the Arkansas River [Ibid., p. 85; _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 82]. (cont.)]

conspicuously and well, the northern regiments so well,[617] indeed, that shortly afterwards two additional ones, the Fourth and the Fifth, were projected.[618] Towards the end of the year, Phillips, whom Blunt had sent upon another excursion into Indian Territory,[619] could report

[Footnote 616: (cont.) Bishop wrote, “After the battle of Prairie Grove, and the gradual retrogression of the Army of the Frontier into Missouri, Fayetteville was still held as a military post, and those of us who remained there were given to understand that the place would not be abandoned … The demoralized enemy had fallen back to Little Rock, with the exception of weak nomadic forces that, like Stygian ghosts, wandered up and down the Arkansas from Dardanelle to Fort Smith….” [_Loyalty on the Frontier_, 205]. Schofield was of the opinion, however, that the Battle of Prairie Grove was a hard-won victory. “Blunt and Herron were badly beaten in detail, and owed their escape to a false report of my arrival with re-enforcements.” [_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, p. 6].]

[Footnote 617: And yet it was only a short time previously that Major A.C. Ellithorpe, commanding the First Regiment Indian Home Guards, had had cause to complain seriously of the Creeks of that regiment. On November 7, he wrote from Camp Bowen that Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la was enticing the Indians away from the performance of their duties. “You will now perceive that we are on the border of the Indian country and a very large portion of the Indians are now scouting through their own Territory. What I now desire is that every man who was enlisted as a soldier shall at once return to his command by the way of Fort Scott unless otherwise ordered by competent authority….” [Indian Office Land Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1855-1870, C 1933]. Coffin, as usual, appeared as an apologist for the Indians and attempted to exonerate Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la from all blame [Letter to Dole, December 3, 1862, Ibid.]. He called the aged chief, “that noble old Roman of the Indians,” and the chief himself protested against the injustice and untruth of Ellithrope’s accusation [Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la to Coffin, November 24, 1862, Ibid.].]

[Footnote 618: Officers for these two regiments were appointed by the president, December 26, 1862, and ordered to report to Blunt, who, in turn ordered them to report to Phillips. When the officers arrived in Indian Territory, they found no such regiments as the Fourth and Fifth Indian [_U.S. Senate Report_, 41st congress, third session, no. 359]. They never did materialize as a matter of fact; but the officers did duty, nevertheless, and were regularly mustered out of the service in 1863. In 1864, Congress passed an act for the adjudication of their claim for salary [_U.S. Statutes at Large_, vol. xiii, 413]. It is rather surprising that the regiments were not organized; inasmuch as many new recruits were constantly presenting themselves.]

[Footnote 619: Phillips to Blunt, December 25, 1862 [_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 873-874].]

that Stand Watie and Cooper had been pushed considerably below the Arkansas, that many of the buildings at Fort Davis had been demolished,[620] that one of the Creek regiments was about to retire from the Confederate service, and that the Choctaws, once so deeply committed, were wavering in their allegiance to the South.[621]

[Footnote 620: The buildings at Fort Davis were burnt, and deliberately, by Phillips’s orders. [See his own admission, Ibid., part ii, 56, 62].]

[Footnote 621: Blunt to Weed, December 30, 1862, Ibid., part i, 168.]

X. NEGOTIATIONS WITH UNION INDIANS

As though the Indians had not afflictions enough to endure merely because of their proximity to the contending whites, life was made miserable for them, during the period of the Civil War, as much as before and after, by the insatiable land-hunger of politicians, speculators, and would-be captains of industry, who were more often than not, rogues in the disguise of public benefactors. Nearly all of them were citizens of Kansas. The cessions of 1854, negotiated by George W. Manypenny, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, were but a prelude to the many that followed. For years and years there was in reality never a time when some sort of negotiation, _sub rosa_ or official, was not going on. The order of procedure was pretty much what it had always been: a promise that the remaining land should be the Indian’s, undisturbed by white men and protected by government guarantee, forever; encroachment by enterprising, covetous, and lawless whites; conflict between the two races, the outraged and the aggressive; the advent of the schemer, the man with political capital and undeveloped or perverted sense of honor, whose vision was such that he saw the Indian owner as the only obstacle in the way of vast material and national progress; political pressure upon the administration in Washington, lobbying in Congress; authorization of negotiations with the bewildered Indians; delimitation of the meaning of the solemn and grandly-sounding word, _forever_.

When the war broke out, negotiations, begun in the

border warfare days, were still going on. This was most true as regarded the Osages, whose immense holding in southern Kansas was something not to be tolerated, so the politicians reasoned, indefinitely. Petitions,[622] praying that the lands be opened to white settlement were constantly being sent in and intruders,[623] who intended to force action, becoming more and more numerous and more and more recalcitrant. One of the first official communications of Superintendent Coffin embodied a plea for getting a treaty of cession for which the signs had seemed favorable the previous year. Coffin, however, discredited[624] a certain Dr. J.B. Chapman, who, notwithstanding he represented white capitalists,[625] had yet found favor with the Osages. To their

[Footnote 622: For example, take the petitions forwarded by M.W. Delahay, surveyor-general of Kansas [Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Neosho_, D 455 of 1861]. One of the petitions contains this statement: “… The lands being largely settled upon and improved and those adjacent being all claimed and settled upon by residents–while a large emigration from Texas and other rebellious States are forced to seek homes in a more northern and uncongenial climate greatly against their interests and inclinations….”]

[Footnote 623: Intruders upon the Osage lands, as upon the Cherokee Neutral, were numerous for years before the war. Agent Dorn was continually complaining of them, chiefly because they were free-state in politics. He again and again asked for military assistance in removing them. See his letter to Greenwood, February 26, 1860, _Neosho_, 1833-1865, D 107. Buchanan’s administration had conceived the idea of locating other Kansas Indians upon the huge Osage Reserve. See Dorn to Greenwood, March 26, 1860, Ibid., D 119. Apparently, the fragments of tribes in the northeastern corner of Indian Territory had been approached on the same subject, but they did not favor it and Agent Dorn was doubtful if the Osages would [Dorn to Greenwood, April 17, 1860, Ibid., D 129].]

[Footnote 624: He described him as a self-appointed guardian of the Osages, as a scamp and a nuisance [Coffin to Dole, June 17, 1861, Ibid., C 1223 of 1861].]

[Footnote 625: Chapman, August 26, 1860, inquired of Greenwood whether there was any prospect of a treaty being negotiated with the Osages and whether the capitalists he represented would be likely to secure railroad rights to the South by it. He asserted that the Delawares had been “humbugged” by their treaty, it having been negotiated “in the interests of the Democrats at Leavenworth” [Ibid., C 702 of 1860].]

everlasting sorrow and despoliation, the Indians have been fated to place a child-like trust in those least worthy.

The defection of portions of the southern tribes offered an undreamed of opportunity for Kansas politicians to accomplish their purposes. They had earlier thought of removing the Kansas tribes, one by one, to Indian Territory; but the tribes already there had a lien upon the land, titles, and other rights, that could not be ignored. Their possession was to continue so long as the grass should grow and the water should run. It was not for the government to say that they should open their doors to anybody. An early intimation that the Kansans saw their opportunity was a resolution[626] submitted by James H. Lane to the Senate, March 17, 1862, proposing an inquiry into “the propriety and expediency of extending the southern boundary of Kansas to the northern boundary of Texas, so as to include within the boundaries of Kansas the territory known as the Indian territory.” Obviously, the proposition had a military object immediately in view; but Commissioner Dole, to whom it was referred, saw its ulterior meaning and reported[627] adversely upon it as he had upon an earlier proposition to erect a regular territorial form of government in the Indian country south of Kansas.[628] He was “unable to perceive any advantage to be derived from the adoption of such a measure, since the same military power that would be required to enforce the authority of territorial officers is all-sufficient to protect and enforce the authority of such officers as are required in the management of our present system

[Footnote 626: _United State Congressional Globe_, 37th congress, second session, part ii, p. 1246.]

[Footnote 627: Dole to Smith, April 2, 1862, Indian Office _Report Book_, no. 12, 353-354.]

[Footnote 628: Dole to Smith, March 17, 1862, Ibid., 335-337.]

of Indian relations.”[629] And he insisted that the whole of the present Indian country should be left to the Indians.[630] The honor of the government was pledged to that end. Almost coincidently he negatived[631] another suggestion, one advocated by Pomeroy for the confiscation of the Cherokee Neutral Lands.[632] For the time being, Dole was strongly opposed to throwing either the Neutral Lands or the Osage Reserve open to white settlers.

Behind Pomeroy’s suggestion was the spirit of retaliation, of meting out punishment to the Indians, who, because they had been so basely deserted by the United States government, had gone over to the Confederacy; but the Kansas politicians saw a chance to kill two birds with one stone, vindictively punish the southern Indians for their defection and rid Kansas of the northern Indians, both emigrant and indigenous. The intruders upon Indian lands, the speculators and the politicians, would get the spoils of victory. Against the idea of punishing the southern Indians for what after all was far from being entirely their fault, the friends of justice marshaled their forces. Dole was not exactly of their number; for he had other ends to serve in resisting measures advanced by the Kansans, yet, to his credit be it said that he did always hold firmly to the notion that tribes like the Cherokee were more sinned against than sinning. The government had been the first to shirk responsibility and to violate sacred obligations. It had failed to give the protection guaranteed by treaties and it was not giving it yet adequately.

[Footnote 629: Dole to Smith, March 17, 1862, Indian Office _Report Book_, no. 12, 335.]

[Footnote 630: Report of April 2, 1862.]

[Footnote 631: Dole to Smith, March 20, 1862, Indian Office _Report Book_, no. 12, 343-344.]

[Footnote 632: _Daily Conservative_, May 10, 1862. Note the arguments in favor of confiscation as quoted from the _Western Volunteer_.,]

The true friends of justice were men of the stamp of W.S. Robertson[633] and the Reverend Evan Jones,[634] who went out of their way to plead the Indian’s cause and to detail the extenuating circumstances surrounding his lamentable failure to keep faith. Supporting the men of the opposite camp was even the Legislature of Kansas. In no other way can a memorial from the General Assembly, urging the extinguishment of the title of certain Indian lands in Kansas, be interpreted.[635]

It is not easy to determine always just what motives did actuate Commissioner Dole. They were not entirely above suspicion and his name is indissolubly connected with some very nefarious Indian transactions; but fortunately they have not to be recounted here. At the very time when he was offering unanswerable arguments against the propositions of Lane and Pomeroy, he was entertaining something similar to those propositions in his own mind. A special agent, Augustus Wattles, who had been sufficiently familiar and mixed-up with the free state and pro-slavery controversy to be called upon to give testimony before the Senate

[Footnote 633: Robertson wrote to the Secretary of the Interior, January 7, 1862, asking most earnestly “that decisive measures be not taken against the oppressed and betrayed people of the Creek and Cherokee tribes, until everything is heard about their struggle in the present crisis” [Department of the Interior, _Register of Letters Received_, “Indians,” no. 4]. The letter was referred to the Indian Office and Mix replied to it, February 14, 1862 [Indian Office _Letter Book_, no. 67, p. 357]. The concluding paragraph of the letter is indicative of the government feeling, “… In reply I transmit herewith for your information the Annual Report of this Office, which will show … what policy has governed the Office as to this matter, and that it is in consonance with your wish….”]

[Footnote 634: Jones wrote frequently and at great length on the subject of justice to the Cherokees. One of his most heartfelt appeals was that of January 21, 1862 [Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Cherokee_, J 556 of 1862].]

[Footnote 635: Cyrus Aldrich, representative from Minnesota and chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs referred the memorial to the Indian Office [_Letters Registered_, vol. 58, _Southern Superintendency_, A. 484 of 1862].]

Harper’s Ferry Investigating Committee[636] and who had been on the editorial staff of the New York Tribune,[637] had, in 1861, been sent by the Indian Office to inspect the houses that Robert S. Stevens had contracted to build for the Sacs and Foxes of Mississippi and for the Kaws.[638] The whole project of the house-building was a fraud upon the Indians, a scheme for using up their funds or for transferring them to the pockets of promoters like Stevens[639] and M.C. Dickey[640] without the trouble of giving value received.

From a letter[641] of protest, written by Stevens against Wattles’s mission of inspection, it can be inferred that there was a movement on foot to induce the Indians to emigrate southward. Stevens, not wholly disinterested, thought it a poor time to attempt changes in tribal

[Footnote 636: Robinson, _Kansas Conflict_, 358.]

[Footnote 637:–Ibid., 370. For other facts touching Wattles and his earlier career, see Villard, _John Brown_, index; Wilson, _John Brown: Soldier of Fortune_, index.]

[Footnote 638; On the entire subject of negotiations with the Indians of Kansas, see Abel, _Indian Reservations in Kansas and the Extinguishment of Their Titles_. The house-building project is fully narrated there.]

[Footnote 639: For additional information about Stevens, see _Daily Conservative_, February 11, 12, 13, 28, 1862. Senator Lane denounced him as a defaulter to the government in the house-building project. See _Lane_ to Dole, April 22, 1862; Smith to Dole, May 13 1862; Dole to Lane, May 5, 1862, _Daily Conservative_, May 21, 1862. In July, Lane, hearing that certificates of indebtedness were about to be issued to Stevens on his building contract for the Sacs and Foxes, entered a “solemn protest against such action” and requested that the Department would let the matter lie over until the assembling of Congress [Interior Department, _Register of Letters Received_, January 2, 1862 to December 27, 1865, “Indians,” no. 4]. Governor Robinson’s enemies regarded him as the partner of Stevens [_Daily Conservative_, November 22, 1861] in the matter of some other affairs, and that fact may help to explain Senator Lane’s bitter animosity. The names of Robinson and Stevens were connected in the bond difficulty, which lay at the bottom of Robinson’s impeachment.]

[Footnote 640: Dickey’s interest in the house-building is seen in the following: Dickey to Greenwood, February 26, 1861, Indian Office General Files, _Kansas_, 1855-1862, D250; same to same, March 1, 1861, Ibid., D 251.]

[Footnote 641: Stevens to Mix, August 24, 1861, Indian Office Special Files, no. 201, _Sac and Fox_, S439 of 1861.]

policy. His conclusions were right, his premises, necessarily unrevealed, were false. Wattles became involved in the emigration movement, if he did not initiate it, and, subsequent to making his report upon the house-building, received a private communication from Dole, asking his opinion “of a plan for confederating the various Indian tribes, in Kansas and Nebraska, into one, and giving them a Territory and a Territorial Government with political privileges.”[642] This was in 1861, long before any scheme that Lane or Pomeroy had devised would have matured. Wattles started upon a tour of observation and inquiry among the Kansas tribes and discovered that, with few exceptions, they were all willing and even anxious to exchange their present homes for homes in Indian Territory. Some had already discussed the matter tentatively and on their own account with the Creeks and Cherokees. On his way east, after completing his investigations, Wattles stopped in New York and “consulted with our political friends” there “concerning this movement, and they not only gave it their approbation, but were anxious that this administration should have the credit of originating and carrying out so wise and so noble a scheme for civilizing and perpetuating the Indian race.” Would Wattles and his friends have said the same had they been fully cognizant of the conditions under which the emigrant tribes had been placed in the West?

In February of 1862, the House of Representatives called[643] for the papers relating to the Wattles mission[644] and, in March, Wattles expatiated upon the

[Footnote 642: Wattles to Dole, January 10, 1862, Indian Office Special Files, no. 201, _Central Superintendency_, W 528 of 1862.]

[Footnote 643: Department of the Interior, _Register of Letters Received_, “Indians,” no. 4, p. 439.]

[Footnote 644: The papers relating to the mission are collected in Indian Office Special Files, no. 201.]

emigration and consolidation scheme in a report to Secretary Smith.[645] Then, yet in advance of congressional authorization, began a systematic course of Indian negotiation, all having in view the relieving of Kansas from her aboriginal encumbrance. No means were too underhand, too far-fetched, too villainous to be resorted to. Every advantage was taken of the Indian’s predicament, of his pitiful weakness, political and moral. The reputed treason of the southern tribes was made the most of. Reconstruction measures had begun for the Indians before the war was over and while its issue was very far from being determined in favor of the North.

As if urged thereto by some influence malign or fate sinister, the loyal portion of two of the southern tribes, the Creeks and the Seminoles, took in April, 1862, a certain action that, all unbeknown to them, expedited the northern schemes for Indian undoing. The action referred to was tribal reoerganization. Each of the two groups of refugees elected chiefs and headmen and notified the United States government that it was prepared to do business as a nation.[646] The business in mind had to do with annuity payments[647] and other dues but the Indian Office soon extended it to include treaty-making.

[Footnote 645: Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Central Superintendency_, W 528 of 1862; Department of the Interior, _Register of Letters Received_, “Indians,” no. 4, p. 517.]

[Footnote 646: Ok-ta-ha-ras Harjo and others to Dole, April 5, 1862, Indian Office General Files, _Creek_, 1860-1869, O 45; Coffin to Dole, April 15, 1862, transmitting communication of Billy Bowlegs and others, April 14, 1862 ibid., _Seminole_, 1858-1869, C1594; _Letters Registered_, vol. 58.]

[Footnote 647: On the outside of the Seminole petition, the office instruction for its answer of May 7, 1862, reads as follows: “Say that by resolution of Congress the annuities were authorized to be used to prevent starvation and suffering amongst them and that being the only fund in our hands must not be diverted from that purpose at present.”]

Negotiations with the Osages had been going on intermittently all this time. No opportunity to press the point of a land cession had ever been neglected and much had been made, in connection with the project for territorial organization, of the fact that the Osages had memorialized Congress for a civil government, they thinking by means of it to prevent further frauds and impositions being practiced upon them.[648] Coffin and Elder, suspicious of each other, jealously watched every avenue of approach to Osage confidence. On the ninth of March, Elder inquired if Coffin had been regularly commissioned to open up negotiations anew and asked to be associated with him if he had.[649] A treaty was started but not finished for Elder received a private letter from Dole that seemed to confine the negotiations to a mere ascertaining of views.[650] Then the Indians grown weary of uncertainty took matters into their own hands and appointed several prominent tribesmen for the express purpose of negotiating a treaty that would end the “suspense as to their future destiny.”[651] From the treaty of cession that Coffin drafted, he having taken a miserably unfair advantage of Osage isolation and destitution, the Osages turned away in disgust.[652] In November, some of their leading men journeyed up to Leroy to invite the dissatisfied Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la to winter with them.[653] Coffin seized the occasion to reopen the subject of a cession and the Indians manifested

[Footnote 648: Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Neosho_, A 476 of 1862. See also Indian Office report to the Secretary of the Interior, May 6, 1862. The Commissioner’s letter and the memorial were sent to Aldrich, May 9, 1862.]

[Footnote 649: Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Neosho_, E 94. of 1862.]

[Footnote 650: Coffin to Dole, April 5, 1862, Ibid., C 1583.]

[Footnote 651: Communication of April 10, 1862, transmitted by Chapman to Dole, Ibid., C 1640.]

[Footnote 652: Elder to Coffin, July 9, 1862, Ibid., E 114.]

[Footnote 653: Coffin to Dole, November 16, 1862, Ibid., C 1904.]

a willingness to sell a part of their Reserve; but again Coffin was too grasping and another season of waiting intervened.

With slightly better success the Kickapoos were approached. Their lands were coveted by the Atchison and Pike’s Peak Railway Company and Agent O.B. Keith used his good offices in the interest of that corporation.[654] Good offices they were, from the standpoint of benefit to the grantees, but most disreputable from that of the grantors. He bribed the chiefs outrageously and the lesser men among the Kickapoos indignantly protested.[655] Rival political and capitalistic concerns, emanating from St. Joseph, Missouri, and from the northern tier of counties in Kansas,[656] took up the quarrel and never rested until they had forced a hearing from the government. The treaty was arrested after it had reached the presidential proclamation stage and was in serious danger of complete invalidation.[657] It passed muster only when a Senate amendment had rendered it reasonably acceptable to the Kickapoos.

Not much headway was made with Indian treaty-making in 1862.[658] In March, 1863, an element

[Footnote 654: Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Kickapoo_, I 655 of 1862 and I 361 of 1864.]

[Footnote 655:–Ibid., B 355 of 1863 and I 361 of 1864.]

[Footnote 656: Albert W. Horton to Pomeroy, June 20, 1863 and O.B. Keith to Pomeroy, June 20, 1863, Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Kickapoo_, G 59 and P 64 of 1863.]

[Footnote 657: Lane and A.C. Wilder requested the Interior Department, September 1, 1863, “that no rights be permitted to attach to R.R. Co. until charges of fraud in connection with Kickapoo Treaty are settled.” Their request was replied to, September 12, 1863 [Interior Department, _Register of Letters Received_, January 2, 1862 to December 27, 1865, “Indians,” no. 4, 361].]

[Footnote 658: Dole, however, seems to have become thoroughly reconciled to the idea. He submitted his views upon the subject once more in connection with a memorial that Pomeroy referred to the Secretary of the Interior “for the concentration of the Indian tribes of the West and especially those of Kansas, in the Indian country … ” [Dole to Smith, November 22, 1862, Indian Office _Report Book_, no. 12, pp. 505-506; Department of the Interior, _Register of Letters Received_, vol. D, November 22, 1862]. (cont.)]

conditioning a greater degree of success was introduced into the government policy.[659] That was by the Indian appropriation act, which, in addition to continuing the practice of applying tribal annuities to the relief of refugees, authorized the president to negotiate with Kansas tribes for their removal from Kansas and with the loyal portion of Indian Territory tribes for cessions of land on which to accommodate them.[660] As Dole pertinently remarked to Secretary Usher, the measure was all very well as a policy in prospect but it was one that most certainly could not be carried out until Indian Territory was in Federal possession. Blunt was still striving after possession or re-possession but his force was not “sufficient to insure beyond peradventure his success.”[661]

Scarcely had the law been enacted when John Ross and other Cherokees, living in exile and in affluence, offered to consider proposals for a retrocession to the United States public domain of their Neutral Lands. The Indian Office was not yet prepared to treat and not until November did Ross and his associates[662] get any

[Footnote 658: (cont.) December 26, 1862, Dole wrote to Smith thus: “… It being in contemplation to extinguish the Indian title to lands … in Kansas and provide them with homes in the Indian Territory … I would recommend that a commissioner should be appointed to negotiate … I would accordingly suggest that Robt. S. Corwin be appointed …” [Indian Office _Report Book_, no. 13, pp. 12-13]. Now Corwin’s reputation was not such as would warrant his selection for the post. He was not a man of strict integrity. His name is connected with many shady transactions in the early history of Kansas.]

[Footnote 659: Presumably, Lane was the chief promoter of it. See Baptiste Peoria to Dole, February 9, 1863, Indian Office General Files, _Osage River_, 1863-1867.]

[Footnote 660: _U.S. Statutes at Large_, vol. xii, 793.]

[Footnote 661: Dole to Usher, July 29, 1863, Indian Office _Report Book_, no. 13, p. 211.]

[Footnote 662: His associates were then the three men, Lewis Downing, James McDaniel, and Evan Jones, who had been appointed delegates with him, (cont.)]

real encouragement[663] to renew their offer, yet the Cherokees had as early as February repudiated their alliance with the southern Confederacy. That the United States government was only awaiting a time most propitious for itself is evident from the fact that, when, in the spring following, refugees from the Neutral Lands were given an opportunity to begin their backward trek, they were told that they would not be permitted to linger at their old homes but would have to go on all the way to Fort Gibson, one hundred twenty miles farther south.[664] That was one way of ridding Kansas of her Indians and a way not very creditable to a professed and powerful guardian.

Almost simultaneously with Ross’s first application came an offer from the oppressed Delawares to look for a new home in the far west, in Washington Territory. The majority preferred to go to the Cherokee country.[665] Some of the tribe had already lived there and wanted to return. Had the minority gained their point, the Delawares would have traversed the whole continent within the space of about two and a half centuries. They would have wandered from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Susquehanna River to the Willamette, in a desperate effort to escape the avaricious pioneer, and, to their own chagrin, they would have found him on the western coast also. Never again would there be any place for them free from his influence.

In the summer of 1863, negotiations were undertaken

[Footnote 662: (cont.) by the newly-constructed national council, for doing business with the United States government [Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1863, p. 23].]

[Footnote 663: See Office letter of November 19, 1863.]

[Footnote 664: David M. Harlan to Dole, December 20, 1864, Indian Office General Files, Cherokee 1859-1865, H 1033.]

[Footnote 665: Johnson to Dole, May 24, 1863, ibid., _Delaware_, 1862-1866.]

in deadly earnest. A commencement was made with the Creeks in May, Agent Cutler calling the chiefs in council and laying before them the draft of a treaty that had been prepared, upon the advice of Coffin,[666] in Washington and that had been entrusted for transmission to the unscrupulous ex-agent, Perry Fuller.[667] The Creek chiefs consented to sell a tract of land for locating other Indians upon, but declared themselves opposed to any plan for “sectionizing” their country and asked that they might be consulted as to the Indians who were to share it with them. The month before they had prayed to be allowed to go back home. Well fed and clothed though they were, and quite satisfied with their agent, they were terribly homesick.[668] Might they not go down and clean out their country for themselves? It seemed impossible for the army to do it.[669]

Coffin next came forward with a suggestion that Indian colonization in Texas would be far preferable to colonization elsewhere, although if nothing better could be done, he would advocate the selection of the Osage land on the Arkansas and its tributaries.[670] Why he wanted to steer clear of the Indian Territory is not

[Footnote 666: “… I would most respectfully suggest that a Treaty be gotten up by you and the Sec. of the Interior, and sent to me and Gov. Carney and some other suitable com. to have ratified in due form and returned. And you will pardon me for saying that the Treaty should be a model for all that are to follow with the broken and greatly reduced, and fragmental tribes in the Indian Territory, and may be made greatly to promote the interests of the Indians and the Government especially in view of the removal of the Indians from Kansas and Nebraska as contemplated by recent Act of Congress.”–COFFIN to Dole, March 22, 1863, Ibid., Land Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1855-1870, C 117.]

[Footnote 667: Cutler to Dole, May, 1863, Ibid., General Files, _Creek_, 1860-1869, C 240.]

[Footnote 668: Ok-ta-ha-ras Harjo and others to “Our Father,” April 1, 1863, (Indian Office General Files, _Creek_, 1860-1869).]

[Footnote 669: Same to same, May 16, 1863, Ibid., O 6.]

[Footnote 670: Coffin to Dole, May 23, 1863, Ibid., Land Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1855-1870.]

evident. The Pottawatomies[671] asked to be allowed to settle on the Creek land,[672] but the Creeks were letting their treaty hang fire. They wanted it made in Washington, D.C., and they wanted one of their great men, Mik-ko-hut-kah, then with the army, to assist in its negotiation.[673] Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la had died in the spring[674] and they were seemingly feeling a little helpless and forlorn.

Thinking to make better progress with the treaties and better terms if he himself controlled the government end of the negotiations, Commissioner Dole undertook a trip west in the late summer.[675] By the third of September the Creek treaty was an accomplished fact.[676] Aside from the cession of land for the accommodation of Indian emigrants, its most important provision was a recognition of the binding force of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. In due course, the treaty went to the Senate and, in March, was accepted by that body with amendments.[677] It went back to the

[Footnote 671: A treaty had been made with the Pottawatomies by W.W. Ross, their agent, November 15, 1861 [ibid., _Pottawatomie_, I 547 of 1862]. Its negotiation was so permeated by fraud that the Indians refused to let it stand [Dole to Smith, January 15, 1862]. At this time, 1863, Superintendent Branch, against whom charges of gambling, drunkenness, licentiousness, and misuse of annuity funds had been preferred by Agent Ross [Indian Office General Files, _Pottawatomie_, R 21 and 143 of 1863], was endeavoring to persuade Father De Smet to establish a Roman Catholic Mission on their Reserve. De Smet declined because of the exigencies of the war. His letter of January 5, 1863, has no file mark.]

[Footnote 672: Cutler to Dole, June 6, 1863, Indian Office General Files, _Creek_, 1860-1869.]

[Footnote 673:–Ibid.]

[Footnote 674: Coffin to Dole, March 22, 1863.]

[Footnote 675: Proctor’s letter of July 31, 1863 would indicate that Dole went to the Cherokee Agency before the Sac and Fox. Proctor was writing from the former place and he said, “Mr. Dole leaves to-day for Kansas …” [Indian Office General Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1863-1864, C 466].]

[Footnote 676: Indian Office Land Files, _Treaties_, Box 3, 1864-1866.]

[Footnote 677: Usher to Dole, March 23, 1864, Ibid.,]

Indians but they rejected it altogether.[678] The Senate amendments were not such as they could conscientiously and honorably submit to and maintain their dignity as a preeminently loyal and semi-independent people.[679] One of the amendments was particularly obnoxious. It affected the provision that deprived the southern Creeks of all claims upon the old home.[680] Dole’s Creek treaty of 1863 was never ratified.

Other treaties negotiated by Dole were with the Sacs and Foxes of Mississippi,[681] the Osages, the Shawnees,[682]

[Footnote 678: Its binding force upon them was, however, a subject of discussion afterwards and for many years [Superintendent Byers to Lewis V. Bogy, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 7, 1867, Ibid., General Files, _Creek_, 1860-1869, B 94].]

[Footnote 679: For an interpretation of the treaty relative to the claims of the loyal Creeks, see Dole to Lane, January 27, 1864 [ibid., _Report Book_, no. 13, pp. 287-291]. It is interesting to note that a certain Mundy Durant who had been sixty years in the Creek Nation, put in a claim, February 23, 1864, in behalf of the “loyal Africans.” He asked “that they have guaranteed to them equal rights with the Indians …” “All of our boys,” said he, “are in the army and I feel they should be remembered …” [Ibid., General Files, _Creek_, 1860-1869, D 362].]

[Footnote 680: Article IV. Both the Creeks and the Seminoles, in apprising the Indian Office of the fact that they had organized as a nation, had voiced the idea that the southern Indians had forfeited all their rights “to any part of the property or annuities …”]

[Footnote 681: The Sacs and Foxes brought forward a claim against the southern refugees, for the “rent of 204 buildings,” amounting to $14,688.00 [Indian Office Land Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1855-1870, Letter of May 14, 1864. See also Dole to Usher, March 25, 1865, Ibid., also I 952, C 1264, and C 1298, Ibid.,]. Coffin thought the best way to settle their claim was to give them a part of the Creek cession [Coffin to Martin, May 23, 1864, and Martin to Dole, May 26, 1864, Ibid., General Files, _Sac and Fox_, 1862-1866, M 284]. The Sac and Fox chiefs were willing to submit the case to the arbitrament of Judge James Steele. Martin was of the opinion that should their treaty, then pending, fail it would be some time before they would consent to make another. This treaty had been obtained with difficulty, only by Dole’s “extraordinary exertions with the tribe” [Martin to Dole, May 2, 1864, Ibid., M 270].]

[Footnote 682: Negotiations with the Shawnees had been undertaken in 1862. In June, Black Bob, the chief of the Shawnees on the Big Blue Reserve in Johnson County, Kansas, protested against a treaty then before Congress. He claimed it was a fraud (cont.)]

and the New York Indians. He attempted one with the Kaws but failed.[683] The Osages, who had

[Footnote 682: (cont.) [Telegram, A.H. Baldwin to Dole, June 4, 1862, ibid., _Shawnee_, 1855-1862, B 1340 of 1862], which was the red man’s usual appraisement of the white man’s dealings. A rough draft of another treaty seems to have been sent to Agent Abbott for the Shawnees on July 18 and another, substantially the same, December 29. One of the matters that called for adjustment was the Shawnee contract with the Methodist Episcopal Church South, Dole affirming that “as the principal members of that corporation, and those who control it are now in rebellion against the U.S. Government, the said contract is to be regarded as terminated….” [Indian Office Land Files, _Shawnee_, 1860-1865, I 865]. Usher’s letter to Dole of December 27, 1862 was the basis of the instruction. Dole’s negotiations of 1863 were impeached as were all the previous, Black Bob and Paschal Fish, the first and second chiefs of the Chillicothe Band of Shawnees, leading the opposition. Agent Abbott was charged with using questionable means for obtaining Indian approval [Ibid., General Files, _Shawnee_, 1863-1875]. Conditions at the Shawnee Agency had been in a bad state for a long time, since before the war. Guerrilla attacks and threatened attacks had greatly disturbed domestic politics. They had interfered with the regular tribal elections.

“Last fall (1862), owing to the constant disturbance on the border of Mo., the election was postponed from time to time, until the 12th of January. Olathe had been sacked, Shawnee had been burned, and the members of the Black Bob settlement had been robbed and driven from their homes, and it had not been considered safe for any considerable number to congregate together from the fact that the Shawnees usually all come on horseback, and the bushwhackers having ample means to know what was going on, would take the opportunity to make a dash among them, and secure their horses.

“De Soto was designated as the place to hold the election it being some twenty miles from the border …”–Abbott to Dole, April 6, 1863, Ibid., Land Files, _Shawnee_, 1860-1865, A 158. In the summer, the Shawnees made preparations for seeking a new home. Their confidence in Abbott must have been by that time somewhat restored, since the prospecting delegation invited him to join it [ibid., _Shawnee_, A 755 of 1864]. A chief source of grievance against him and cause for distrust of him had reference to certain depredation claims of the Shawnees [Ibid., General Files, _Shawnee_, 1855-1862, I 801].]

[Footnote 683: The Kaw lands had been greatly depredated upon and encroached upon [Ibid., Land Files, _Kansas_, 1862]. Dole anticipated that troubles were likely to ensue at any moment. He, therefore, desired to put the Kaws upon the Cherokee land just as soon as it was out of danger [Dole to H.W. Farnsworth, October 24, 1863, ibid., _Letter Book_, no. 72, p. 57]. Jeremiah Hadley, the agent for a contemplated Mission School among the Kaws, was much exercised as to how a removal might affect his contract and work. See his letter to Dole, November 17, 1863.

An abortive treaty was likewise made with the Wyandots, whom Dole (cont.)]

recently[684] so generously consented to receive the unwelcome

[Footnote 683: (cont.) designed to place upon the Seneca-Shawnee lands. Both the Wyandots and the Seneca-Shawnees objected to the ratification of the treaty [Coffin to Dole, January 28, 1864, Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Neosho_, C 639 of 1864].]

[Footnote 684: They had recently done another thing that, at the time of occurrence, the Federals in Kansas deemed highly commendable. They had murderously attacked a group of Confederate recruiting officers, whom they had overtaken or waylaid on the plains. The following contemporary documents, when taken in connection with Britton’s account [_Civil War on the Border_, vol. ii, 228], W.L. Bartles’s address [Kansas Historical Society, _Collections_, vol. viii, 62-66], and Elder’s letter to Blunt, May 17, 1863, _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 286, amply describe the affair:

(a)

“I have just returned to this place from the Grand Council of the Great and Little Osage Indians. I found them feeling decidedly fine over their recent success in destroying a band of nineteen rebels attempting to pass through their country. A band of the Little Osages met them first and demanded their arms and that they should go with them to Humboldt (as we instructed them to do at the Council at Belmont). The rebels refused and shot one of the Osages dead. The Osages then fired on them. They ran and a running fight was kept up for some 15 miles. The rebel guide was killed early in the action. After crossing Lightning Creek, the rebels turned up the creek toward the camp of the Big Hill Camp. The Little Osages had sent a runner to aprise the Big Hills of the presence of the rebels and they were coming down the creek 400 strong, and met the rebels, drove them to the creek and surrounded them. The rebels displayed a white flag but the Indians disregarded it. They killed all of them as they supposed; but afterwards learned that two of them, badly wounded, got down a steep bank of the creek and made their escape down the creek. They scalped them all and cut their heads off. They killed 4 of their horses (which the Indians greatly regretted) and captured 13, about 50 revolvers, most of the rebels having 4 revolvers, a carbine and saber. There were 3 colonels, one lieutenant-colonel, one major and 4 captains. They had full authority to organise enroll and muster into rebel service all the rebels in Colorado and New Mexico where they were doubtless bound. Major Dowdney [Doudna] in command of troops at Humboldt went down with a detachment and buried them and secured the papers, letting the Indians keep all the horses, arms, etc. I have no doubt that this will afford more protection to the frontiers of Kansas than anything that has yet been done and from the frequency and boldness of the raids recently something of the kind was very much needed. The Indians are very much elated over it. I gave them all the encouragement I could, distributed between two and three hundred dollars worth of goods amongst them. There was a representative at the Council from the Osages that have gone South, many of them now in the army. He stated that they were all now very anxious to get back, and wished to know if they should meet the loyal Osages on the hunt on the Plains and come in with them if they could be suffered to stay. I gave him a letter to them promising them if they returned immediately and (cont.)]

refugees on the Ottawa Reserve,[685] were distinctly overreached by the government representatives, working in the interest of corporate wealth. In August, the chief men of the Osages had gone up to the Sac and Fox Agency to confer with Dole,[686] but Dole was being

[Footnote 684: (cont.) joined their loyal brethren in protecting the frontiers, running down Bushwhackers, and ridding the country of rebels, they should be protected. I advised them to come immediately to Humboldt and report to Major Dowdney and he would furnish them powder and lead to go on the hunt. This seemed to give great satisfaction to all the chiefs as they are exceedingly desirous to have them back and the representative started immediately back with the letter, and the Indians as well as the Fathers of the Mission have no doubt but they will return. If so, it will very materially weaken the rebel force now sorely pressing Col. Phillips’ command at Fort Gibson.

“The Osages are now very desirous to make a treaty are willing to sell 25 miles in width by 50 off the east end of their reservation and 20 miles wide off the north side, but I will write more fully of this in a day or two.”–COFFIN to Dole, June 10, 1863, Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Neosho_, C 299 of 1863.

(b)

“It will be remembered that sometime in the month of May last a party consisting of nineteen rebel officers duly commissioned and authorised to organise the Indians and what rebels they might find in Colorado and New Mexico against the Government of the United States while passing through the country of the Great and Little Osages were attacked and the whole party slaughtered by these Indians. As an encouragement to those Indians to continue their friendship and loyalty to our Government, I would respectfully recommend that medals be given to the Head Chief of the combined tribes, White Hair, and the Head Chief of the Little Bear and the chiefs of the Big Hill bands, Clarimore and Beaver, four in all who were chiefly instrumental in the destruction of those emissaries.

“I believe the bestowal of the medals would be a well deserved acknowledgment to those chiefs for an important service rendered and promotive of good.”–COFFIN to Dole, Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Neosho_. C 596.]

[Footnote 685: Coffin to Dole, July 13, 1863, Ibid., General Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1863-1864. Coffin had been directed, by an office letter of June 24 to have the refugees removed. See also, Dole to Hutchinson, June 24, 1863, ibid., _Letter Book_, no. 71, p. 69. Other primary sources bearing upon this matter are, Hutchinson to ?, June 11, 1863, ibid., _Ottawa_, 1863-1873, H 230; Elder to Dole, August 10, 1863, _Neosho_, E 22 of 1863; Hutchinson to Dole, August 21, 1863, _Ottawa_, D 236 of 1863; Mix to Elder, September 11, 1863, ibid., _Letter Book_, no. 71, p. 383.]

[Footnote 686: “About 100 of the Osages with their Chiefs and headmen visited the Sac and Fox agency to meet me on the 20th to Council and probably make a treaty to dispose of a part of their reserve. I was detained with the Delawares and Quantrels raid upon Lawrence and did not reach the reserve (cont.)]

unavoidably detained by the Delawares and by Quantrill’s raid upon Lawrence,[687] so, becoming impatient, they left. The commissioner followed them to Leroy and before the month was out, he was able to report a treaty as made.[688] It was apparently done over-night and yet

[Footnote 686: (cont.) until the 25th and found the Osages had left that day for their homes. I followed them to this place [Leroy] 40 miles south of the Sac and Fox agency and have been in Council with them for two days. I have some doubt about succeeding in a treaty as the Indians do not understand parting with their lands in trust. I could purchase all we want at present for not exceeding 25 cts pr acre but doubt whether the Senate would ratify such a purchase–as they have adopted the Homestead policy with the Gov’t lands and would not wish to purchase of the Indians to give to the whites. I propose to purchase 25 miles by 40 in the S.E. corner of their reserve @ 5 pr. ct making a dividend of 10,000 annually. I have two reasons for this purchase. 1st I want the land for other Kansas tribes and 2nd The Indians are paupers now and must have this much money any way or starve. Then I propose to take in trust the north half of their reserve–to be sold for their benefit as the Sac and Fox and other tribes dispose of their lands. To this last the Indians object they want to sell outright and I may fail in consequence. We shall not differ much about the details–if we can agree on the main points–I shall know to-day–

“From here I return to the Sac and Fox agency where I have some hopes of making a treaty with them or at least agree upon the main points so soon as they can be provided with another home–The fact that we have failed to drive the traitors out of the Indian Country interfers very much with my operations here–from the Sac and Fox Reserve I may go to the Pottawatamies but rather expect that I will return to Leavenworth where I shall again council with the Delawares and from there go to the Kickapoos–Senator Pomeroy is here with me and will probably remain with me–Judge Johnston is also with me and assisting me as Clerk since Mr. Whiting left. This is not considered as a very safe country as Bush Whackers are plenty and bold–You may show this to Sec Usher–“–Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Neosho_, D 195 of 1863.]

[Footnote 687: Connelley, _Quantrill and the Border Wars_, 335-420.]

[Footnote 688: “I arrived here last night from Leroy, after having succeeded in effecting a treaty with the Osage Indians by which the Govt. obtain of them by purchase thirty miles in extent off the East end of their reserve (at a cost of 300,000$ to remain on interest _forever_ at _5 pr ct_–which gives them an annuity of 15000$ annually)–They also cede to the U.S. _in trust_ twenty miles off the North side of the Bal. of their reserve the full extent east and west–to be disposed of as the Sec. Int. shall direct for their benefit–with the usual reserves to half breeds–provision for schools etc.–I have been all this afternoon in Council with the Delewares who have to the No. of 30 or 40 followed me out here for the purpose of again talking over (cont.)]

it was not a conclusive thing; for, in October, the Osage chiefs were still making propositions[689] and

[Footnote 688: (cont.) the proposed treaty with them. They had trouble after I left them at Leavenworth, but our council today has done good and they have just left for home with the agreement to call a council and send a delegation to the Cherokees to look up a new home–When will Jno. Ross leave for his people. I wish he could be there when the Delaware delegation goes down–as I am exceedingly anxious that they get a home of the Cherokees.

“I think there is but little doubt but I shall make a treaty with the Sac and Foxes as they say they are _satisfied_ to remove to a part of the Land I have purchased of the Osages–on the line next the Cherokees–I can make a treaty with the Creeks and may do so but I think I will make it _conditional_ upon the signatures of some of the Chiefs now in the army–Those here are very anxious to treat and sell us a large tract of the country The trouble with the Southern Indians is their claims for losses by the war I will have to put in a clause of some kind to satisfy them on that subject–That they are entitled to it I have no doubt–but what view Congress will take of it–or the Senate in ratifying the treaty of course I cannot tell–Some of the Wyandots are here–

“I have just closed a Council with the Sac and Foxes and have heard many fine speeches. We meet again day after tomorrow–as tomorrow must be appropriated to the Creeks–I think I shall have a success here–The Sack and Foxes to the No of say two hundred have a dance out on the green They are dressed and painted for the occasion and as it is in honor of my visit I must go out and witness it * * * Well we have had an extensive dance which cost me a beef and while waiting for a Chipaway Chief who comes as I learn to complain of his agent I go on with my Letter–The New York Indians are tolerably well represented and I shall talk with them tonight–This is a grand jubilee amongst the Indians here. So many tribes and parts of tribes or their Chiefs gathered here to see the Comr. Paint and feathers are in great demand and singing, whooping–and the Drum is constantly ringing in my ears. I am satisfied that it is a good arrangement to have them here together it is cheaper and better and saves much time.

“I made a great mistake that I did not bring maps of the reserves and especially of the Indian Territory–I do the best I can from the Treaties.

“I have had no mail for Eight Days as my mail is at Leavenworth. I expect my letters day after tomorrow when I hope to have a late letter from you as well as one from the Sec.–Will you please send Hutchinson some money he must have funds to pay for surveying and alloting the Ottawa reserve The survey is finished and pay demanded.”

[Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Neosho_, D 198 of 1863].]

[Footnote 689: The propositions were in the form of a memorandum, drawn up by White Hair, principal chief of the Great and Little Osages, and Little Bear, principal chief of the Little Osages, who, in conjunction with Charles Mograin, assistant head chief of the Great and Little Osages, had been (cont.)]

making them after the fashion of the Creeks long before at Indian Springs.[690] Dole had finally to be told that the rank and file of the Osages would not allow their chiefs to confer with him except in general council.[691] As a matter of fact, not one of the Dole treaties could run the gauntlet of criticism and, consequently, the whole project of treaty-making in 1862 and 1863 accomplished nothing beneficial. It only served to complicate a situation already serious and to forecast that when the great test should come, as come it surely would, the government would be found wanting, lacking in magnanimity, lacking in justice, and all too willing to sacrifice its honor for big interests and transient causes.

[Footnote 689: (cont.) solicited by their people, when in council at Humboldt, July 4, to proceed to Washington and interview their Great Father [Coffin to Dole, July 16, 1863, Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Neosho_, C 365 of 1863]. The propositions were to the effect that the Osages would gladly sell thirty miles by twenty miles off the southeast corner of their Reserve and one-half of the Reserve on the north for $1,350,000, which should draw six per cent interest until paid [Ibid., D 239 of 1863]. John Schoenmaker of the Osage Mission was apprehensive that the Roman Catholic interests would be disregarded as in the Potawatomi Treaty. See letter to Coffin, June 25th.]

[Footnote 690: Abel, _Indian Consolidation West of the Mississippi_.]

[Footnote 691: Charles Mograin warned Dole of this.]

XI. INDIAN TERRITORY IN 1863, JANUARY TO JUNE INCLUSIVE

As with the war as a whole, so with that part of it waged on the Arkansas frontier, the year 1863 proved critical. Its midsummer season saw the turning-point in the respective fortunes of the North and the South, both in the east and in the west. The beginning of 1863 was a time for recording great depletion of resources in Indian Territory, as elsewhere, great disorganization within Southern Indian ranks, and much privation, suffering, and resultant dissatisfaction among the tribes generally. The moment called for more or less sweeping changes in western commands. Those most nearly affecting the Arkansas frontier were the establishment of Indian Territory as a separate military entity[692] and the detachment of western Louisiana

[Footnote 692: The establishment of a separate command for Indian Territory was not accomplished all at once. In December, 1862, Steele had been ordered to report to Holmes for duty and, in the first week of January, he was given the Indian Territory post, subject to Hindman. On or about the eighth, he assumed command [_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 28] at Fort Smith. In less than a week thereafter, his command was separated from that of Hindman [Ibid., part ii, 771]. The following document shows exactly what had been the previous relation between the two:

Head Qrs. Dept. Indn. Terry.
Ft. Smith, Jan. 31st, 1863.

COLONEL: Your special No. 22, par. viii has been recd. I would respectfully suggest that when assigned to this command by Maj. Gen’l Hindman the command was styled in orders, “1st Div’n 1st Corps Trans. Miss. Army.” The special order referred to, it is respectfully suggested, may be susceptible of misconstruction as there are under my command two separate Brigades, one under the command (cont.)]

and Texas from the Trans-Mississippi Department.[693] Both were accomplished in January and both were directly due to a somewhat tardy realization of the vast strategic importance of the Indian country. Unwieldy, geographically, the Trans-Mississippi Department had long since shown itself to be. Moreover, it was no longer even passably safe to leave the interests of Indian Territory subordinated to those of Arkansas.[694]

The man chosen, after others, his seniors in rank, had declined the dubious honor,[695] for the command of Indian Territory was William Steele, brigadier-general, northern born, of southern sympathies. Thus was ignored whatever claim Douglas H. Cooper might have been thought to have by reason of his intimate and long acquaintance with Indian affairs and his influence, surpassingly great, with certain of the tribes. Cooper’s unfortunate weakness, addiction to intemperance, had stood more or less in the way of his promotion right along just as it had decreased his military efficiency on at least one memorable occasion and had hindered the confirmation of his appointment as superintendent of Indian affairs in the Arkansas and Red River constituency. In this narrative, as events are divulged, it will be seen that the preference for Steele exasperated Cooper, who was not a big enough man to put love of country before the gratification of his own

[Footnote 692: (cont.) of Gen’l D.H. Cooper and one under command of Col. J.W. Speight.

I am, Col., Very Res’py W. STEELE, _Brig. Gen’l_., Col. S.S. Anderson, A.A.G.

P.S. Please find enclosed printed Gen. Order, no. 4, which I have assumed the responsibility of issuing on receipt of Lt. Gen’l Holmes’ order declaring my command in the Ind’n country independent.

(Sd) W. STEELE, _Brig. Gen’l_.

[A.G.O., _Confederate Records_, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 65].]

[Footnote 693: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 771-772.]

[Footnote 694:–Ibid., 771.]

[Footnote 695:–Ibid., 843; _Confederate Records_, chap. 2, no. 270, pp. 25-27.]

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF MONTHLY INSPECTION REPORT OF THE SECOND CREEK REGIMENT OF MOUNTED VOLUNTEERS.]

ambition, consequently friction developed between him and his rival highly detrimental to the service to which each owed his best thought, his best endeavor.[696]

Conditions in Indian Territory, at the time Steele took command, were conceivably the worst that could by any possibility be imagined. The land had been stripped of its supplies, the troops were scarcely worthy of the name.[697] Around Fort Smith, in Arkansas, things were equally bad.[698] People were clamoring for protection against marauders, some were wanting only the opportunity to move themselves and their effects far away out of the reach of danger, others were demanding that the unionists be cleaned out just as secessionists had, in some cases, been. Confusion worse confounded prevailed. Hindman had resorted to a system of almost wholesale furloughing to save expense.[699] Most of the Indians had taken advantage of it and were off duty when Steele arrived. Many had preferred to subsist at government cost.[700] There was so little in their own homes for them to get. Forage was practically non-existent and Steele soon had it impressed [701] upon him that troops in the Indian Territory ought, as Hindman had come to think months before,[702] to be all unmounted.

Although fully realizing that it was incumbent upon him to hold Fort Smith as a sort of key to his entire command, Steele knew it would be impossible to

[Footnote 696: It might as well be said, at the outset, that Cooper was not the ranking officer of Steele. He claimed that he was [_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 1037-1038]; but the government disallowed the contention [Ibid., 1038].]

[Footnote 697:–Ibid., part i, 28; part ii, 862, 883, 909.]

[Footnote 698: _Confederate Records_, chap. 2, no. 270, pp. 29-30.]

[Footnote 699: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 895, 909.]

[Footnote 700:–Ibid., part i, 30.]

[Footnote 701: _Confederate Records_, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 31.]

[Footnote 702: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 51.]

maintain any considerable force there. He, therefore, resolved to take big chances and to attempt to hold it with as few men as his commissary justified, trusting that he would be shielded from attack “by the inclemency of the season and the waters of the Arkansas.”[703] The larger portion of his army[704] was sent southward, in the direction of Red River.[705] But lack of food and forage was, by no manner of means, the only difficulty that confronted Steele. He was short of guns, particularly of good guns,[706] and distressingly short of money.[707] The soldiers had not been paid for months.

The opening of 1863 saw changes, equally momentous, in Federal commands. Somewhat captiously, General Schofield discounted recent achievements of Blunt and advised that Blunt’s District of Kansas should be completely disassociated from the Division of the Army of the Frontier,[708] which he had, at Schofield’s own earlier request, been commanding. It was another instance of personal jealousy, interstate rivalry, and local

[Footnote 703: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 30.]

[Footnote 704: Perhaps the word, _army_, is inapplicable here. Steele himself was in doubt as to whether he was in command of an army or of a department [_Confederate Records_, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 54].]

[Footnote 705: _Confederate Records_, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 36. See also, Steele to Anderson, January 22, 1863 [ibid., 50-51], which besides detailing the movements of Steele’s men furnishes, on the authority of “Mr. Thomas J. Parks of the Cherokee Nation,” evidence of brutal murders and atrocities committed by Blunt’s army “whilst on their march through the northwestern portion of this State in the direction of Kansas.”]

[Footnote 706: Crosby’s telegram, February first, to the Chief of Ordnance is sufficient attestation,

“Many of Cooper’s men have inferior guns and many none at all. Can you supply?” [Ibid., 65-66].]

[Footnote 707: The detention and the misapplication of funds by William Quesenbury seem to have been largely responsible for Steele’s monetary embarrassment [ibid., 28, 63-64, 75, 76, 77, 79-81, 101, 147]. Cotton speculation in Texas was alluring men with ready money southward [ibid., 94, 104].]

[Footnote 708: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 6.]

conflict of interests.[709] So petty was Schofield and so much in a mood for disparagement that he went the length of condemning the work of Blunt and Herron[710] in checking Hindman’s advance as but a series of blunders and their success at Prairie Grove as but due to an accident.[711] General Curtis, without, perhaps, having any particular regard for the aggrieved parties himself, resented Schofield’s insinuations against their military capacity, all the more so, no doubt, because he was not above making the same kind of criticisms himself and was not impervious to them. In the sequel, Schofield reorganized the divisions of his command, relieved Blunt altogether, and personally resumed the direction of the Army of the Frontier.[712] Blunt went back to his District of Kansas and made his headquarters at Fort Leavenworth.

In some respects, the reorganization decided upon by Schofield proved a consummation devoutly to be wished; for, within the reconstituted First Division was placed an Indian Brigade, which was consigned to the charge of a man the best fitted of all around to have it, Colonel William A. Phillips.[713] And that was not all; inasmuch as the Indian Brigade, consisting of the three regiments of Indian Home Guards, a battalion of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, and a four-gun battery that had been captured at the Battle of Old

[Footnote 709: It seems unnecessary and inappropriate to drag into the present narrative the political squabbles that disgraced Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, and Colorado during the war. Lane was against Schofield, Gamble against Curtis.]

[Footnote 710: Yet both Blunt and Herron were, at this very time, in line for promotion, as was Schofield, to the rank of major-general [_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, II, 95.]]

[Footnote 711:–Ibid., 6, 12, 95; _Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 195.]

[Footnote 712:–Ibid., 22.]

[Footnote 713: Britton, _Civil War on the Border_ vol. ii, 18-19.]

Fort Wayne,[714] was almost immediately detached from the rest of Schofield’s First Division and assigned to discretionary “service in the Indian Nation and on the western border of Arkansas.”[715] It continued so detached even after Schofield’s command had been deprived by Curtis of the two districts over which the brigade was to range, the eighth and the ninth.[716] Thus, at the beginning of 1863, had the Indian Territory in a sense come into its own. Both the Confederates and the Federals had given it a certain measure of military autonomy or, at all events, a certain opportunity to be considered in and for itself.

Indian Territory as a separate military entity came altogether too late into the reckonings of the North and the South. It was now a devastated land, in large areas, desolate. General Curtis and many another like him might well express regret that the red man had to be offered up in the white man’s slaughter.[717] It was unavailing regret and would ever be. Just as with the aborigines who lay athwart the path of empire and had to yield or be crushed so with the civilized Indian of 1860. The contending forces of a fratricidal war had little mercy for each other and none at all for him. Words of sympathy were empty indeed. His fate was inevitable. He was between the upper and the nether mill-stones and, for him, there was no escape.

Indian Territory was really in a terrible condition. Late in 1862, it had been advertised even by southern men as lost to the Confederate cause and had been

[Footnote 714: It is not very clear whether or not the constituents of the Indian Brigade were all at once decided upon. They are listed as they appear in Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. ii, 3. Schofield seems to have hesitated in the matter [_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 26].]

[Footnote 715:–Ibid., 33.]

[Footnote 716: On the subject of the reduction of Schofield’s command, see Ibid., 40.]

[Footnote 717: Curtis to Phillips, February 17, 1863, Ibid., 113-114.]

practically abandoned to the jayhawker. Scouting parties of both armies, as well as guerrillas, had preyed upon it like vultures. Indians, outside of the ranks, were tragic figures in their utter helplessness. They dared trust nobody. It was time the Home Guard was being made to justify its name. Indeed, as Ellithorpe reported, “to divert them to any other operations” than those within their own gates “will tend to demoralize them to dissolution.”[718]

The winter of 1862-1863 was a severe one. Its coming had been long deferred; but, by the middle of January, the cold weather had set in in real earnest. Sleet and snow and a constantly descending thermometer made campaigning quite out of the question. Colonel Phillips, no more than did his adversary, General Steele, gave any thought to an immediate offensive. Like Steele his one idea was to replenish resources and to secure an outfit for his men. They had been provided with the half worn-out baggage train of Blunt’s old division. It was their all and would be so until their commander could supplement it by contrivances and careful management. Incidentally, Phillips expected to hold the line of the Arkansas River; but not to attempt to cross it until spring should come. It behooved him to look out for Marmaduke whose expeditions into Missouri[719] were cause for anxiety, especially as their range might at any moment be extended.

The Indian regiments of Phillips’s brigade were soon reported[720] upon by him and declared to be in a sad state. The first regiment was still, to all intents and purposes, a Creek force, notwithstanding that its fortunes had been varied, its desertions, incomparable.

[Footnote 718: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 49.]

[Footnote 719: _Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 161, 162.]

[Footnote 720: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 56-58.]

The second regiment, after many vicissitudes, and after having gotten rid of its unmanageable elements, notably, the Osages and the Quapaws, had become a Cherokee and the third was largely so. That third regiment was Phillips’s own and was the only one that could claim the distinction of being disciplined and even it was exposed occasionally to the chronic weakness of all Indian soldiers, absence without leave. The Indian, on his own business bent, was disposed to depart whenever he pleased, often, too, at times most inopportune, sometimes, when he had been given a special and particular task. He knew not the usages of army life and really meant no offence; but, all the same, his utter disregard of army discipline made for great disorder.

It was not the chief cause of disorder, however, for that was the unreliability of the regimental officers. The custom, from the first, had been to have the field officers white men, a saving grace; but the company officers, with few exceptions, had been Indians and totally incompetent. Strange as it may seem, drilling was almost an unknown experience to the two regiments that had been mustered in for the First Indian Expedition. To obviate some of the difficulties already encountered, Phillips had seen to it that the third regiment had profited by the mistakes of its forerunners. It had, therefore, been supplied with white first lieutenants and white sergeants, secured from among the non-commissioned men of other commands. The result had fully justified the innovation. After long and careful observation, Phillips’s conclusion was that it was likely to be productive of irretrievable disaster and consequently an unpardonable error of judgment “to put men of poor ability in an Indian regiment.” Primitive man has an inordinate respect for a strong

character. He appreciates integrity, though he may not have it among his own gifts of nature. “An Indian company improperly officered” will inevitably become, to somebody’s discomfiture, “a frightful mess.”

If any one there was so foolish as to surmise that the independent commands, northern and southern, would be given free scope to solve the problems of Indian Territory, unhampered by contingent circumstances, he was foreordained to grevious disappointment. Indian Territory had still to subserve the interests of localities, relatively more important. It would be so to the very end. In and for herself, she would never be allowed to do anything and her commanders, no matter how much they might wish it otherwise–and to their lasting honor, be it said, many of them did–would always have to subordinate her affairs to those of the sovereign states around her; for even northern states were sovereign in practice where Indians were concerned. General Steele was one of the men who endeavored nobly to take a large view of his responsibilities to Indian Territory. Colonel Phillips, his contemporary in the opposite camp, was another; but both met with insuperable obstacles. The attainment of their objects was impossible from the start. Both men were predestined to failure.

Foraging or an occasional scouting when the weather permitted was the only order of the winter days for Federals and Confederates. With the advent of spring, however, Phillips became impatient for more aggressive action. He had been given a large programme, no insignificant part of which was, the restoration of refugees to their impoverished homes; but his first business would necessarily have to be, the occupancy of the country. Not far was he allowed to venture within

it during the winter; because his superior officers wished him to protect, before anything else, western Arkansas. Schofield and, after Schofield’s withdrawal from the command of southwestern Missouri, Curtis had insisted upon that, while Blunt, to whom Phillips, after a time, was made immediately accountable, was guardedly of another way of thinking and, although not very explicit, seemed to encourage Phillips in planning an advance.

Phillips’s inability to progress far in the matter of occupancy of Indian Territory did not preclude his keeping a close tab on Indian affairs therein, such a tab, in fact, as amounted to fomenting an intrigue. It will be recalled that on the occasion of his making the excursion into the Cherokee Nation, which had resulted in his incendiary destruction of Fort Davis, he had gained intimations of a rather wide-spread Indian willingness to desert the Confederate service. He had sounded Creeks and Choctaws and had found them surprisingly responsive to his machinations. They were nothing loath to confess that they were thoroughly disgusted with the southern alliance. It had netted them nothing but unutterable woe. Among those that Phillips approached, although not personally, was Colonel McIntosh, who communicated with Phillips through two intimate friends. McIntosh was persuaded to attempt no immediate demonstration in favor of the North; for that would be premature, foolhardy; but to bide the time, which could not be far distant, when the Federal troops would be in a position to support him.[721] The psychological moment was not yet. Blunt called Phillips back for operations outside of Indian

[Footnote 721: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 61-62.]

Territory; but the seed of treason had been sown and sown in fertile soil, in the heart of a McIntosh.[722]

In January, 1863, Phillips took up again the self-imposed task of emissary.[723] The unionist Cherokees, inclusive of those in the Indian Brigade, were contemplating holding a national council on Cowskin Prairie, which was virtually within the Federal lines. Secessionist Cherokees, headed by Stand Watie, were determined that such a council should not meet if they could possibly prevent it and prevent it they would if they could only get a footing north of the Arkansas River. Their suspicion was, that the council, if assembled, would declare the treaty with the Confederate States abrogated. To circumvent Stand Watie, to conciliate some of the Cherokees by making reparation for past outrages, and to sow discord among others, Phillips despatched Lieutenant-colonel Lewis Downing on a scout southward. He was just in time; for the Confederates were on the brink of hazarding a crossing at two places, Webber’s Falls and Fort Gibson.[724] Upon the return of Downing, Phillips himself moved across the border with the avowed intention of rendering military support, if needed, to the Cherokee Council, which convened on the fourth of February.[725] From Camp Ross, he continued to send out scouting parties, secret agents,[726] and agents of distribution.

The Cherokee Council assembled without the preliminary formality of a new election. War conditions

[Footnote 722: This remark would be especially applicable if the Colonel McIntosh, mentioned by Phillips, was Chilly, the son of William McIntosh of Indian Springs Treaty notoriety.]

[Footnote 723: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 100.]

[Footnote 724:–Ibid., 85.]

[Footnote 725:–Ibid., 96-97.]

[Footnote 726:–Ibid., 100, 108.]

had made regular pollings impossible. Consequently, the council that convened in February, 1863 was, to all intents and purposes, the selfsame body that, in October, 1861, had confirmed the alliance with the Confederate States. It was Phillips’s intention to stand by, with military arm upraised, until the earlier action had been rescinded. While he waited, word came that the harvest of defection among the Creeks had begun; for “a long line of persons”[727] was toiling through the snow, each wearing the white badge on his hat that Phillips and McIntosh had agreed should be their sign of fellowship. Then came an order for Phillips to draw back within supporting distance of Fayetteville, which, it was believed, the Confederates were again threatening.[728] Phillips obeyed, as perforce, he had to; but he left a detachment behind to continue guarding the Cherokee Council.[729]

The legislative work of the Cherokee Council, partisan body that it was, with Lewis Downing as its presiding officer and Thomas Pegg as acting Principal Chief, was reactionary, yet epochal. It comprised several measures and three of transcendant importance, passed between the eighteenth and the twenty-first:

1. An act revoking the alliance with the Confederate States and re-asserting allegiance to the United States.

2. An act deposing all officers of any rank or character whatsoever, inclusive of legislative, executive, judicial, who were serving in capacities disloyal to the United States and to the Cherokee Nation.

[Footnote 727: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 101.]

[Footnote 728:–Ibid., 111-112.]

[Footnote 729:–Ibid., 115.]

3. An act emancipating slaves throughout the Cherokee country.[730]

His detention in Arkansas was not at all to Phillips’s liking. It tried his patience sorely; for he felt the crying need of Indian Territory for just such services as his and, try as he would, he could not visualize that of Arkansas. Eagerly he watched for a chance to return to the Cherokee country. One offered for the fifth of March but had to be given up. Again and yet again in letters[731] to Curtis and Blunt he expostulated against delay but delay could not well be avoided. The pressure from Arkansas for assistance was too great. Blunt sympathized with Phillips more than he dared openly admit and tacitly sanctioned his advance. Never at any time could there have been the slightest doubt as to the singleness of the virile Scotchman’s purpose. In imagination he saw his adopted country repossessed of Indian Territory and of all the overland approaches to Texas and Mexico from whence, as he supposed, the Confederacy expected to draw her grain and other supplies. Some regard for the Indian himself he doubtless had; but he used it as a means to the greater end. His sense of justice was truly British in its keenness.

[Footnote 730: Ross to Dole, April 2, 1863 [Indian Office General Files, _Cherokee_, 1859-1865, R 87]; Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1863, p. 23; Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. ii, 24-25; Moore, _Rebellion Record_, vol. vi, 50; Eaton, _John Ross and the Cherokee Indians_, 196.]

[Footnote 731: Britton [_Civil War on the Border_, vol. ii, 27] conveys the idea that, while Phillips, truly enough, wished to enter the Indian country at the earliest day practicable, he did not care to go there before the Indian ponies could “live on the range.” He knew that the refugees at Neosho would insist upon following in his wake. It would be heartless to expose them to starvation and to the ravages of diseases like the small-pox. Nevertheless, the correspondence of Phillips, scattered through the _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 121-367, shows conclusively that the weeks of waiting were weary ones.]

His Indian soldiers loved him. They believed in him. He was able to accomplish wonders in training them. He looked after their welfare and he did his best to make the government and its agents of the Indian Office keep faith with the refugees. Quite strenuously, too, he advocated further enlistments from among the Indians, especially from among those yet in Indian Territory. If the United States did not take care, the Confederates would successfully conscript where the Federals might easily recruit. In this matter as in many another, he had Blunt’s unwavering support; for Blunt wanted the officers of the embryo fourth and fifth regiments to secure their commands. Blunt’s military district was none too full of men.

March was then as now the planting season in the Arkansas Valley and, as Phillips rightly argued, if the indigent Indians were not to be completely pauperized, they ought to be given an opportunity to be thrown once more upon their own resources, to be returned home in time to put in crops. When the high waters subsided and the rivers became fordable, he grew more insistent. There was grass in the valley of the Arkansas and soon the Confederates would be seizing the stock that it was supporting. He had held the line of the Arkansas by means of scouts all winter, but scouting would not be adequate much longer. The Confederates were beginning, in imitation of the Federals, to attach indigents to their cause by means of relief distribution and the “cropping season was wearing on.”

At the end of March, some rather unimportant changes were made by Curtis in the district limits of his department and coincidently Phillips moved over the border. The first of April his camp was at Park Hill. His great desire was to seize Fort Smith; for he

realized that not much recruiting could be done among the Choctaws while that post remained in Confederate hands. Blunt advised caution. It would not even do to attempt as yet any permanent occupation south of the Arkansas. Dashes at the enemy might be made, of course, but nothing more; for at any moment those higher up might order a retrograde movement and anyhow no additional support could be counted upon. Halleck was still calling for men to go to Grant’s assistance and accusing Curtis of keeping too many needlessly in the West. The Vicksburg campaign was on.

The order that Blunt anticipated finally came and Curtis called for Phillips to return. La Rue Harrison, foraging in Arkansas,[732] was whining for assistance. Phillips temporized, having no intention whatsoever of abandoning his appointed goal. His arguments were unanswerable but Curtis like Halleck could never be made to appreciate the plighted faith that lay back of Indian participation in the war and the strategic importance of Indian Territory. The northern Indian regiments, pleaded Phillips, were never intended for use in Arkansas. Why should they go there? It was doubtful if they could ever be induced to go there again. They had been recruited to recover the Indian Territory and now that they were within it they were going to stay until the object had been attained. Phillips solicited Blunt’s backing and got it, to the extent, indeed, that Blunt informed Curtis that if he wanted Indian Territory given up he must order it himself and take the consequences. It was not given up but Phillips suffered great embarrassments in holding it. The only support Blunt could render him was to send a negro regiment to Baxter Springs to protect supply

[Footnote 732: _Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 166-168.]

trains. Guerrillas and bushwhackers were everywhere and Phillips’s command was half-starved. Smallpox[733] broke out and, as the men became more and more emaciated, gained ground. Phillips continued to make occasional dashes at the enemy and in a few engagements he was more than reasonably successful. Webber’s Falls was a case in point.

As May advanced, the political situation in Missouri seemed to call loudly for a change in department commanders and President Lincoln, quite on his own initiative apparently, selected Schofield to succeed Curtis,[734] Curtis having identified himself with a faction opposed to Governor Gamble. The selection was obnoxious to many and to none more than to Herron and to Blunt, whose military exploits Schofield had belittled. The former threatened resignation if Schofield were appointed but the latter restrained himself and for a brief space all went well, Schofield even manifesting some sympathy for Phillips at Fort Gibson, or Fort Blunt, as the post, newly fortified, was now called. He declared that the Arkansas River must be secured its entire length; but the Vicksburg campaign was still demanding men and Phillips had to struggle on, unaided. Indeed, he was finally told that if he could not hold on by himself he must fall back and let the Indian Territory take care of itself until Vicksburg should have fallen.

[Footnote 733: Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. ii, 26.]

[Footnote 734: A change had been resolved upon in March, E.V. Sumner being the man chosen; but he died on the way out [Livermore, _Story of the Civil War_, part iii, book i, 256]. Sumner had had a wide experience with frontier conditions, first, in the marches of the dragoons [Pelzer, _Marches of the Dragoons in the Mississippi Valley_] later, in New Mexico [Abel, _Official Correspondence of James S. Calhoun_], and, still later, in ante-bellum Kansas. His experience had been far from uniformly fortunate but he had learned a few very necessary lessons, lessons that Schofield had yet to con.]

The inevitable clash between Schofield and Blunt was not long deferred. It came over a trifling matter but was fraught with larger meanings.[735] It was probably as much to get away from Schofield’s near presence as to see to things himself in Indian Territory that led Blunt to go down in person to Fort Gibson. He arrived there on the eleventh of July, taking Phillips entirely by surprise. Vicksburg had fallen about a week before.

The difficulties besetting Colonel Phillips were more than matched by those besetting General Steele. He, too, struggled on unaided, nay, more, he was handicapped at every turn. Scarcely had he taken command at Fort Smith when he was apprised of the fact that the chief armorer there had been ordered to remove all the tools to Arkadelphia.[736] Steele was hard put to it to obtain any supplies at all.[737] Many that he did get the promise of were diverted from their course,[738] just as were General Pike’s. This was true even in the case of shoes.[739] He tried to fit his regiments out one by one with the things the men required in readiness for a spring campaign[740] but it was up-hill work. And what was perfectly incomprehensible to him was, that when his need was so great there was yet corn available for private parties to speculate in and to realize enormous profits on.[741] In April, the Indian regiments, assembling and reforming in expectation of a call to action, made special demands upon his granaries but they were

[Footnote 735: June 9, orders issued redistricting Schofield’s Department of Missouri [_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 315].]

[Footnote 736: _Confederate Records_, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 34.]

[Footnote 737: Steele to Blair, February 10, 1863, Ibid., 87-88.]

[Footnote 738: Steele to Anderson, February 8, 1863, Ibid., 81-82.]

[Footnote 739: Duval to Cabell, May 15, 1863, Ibid., 244-245.]

[Footnote 740: Steele to Cabell, March 19, 1863, Ibid., 148.]

[Footnote 741: Steele to Anderson, March 22, 1863, Ibid., 158.]

nearly empty.[742] It was not possible for him to furnish corn for seed or, finally, the necessaries of life to indigent Indians. Indian affairs complicated, his situation tremendously.[743] He could get no funds and no

[Footnote 742: Steele to Anderson, April 3, 1863, _Confederate Records_, 179-180.]

[Footnote 743: For instance the officers of the First Cherokee regiment had a serious dispute as to the ranking authority among them [Ibid., Letter from Steele, March 14, 1863, p. 143]. The following letters indicate that there were other troubles and other tribes in trouble also:

(a)

“Your communication of 13 Inst. is to hand. I am directed by the Commanding Gen’l to express to you his warmest sympathy in behalf of your oppressed people, and his desire and determination to do all that may be in his power to correct existing evils and ameliorate the condition of the loyal Cherokees. The Gen’l feels proud to know that a large portion of your people, actuated by a high spirit of patriotism, have shown themselves steadfast and unyielding in their allegiance to our Government notwithstanding the bitter hardships and cruel ruthless outrages to which they have been subjected.

“It is hoped that the time is not very far distant, when your people may again proudly walk their own soil, exalted in the feeling, perhaps with the consciousness that our cruel and cowardly foe has been adequately punished and humiliated.

“Your communication has been ford. to Lt Gen’l Holmes with the urgent request that immediate steps be taken to bring your people fully within the pale of civilized warfare.

“It is hoped that there may be no delay in a matter so vitally important.

“We are looking daily for the arrival of Boats from below with corn, tis the wish of the Gen’l that the necessitous Indians sh’d be supplied from this place. Boats w’d be sent farther up the river, were we otherwise circumstanced. As it is the Boats have necessarily to run the gauntlet of the enemy–The Gen’l however hopes to be able to keep the River free to navigation until a sufficient supply of corn to carry us through the winter can be accumulated at this place.

“You will receive notice of the arrival of corn so that it may be conveyed to the Indians needing it.”–CROSBY to Stand Watie, commanding First Cherokee Regiment, February 16, 1863, Ibid., pp. 91-93.

(b)

“I am directed by Gen’l Steele to say that a delegation from the Creeks have visited him since your departure and a full discussion has been had of such matters as they are interested in.

“They brought with them a letter from the Principal Chief Moty Kennard asking that the Cattle taken from the refugee Creeks be turned over to the use of the loyal people of the nation. The Gen. Com’dg has ordered a disposition of these Cattle to be made in accordance with the wishes of the chief. If necessary please give such instructions as will attain this object. (cont.)]

instructions from Richmond so he dealt with the natives as best he could.[744] Small-pox became epidemic

[Footnote 743: (cont.) No Boats yet. Will endeavor to send one up the river should more than one arrive.”–Crosby to D.H. Cooper, February 19, 1863, Ibid., p. 97.

(c)

“I enclose, herewith, a letter from the agent of the Seminoles. You will see from that letter the danger we are in from neglecting the wants of the Indians. I have never had one cent of money pertaining to the Indian superintendency, nor have I received any copies of treaties, nor anything else that would give me an insight into the affairs of that Department. I wrote, soon after my arrival at this place, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs but have received no reply. If you have any knowledge of the whereabouts of the superintendent who has been lately appointed I hope you will urge upon him the necessity of coming at once and attending to these matters.”–STEELE to Anderson, April 6, 1863, Ibid., 180.

(d)

“I have today received a long letter from the Chief of the Osages, which I enclose for your perusal. Maj. Dorn came in from Texas a few days since, and has, I understand, gone down to Little Rock on the steamer ‘Tahlequah.’ It is certainly represented that a portion of the funds in his hands is in specie. Please have the latter surely delivered. Please return Black Dog’s letter unless you wish to forward it.”–STEELE to Holmes, May 16, 1863, Ibid., 249.

(e)

“Letters, received today, indicate a great necessity for your presence with the tribe for whom you are Agent. I wish you, therefore, to visit them, and relieve the discontent, as far as the means in your hands will permit. The Osage Chief, ‘Black Dog,’ now acting as 1st Chief, claims that certain money has been turned over to you for certain purposes, for which they have received nothing.”–STEELE to A.J. Dorn, May 16, 1863, Ibid., 249.]

[Footnote 744: “Your letter of May 6th, with letter of Black Dog enclosed, has been received and the enclosure forwarded to Lieut. Gen. Holmes for his information. The General Com’dg desires me to express his regrets that the affairs of the Osage and Seminole tribes should be in such a deplorable condition, but he is almost powerless, at present, to remedy the evils you so justly complain of. He has written again and again to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Richmond requesting instructions in the discharge of his duties as ex-officio Superintendent of Indian Affairs, but not a word has ever been received in reply to his reiterated requests, owing probably to the difficulty of communication between this point and the Capital. He has also requested that funds be sent him to liquidate the just demands of our Indian Allies, but from the same cause his requests have met with no response. You must readily appreciate the difficulties under which Gen. Steele necessarily labors. In fact his action is completely paralized by the want of instructions and funds. In connection with this he has been compelled to exert every faculty in defending the line of the Arkansas River against an enemy, vastly his superior in arms, numbers, artillery and everything that adds to the efficiency of an army, and consequently has not been able to pay (cont.)]

among his men,[745] as among Phillips’s–and from like causes.

Then General Steele had difficulty in getting his men and the right kind of men together. Lawless Arkansans were unduly desirous of joining the Indian regiments, thinking that discipline there would be lax enough to suit their requirements.[746] Miscellaneous conscripting by ex-officers of Arkansan troops gave much cause for annoyance[747] as did also Cooper’s unauthorized commissioning of officers to a regiment made

[Footnote 744: (cont.) that attention to the business of the superintendency that he would under other circumstances.

“It was stated, some time ago, in the newspapers, that a