could be best subserved by the formation of two distinct Indian brigades. To this idea General Smith, when appealed to, subscribed;[887] but General Steele was dubious about the propriety of putting Stand Watie in charge of one of the brigades. “He appears to exercise,” said Steele, “no restraint over his men in keeping them together, and his requisitions upon the depots seem to be made with utter disregard of the numbers present or even on his rolls.”[888] General Smith conceived it would be possible, by organizing the Indians into their own brigades and satisfying them that way, to draw off the white contingent and make of it a separate brigade, still operating, however, within the Indian country. To Cooper, the thought of a separate white brigade was most unwelcome. The Indians could be an effective force only in close conjunction with white troops. The separation of whites and Indians would inevitably mean, although not at present intended, the isolation of the latter and, perhaps, their ultimate abandonment.
The various proposals and counter-proposals all converged in an opposition to Steele. His presence in the Indian country seemed to block the advancement of everybody. Cooper resented his authority over himself and Stand Watie interpreted his waiting policy as due to inertness and ineptitude. So small a hold did the Federals really have on the Indian country that if Steele would only exert himself it could easily be
[Footnote 887: _Official Records_, vol. 22, part ii, 1055-1056.]
[Footnote 888:–Ibid., 1065.]
broken. But Steele was neither aggressive nor venturesome. His task was truly beyond him. Discouraged, he asked to be relieved and he was relieved, Brigadier-general Samuel B. Maxey being chosen as his successor.[889] Again Cooper had been passed over, notwithstanding that his Indian friends had done everything they could for him. They had made allegations against Steele; in order that a major-generalship might be secured for Cooper and brigadier-generalships for some of themselves.[890] Boudinot was believed by Steele to be at the bottom of the whole scheme; but it had been in process of concoction for a long time and Steele had few friends. General Smith was the stanchest of that few and even Holmes[891] was not among them.
Obviously, with things in such a chaotic state, military operations in the Indian country, during the autumn and early winter were almost negligible.[892] Steele expected that the Federals would attempt a drive from Fort Smith to the Red River and he collected what forces he could for that contingency. Little reliance was to be placed upon the Cherokees since they were intent upon recovering Fort Gibson; but the Choctaws through whose country the hostile force would proceed, were the drive made, aroused themselves as in the first days of the war. They recruited their regiments anew
[Footnote 889: Special Orders, no. 214, December 11, 1863, _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 1094.]
[Footnote 890: Steele to S. Cooper, December 19, 1863, Ibid., 1100-1101.]
[Footnote 891: Boudinot to Davis, December 21, 1863, Ibid., 1103.]
[Footnote 892: Steele contended that between the very natural fear that the Indians entertained that the white troops were going to be withdrawn from their country and Magruder’s determination to get those same white troops, it was impossible to make any move upon military principles [Steele to Anderson, November 9, 1863, Ibid., 1064-1065]. Steele refused to recognize Magruder’s right to interfere with his command [Steele to Cooper, November 8, 1863, Ibid., 1063-1064].]
and they organized a militia; but the drive was never made.[893]
The only military activity anywhere was in the Cherokee country and it was almost too insignificant for mention. Towards the end of November, the Federal force there was greatly reduced in numbers, the white and negro contingents being called away to Fort Smith.[894] The Indian Home Guards under Phillips were alone in occupation. With a detachment of the Third Indian, Watie had one lone skirmish, although about one half of Phillips’s brigade was out scouting. The skirmish occurred on Barren Fork, a tributary of the Illinois, on the eighteenth of December.[895] Late in November, Watie had planned a daring cavalry raid into the Neosho Valley.[896] The skirmish on Barren Fork arrested him in his course somewhat; but, as the Federals, satisfied with a rather petty success, did not pursue him, he went on and succeeded in entering southwest Missouri. The raid did little damage and was only another of the disjointed individual undertakings that Steele deplored but that the Confederates were being more and more compelled to make.
[Footnote 893: Steele to Gov. Samuel Garland, Nov. 30, 1863, _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 1082. Col. McCurtain of the Choctaw militia reported to Cooper that he expected to have fifteen hundred Choctaws assembled by December first [Steele to Cano, December 2, 1863, Ibid., 1085]. The Second Choctaw regiment continued scattered and out of ammunition [Steele to Cooper, December 22, 1863, Ibid., 1109]. The Seminole battalion was ordered to report to Bourland for frontier defence [Duval to Cooper, December 20, 1863, Ibid., 1102].]
[Footnote 894: Britton, _Civil War on the Borde_, vol. ii, 236.]
[Footnote 895: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 781-782.]
[Footnote 896:–Ibid., part ii, 722, 746, 752.]
XIII. ASPECTS, CHIEFLY MILITARY, 1864-1865
The assignment of General Maxey to the command of Indian Territory invigorated Confederate administration north of the Red River, the only part of the country in undisputed occupancy. Close upon the assumption of his new duties, came a project[897] for sweeping reforms, involving army reorganization, camps of instruction for the Indian soldiery, a more general enlistment, virtually conscription, of Indians–this upon the theory that “Whosoever is not for us is against us”–the selection of more competent and reliable staff officers, and the adoption of such a plan of offensive operations as would mean the retaking of Forts Smith and Gibson.[898] To Maxey, thoroughly familiar with the geography of the region, the surrender of those two places appeared as a gross error in military technique; for the Arkansas River was a natural line of defence, the Red was not. “If the Indian Territory gives way,” argued he, “the granary of the Trans-Mississippi Department, the breadstuffs, and beef of this and the Arkansas army are gone, the left flank of Holmes’ army is turned, and with it not only the meat and bread, but the salt and iron of what is left of the Trans-Mississippi Department.”[899]
[Footnote 897: Maxey to Anderson, January 12, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 856-858.]
[Footnote 898: To this list might be added the proper fitting out of the troops, which was one of the first things that Maxey called to Smith’s attention [Ibid., vol. xxii, part ii, 1112-1113].]
[Footnote 899: This idea met with Smith’s full approval [Ibid., vol. xxxiv, part ii, 918].]
Army reorganization was an immense proposition and was bound to be a difficult undertaking under the most favorable of auspices, yet it stood as fundamental to everything else. Upon what lines ought it to proceed? One possibility was, the formation of the two brigades, with Stand Watie and Cooper individually in command, which had already been suggested to General Smith and favored by him; but which had recently been found incompatible with his latest recommendation that all the Indian troops should be commanded, _in toto_, by Cooper.[900] One feature of great importance in its favor it had in that it did not ostensibly run counter to the Indian understanding of their treaties that white troops should be always associated with Indian in the guaranteed protection of the Indian country, which was all very well but scarcely enough to balance an insuperable objection, which Cooper, when consulted, pointed out.[901] The Indians had a strong aversion to any military consolidation that involved the elimination of their separate tribal characters. They had allied themselves with the Confederacy as nations and as nations they wished to fight. Moreover, due regard ought always to be given, argued Cooper, to their tribal prejudices, their preferences, call them what one will, and to their historical neighborhood alliances. Choctaws and Chickasaws might well stay together and Creeks and Seminoles; but woe betide the contrivance that should attempt the amalgamation of Choctaws and Cherokees.
[Footnote 900: This is given upon the authority of Maxey [_Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 857]. It seems slightly at variance with Smith’s own official statements. Smith would appear to have entertained a deep distrust of Cooper, whose promotion he did not regard as either “wise or necessary” [Ibid., vol. xxii, part ii, 1102].]
[Footnote 901: Cooper to T.M. Scott, January, 1864 [Ibid., vol. xxxiv, part ii, 859-862].]
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF MONTHLY INSPECTION REPORT OF THE FIRST CREEK REGIMENT OF MOUNTED VOLUNTEERS.]
It seems a little strange that the Indians should so emphasize their national individualism at this particular time, inasmuch as six of them, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, and Caddo, professing to be still in strict alliance with the Southern States, had formed an Indian confederacy, had collectively re-asserted their allegiance, pledged their continued support, and made reciprocal demands. All these things they had done in a joint, or general, council, which had been held at Armstrong Academy the previous November. Resolutions of the council, embodying the collective pledges and demands, were even at this very moment under consideration by President Davis and were having not a little to do with his attitude toward the whole Maxey programme.
In the matter of army reorganization, Smith was prepared to concede to Maxey a large discretion.[902] The brigading that would most comfortably fit in with the nationalistic feelings of the Indians and, at the same time, accord, in spirit, with treaty obligations and also make it possible for Cooper to have a supreme command of the Indian forces in the field was that which Cooper himself advocated, the same that Boudinot took occasion, at this juncture, to urge upon President Davis.[903] It was a plan for three distinct Indian brigades, a Cherokee, a Creek-Seminole, and a Choctaw-Chickasaw. Maxey thought “it would be a fine recruiting order,”[904] yet, notwithstanding, he gave his
[Footnote 902: _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 917.]
[Footnote 903: Boudinot to Davis, January 4, 1864 [Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 920-921]. Boudinot also suggested other things, some good, some bad. He suggested, for instance, that Indian Territory be attached to Missouri and Price put in command. Seddon doubted if Price would care for the place [Ibid., 921].]
[Footnote 904:–Ibid., vol. xxxiv, part ii, 858.]
preference for the two brigade plan.[905] The promotion of Cooper, implicit in the three brigade plan, was not at all pleasing to General Smith; for he thought of it as reflecting upon Steele, whom he loyally described as having “labored conscientiously and faithfully in the discharge of his duties.”[906] With Steele removed from the scene[907]–and he was soon removed for he had been retained in the Indian country only that Maxey might have for a brief season the benefit of his experience[908]–the case was altered and Boudinot again pressed his point,[909] obtaining, finally, the assurance of the War Department that so soon as the number of Indian regiments justified the organization of three brigades they should be formed.[910]
The formation of brigades was only one of the Indian demands that had emanated from the general council. Another was, the establishment of Indian Territory as a military department, an arrangement altogether inadvisable and for better reasons than the one reason that Davis offered when he addressed the united nations through their principal chiefs on the twenty-second of February.[911] Davis’s reason was that
[Footnote 905: Maxey to Smith, January 15, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 875.]
[Footnote 906:–Ibid., vol. xxii, part ii, 1101-1102.]
[Footnote 907:–Ibid., vol. xxxiv, part ii, 845, 848.]
[Footnote 908: So Smith explained [Ibid., 845], when Steele objected to staying in the Indian Territory in a subordinate capacity [Ibid., vol. xxii, part ii, 1108]. Steele was transferred to the District of Texas [Ibid., vol. xxxiv, part ii, 961]. The withdrawal of Steele left Cooper the ranking officer and the person on whom such a command, if created, would fall [Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 968-969].]
[Footnote 909: Boudinot to Davis, February 11, 1864, Ibid., 968.]
[Footnote 910: Seddon to Davis, February 22, 1864, Ibid., 968-969.]
[Footnote 911: Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the Confederacy_, vol. i, 477-479; _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part iii, 824-825. Davis addressed the chiefs and not the delegation that had brought the resolutions [Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 1030-1031]. John Jumper, Seminole principal chief, was a member of the delegation.]
as a separate department Indian Territory could not count upon the protection of the forces belonging to the Trans-Mississippi Department that was assured to her while she remained one of its integral parts. A distinct military district she should certainly be.
When Davis wrote, the ambition of Cooper had, in a measure, been satisfied; for he had been put in command of all “the Indian troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department on the borders of Arkansas.”[912] It was by no means all he wanted or all that he felt himself entitled to and he soon let it be known that such was the state of affairs. He tried to presume upon the fact that his commission as superintendent of Indian affairs had issued from the government, although never actually delivered to him, and, in virtue of it, he was in military command.[913] The quietus came from General Smith, who informed Cooper that his new command and he himself were under Maxey.[914]
It was hoped that prospective Indian brigades would be a powerful incentive to Indian enlistment and so they proved. Moreover, much was expected in that direction from the reassembling of the general council at Armstrong Academy, and much had to be; for the times were critical. Maxey’s position was not likely to be a sinecure. As a friend wrote him,
Northern Texas and the Indian Department have been neglected so long that they have become the most difficult and the most responsible commands in the Trans-Mississippi Department. I tremble for you. A great name is in store for you or you fall into the rank of failures; the latter may be your
[Footnote 912: _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 848; Special Orders of the Adjutant and Inspector General’s Office, 1864, _Confederate Records_, no. 7, p. 15.]
[Footnote 913: Cooper to Davis, February 29, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 1007.]
[Footnote 914:–Ibid., 1008.]
fate, and might be the fate of any man, even after an entire and perfect devotion of all one’s time and talent, for want of the proper means. In military matters these things are never considered. Success is the only criterion–a good rule, upon the whole, though in many instances it works great injustice. Good and deserving men fall, and accidental heroes rise in the scale, kicking their less fortunate brothers from the platform.[915]
With a view to strengthening the Indian alliance and accomplishing all that was necessary to make it effective, Commissioner Scott was ordered by Seddon to attend the meeting of the general council.[916] Unfortunately, he did not arrive at Armstrong Academy in time, most unfortunately, in fact, since he was expected to bring funds with him and funds were sadly needed. Maxey attended and delivered an address[917] that rallied the Indians in spite of themselves. In council meeting they had many things to consider, whether or no they should insist upon confining their operations henceforth to their own country. Some were for making a raid into Kansas, some for forming an alliance with the Indians of the Plains,[918] who, during this year of 1864, were to prove a veritable thorn in the flesh to Kansas and Colorado.[919] As regarded some of the work of the general council, Samuel Garland, the principal chief of the Choctaws, proved a huge stumbling block,
[Footnote 915: S.A. Roberts to Maxey, February 1, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 936-937.]
[Footnote 916: Seddon to Scott, January 6, 1864, Ibid., 828-829.]
[Footnote 917: Moty Kanard, late principal chief of the Creek Nation, spoke of it as a _noble_ address and begged for a copy [Ibid., 960].]
[Footnote 918: Vore to Maxey, January 29, 1864, Ibid., 928; Maxey to Anderson, February 9, 1864, Ibid., 958; same to same, February 7, 1864, Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 963-966.]
[Footnote 919: Inasmuch as the alliance with the Indians of the Plains was never fully consummated and inasmuch as these Indians harassed and devastated the frontier states for reasons quite foreign to the causes of the Civil War, the subject of their depredations and outrages is not considered as within the scope of the present volume.]
and Cooper was forced, so he said, to “put the members of the grand council to work on” him.[920] It was Cooper’s wish, evidently, that the council would “insist under the Indian compact that all Choctaw troops shall be put at once in the field as regular Confederate troops for the redemption and defense of the whole Indian Territory.” The obstinacy of the Choctaw principal chief had to be overcome in order “to bring out the Third Choctaw Regiment speedily and on the proper basis.” In general, the council reiterated its recommendations of November previous and so Boudinot informed President Davis,[921] it being with him the opportunity he coveted of urging, as already noted, the promotion of Cooper to a major-generalship.
In January and so anterior to most of the foregoing incidents, the shaking of the political dice in Washington, D.C., had brought again into existence the old Department of Kansas, Curtis in command.[922] Its limits were peculiar for they included Indian Territory[923] and the military post of Fort Smith as well as Kansas and the territories of Nebraska and Colorado. The status of Fort Smith was a question for the future to decide; but, in the meantime, it was to be a bone of contention between Curtis and his colleague, Frederick Steele, in command of the sister Department of
[Footnote 920: Cooper to Maxey, February, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 959. The report reached Phillips that the Choctaws wanted a confederacy quite independent of the southern [Ibid., part i, 107].]
[Footnote 921: Although Davis’s address of February 22 could well, in point of chronology, have been an answer to the applications and recommendations of the second session of the general council, it has been dealt with in connection with those of the first session, notwithstanding that Boudinot made his appeal less than a fortnight before Davis wrote. In his address, Davis specifically mentioned the work of the first session and made no reference whatsoever to that of the second.]
[Footnote 922: _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 10.]
[Footnote 923: Ewing wanted the command of Indian Territory, Ibid., 89.]
Arkansas; for Steele had control over all Federal forces within the political and geographical boundaries of the state that gave the name to his department except the Fort Smith garrison.[924] The termination of Schofield’s career in Missouri[925] was another result of political dice-throwing, so also was the call for Blunt to repair to the national capital for a conference.[926]
But politics had nothing whatever to do with an event more notable still. With the first of February began one of the most remarkable expeditions that had yet been undertaken in the Indian country. It was an expedition conducted by Colonel William A. Phillips and it was remarkable because, while it professed to have for its object the cleaning out of Indian Territory,[927] its incidents were as much diplomatic and pacific as military. Its course was only feebly obstructed and might have been extended into northern Texas had Moonlight of the Fourteenth Kansas Cavalry chosen to cooeperate.[928] As it was, the course was southward almost to Fort Washita. Phillips carried with him copies of President Lincoln’s Amnesty Proclamation[929] and he distributed them freely. His interpretation of the proclamation was his own and perhaps not strictly warranted by the phraseology but justice and generosity debarred his seeing why magnanimity and forgiveness should not be extended betimes to the poor deluded red man as much as to the deliberately rebellious white. To various prominent chiefs
[Footnote 924: _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 167, 187.]
[Footnote 925:–Ibid., 188.]
[Footnote 926: Lane, Wilder, and Dole, requested that Blunt be summoned to Washington [Ibid., 52].]
[Footnote 927: See Phillips’s address to his soldiers, January 30, 1864, Ibid., 190.]
[Footnote 928: Phillips to Curtis, February 16, 1864, Ibid., part i, 106-108.]
[Footnote 929: Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, vol. vi, 213-215.]
of secessionist persuasion he sent messages of encouragement and good-will.[930] More sanguine than circumstances really justified, he returned to report that, for some of the tribes at least, the war was virtually over.[931] What his peace mission may have accomplished, the future would reveal; but there was no doubting what his raid had done. It had produced consternation among the weaker elements. The Creeks, the Seminoles, and the Chickasaws had widely dispersed, some into the fastnesses of the mountains. Only the Choctaws continued obdurate and defiant. It was strange that Phillips should have arrived at conclusions so sweeping; for his course[932] had led him within hearing range of the general council in session at Armstrong Academy and there the division of sentiment was not so much along tribal lines as along individual. Strong personalities triumphed; for, as Maxey so truly divined, the Indian nations were after all aristocracies. The minority really ruled. At Armstrong Academy, in spite of tendencies toward an isolation that, in effect, would have been neutrality and, on the part of a few, toward a definite retracing of steps, the southern Indians renewed their pledges of loyalty to the Confederacy. Phillips’s olive branch was in their hands and they threw it aside. Months before they might have been secured for the North but not now. For them the hour of wavering was past. Maxey’s vigor was stimulating.
[Footnote 930: To Governor Colbert of the Chickasaw Nation [_Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part i, 109-110], to the Council of the Choctaw Nation [Ibid., 110], to John Jumper of the Seminole Nation [Ibid., 111], to McIntosh, possibly D.N. [Ibid., part ii, 997]. For Maxey’s comments upon Phillips and his letters, see Maxey to Smith, February 26, 1864, Ibid., 994-997.]
[Footnote 931: Phillips to Curtis, February 24, 1864, Ibid., part i, 108-109.]
[Footnote 932: For the itinerary of the course, see Ibid., 111-112.]
The explanation of Phillips’s whole proceeding during the month of February is to be found in his genuine friendship for the Indian, which eventually profited him much, it is true, but, from this time henceforth, was lifelong. He stood in somewhat of a contrast to Blunt, whom General Steele thought unprincipled[933] and who in Southern parlance was “an old land speculator,”[934] and to Curtis, who was soon to show himself, as far as the Indians were concerned, in his true colors. While Phillips was absent from Fort Gibson, Curtis arrived there. He was making a reconnoissance of his command and, as he passed over one reservation after another, he doubtless coveted the Indian land for white settlement and justified to himself a scheme of forfeiture as a way of penalizing the red men for their defection.[935] Phillips was not encouraged to repeat his peace mission.
Blunt’s journey to Washington had results, complimentary and gratifying to his vanity because publicly vindicatory. On the twenty-seventh of February he was restored to his old command or, to be exact, ordered “to resume command of so much of the District of the Frontier as is included within the boundaries of the Department of Kansas.”[936] His headquarters were at Fort Smith and immediately began the controversy between him and Thayer, although scornfully unacknowledged by Thayer, as to the status of Fort Smith. Thayer refused to admit that there could be any issue[937] between them for the law in the case was clear. What Blunt and Curtis really wanted was to get hold of the
[Footnote 933: F. Steele to S. Breck, March 27, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 751.]
[Footnote 934: T.M. Scott to Maxey, April 12, 1864, Ibid., part iii, 762.]
[Footnote 935: This matter is very much generalized here for the reason that it properly belongs in the volume on reconstruction that is yet to come.]
[Footnote 936: February 23, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 408.]
[Footnote 937: John M. Thayer to Charles A. Dana, March 15, 1864, Ibid., 617.]
western counties of Arkansas[938] so as to round out the Department of Kansas. To them it was absurd that Fort Smith should be within their jurisdiction and its environs within Steele and Thayer’s. The upshot of the quarrel was, the reorganization of the frontier departments on the seventeenth of April which gave Fort Smith and Indian Territory to the Department of Arkansas[939] and sent Blunt back to Leavenworth. His removal from Fort Smith, especially as Curtis had intended, had no change in department limits been made, to transfer Blunt’s headquarters to Fort Gibson,[940] was an immense relief to Phillips. Blunt and Phillips had long since ceased to have harmonious views with respect to Indian Territory. During his short term of power, Blunt had managed so to deplete Phillips’s forces that two of the three Indian regiments were practically all that now remained to him since one, the Second Indian Home Guards, had been permanently stationed at Mackey’s Salt Works on the plea that its colonel, John Ritchie, was Phillips’s ranking officer and it was not expedient that he and Phillips “should operate together.”[941] Blunt had detached also a part of the Third Indian and had placed it at Scullyville as an outpost to Fort Smith. There were to be no more advances southward for Phillips.[942] Instead of making them he was to occupy himself with the completion of the fortifications at Fort Gibson.[943]
[Footnote 938: Thayer to Grant, March 11, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 566.]
[Footnote 939:–Ibid., part iii, 192, 196.]
[Footnote 940:–Ibid., part ii, 651. Blunt would have preferred Scullyville [Ibid., part iii, 13].]
[Footnote 941: Blunt to Curtis, March 30, 1864, Ibid., part ii, 791.]
[Footnote 942: Blunt to Phillips, April 3, 1864, Ibid., part iii, 32; Phillips to Curtis, April 5, 1864, Ibid., 52-53.]
[Footnote 943: Curtis had ordered the completion of the fortifications which might be taken to imply that he too was not favoring a forward policy.]
Among the southern Indians, Maxey’s reconstruction policy was all this time having its effect. It was revitalizing the Indian alliance with the Confederacy, but army conditions were yet a long way from being satisfactory. In March Price relieved Holmes in command of the District of Arkansas.[944] A vigorous campaign was in prospect and Price asked for all the help the department commander could afford him. The District of Indian Territory had forces and of all the disposable Price asked the loan. Maxey, unlike his predecessors, was more than willing to cooeperate but one difficulty, which he would fain have ignored himself–for he was not an Albert Pike–he was compelled to report. The Indians had to be free, absolutely free, to go or to stay.[945] The choice of cooeperating was theirs but theirs also the power to refuse to cooeperate, if they so desired, and no questions asked. The day had passed when Arkansans or Texans could decide the matter arbitrarily. Watie was expected to prefer to continue the irregular warfare that he and Adair, his colonel of scouts, had so successfully been waging for a goodly time now. Formerly, they had waged it to Steele’s great annoyance;[946] but Maxey felt no repugnance to the services of Quantrill, so, of course, had nothing to say in disparagement of the work of Watie. It was the kind of work, he frankly admitted he thought the Indians best adapted to. The Choctaws under Tandy Walker were found quite willing to cross the line and they did excellent service in the Camden campaign, which, both in the cannonade near Prairie d’Ane on the thirteenth of April and in the Battle of Poison Spring on the
[Footnote 944: _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 1034, 1036.]
[Footnote 945: Maxey to Smith, April 3, 1864, Ibid., part iii, 728-729.]
[Footnote 946: For Steele’s opposition to Adair’s predatory movements, see _Confederate Records_, chap. 2, nos. 267, 268.]
eighteenth of April, offered a thorough test of what Indians could do when well disciplined, well officered, and well considered. The Indian reinforcement of Marmaduke was ungrudgingly given and ungrudgingly commended.[947] The Camden campaign was short and, when about over, Maxey was released from duty with Price’s army. His own district demanded attention[948] and the Indians recrossed the line.
Price’s call for help had come before Maxey had taken more than the most preliminary of steps towards the reorganization of his forces and not much was he able to do until near the end of June. Two brigades had been formed without difficulty and Cooper had secured his division; but after that had come protracted delay. The nature of the delay made it a not altogether bad thing since the days that passed were days of stirring events. In the case of Stand Watie’s First Brigade no less than of Tandy Walker’s Second were the events distinguished by measurable success. The Indians were generally in high good humor; for even small successes, when coupled with appreciation of effort expended, will produce that. One adventure of Watie’s, most timely and a little out of the ordinary, had been very exhilarating. It was the seizure of a supply boat on the Arkansas at Pheasant Bluff, not far from the mouth of the Canadian up which the boat was towed until its commissary stores had been extracted. The boat was the Williams, bound for Fort Gibson.[949]
[Footnote 947: Williamson to Maxey, April 28, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part i, 845.]
[Footnote 948: It had not been Smith’s intention that he should go out of his own district, where his services were indispensable, until Price’s need should be found to be really urgent [Boggs to Maxey, April 12, 1864, Ibid., part iii, 760-761].]
[Footnote 949: –Ibid., part i, 1011-1013; part iv, 686-687.]
It was under the inspiration of such recent victories that the southern Indians took up for consideration the matter of reenlistment, the expiration “of the present term of service” being near at hand. Parts of the Second Brigade took action first and, on the twenty-third of June, the First Choctaw Regiment unanimously reenlisted for the war. Cooper was present at the meeting “by previous request.”[950] Resolutions[951] were drawn up and adopted that reflected the new enthusiasm. Other Choctaw regiments were to be prevailed upon to follow suit and the leading men of the tribe, inclusive of Chief Garland who was not present, were to be informed that the First Choctaw demanded of them, in their legislative and administrative capacities “such co-operation as will force all able-bodied free citizens of the Choctaw Nation, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, and fitted for military service, to at once join the army and aid in the common defense of the Choctaw Nation, and give such other cooeperation to the Confederate military authorities as will effectually relieve our country from Federal rule and ruin.”
The First Brigade was not behindhand except in point of time by a few days. All Cherokee military units were summoned to Watie’s camp on Limestone Prairie.[952] The assemblage began its work on the twenty-seventh of June, made it short and decisive and indicated it in a single resolution:
Whereas, the final issue of the present struggle between the North and South involves the destiny of the Indian Territory alike with that of the Confederate States: Therefore,
_Resolved_, That we, the Cherokee Troops, C.S. Army, do
[Footnote 950: _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part iv, 694.]
[Footnote 951: –Ibid., 695.]
[Footnote 952: Stand Watie to Cooper, June 27, 1864, Ibid., part i, 1013.]
unanimously re-enlist as soldiers for the war, be it long or short.[953]
No action was taken on the policy of conscription; but, in July, the Cherokee National Council met and, to it, Chief Watie proposed the enactment of a conscription law.[954]
As a corollary to reorganization, the three brigade plan was now put tentatively into operation. It was, in truth, “a fine recruiting order,” and Commissioner Scott, when making his annual rounds in August, was able to report to Secretary Seddon,
It is proposed to organize them into three brigades, to be called the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek Brigades; the Cherokee Brigade, composed of Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Osages, has already been organized; the Creek Brigade, composed of Creeks and Seminoles, is about being so, and the Choctaws anticipate no difficulty in being able to raise the number of men required to complete the organization of the Choctaw Brigade.[955]
Behind all this virility was General Maxey. Without him, it is safe to say, the war for the Indians would have ended in the preceding winter. In military achievements, others might equal or excel him but in rulings[956] that endeared him to the Indians and in
[Footnote 953: _Official Records_, vol. xli, part ii, 1013.]
[Footnote 954: –Ibid., 1046-1047. The general council of the confederated tribes had recommended an increase in the armed force of Indian Territory and that it was felt could best be obtained, in these days of wavering faith, only by conscription. The general council was expected to meet again, July 20, at Chouteau’s Trading House [Ibid., 1047]. In October, the Chickasaws resorted to conscription. For the text of the conscription act, see Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 1024-1025.]
[Footnote 955:–Ibid., vol. xli, part ii, 1078. For additional facts concerning the progress of reorganization, see Portlock to Marston, August 5, 1864, _Confederate Records_, chap. 2, no. 259, p. 37; Portlock to Captain E. Walworth, August 27, 1864, Ibid., pp. 42-43.]
[Footnote 956: The most significant of Maxey’s rulings was that on official precedence. His position was that no race or color line should be drawn in determining (cont.)]
propaganda work he had no peer. At Fort Towson, his headquarters, he had set up a printing press, from which issued many and many a document, the purpose of each and every one the same. The following quotation from one of Maxey’s letters illustrates the purpose and, at the same time, exhibits the methods and the temper of the man behind it. The matter he was discussing when writing was the Camden campaign, in connection with which, he said,
… In the address of General Smith the soldiers of Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, and Louisiana are specially named. The soldiers from this Territory bore an humbler part in the campaign, and although they did not do a great deal, yet a fair share of the killed, wounded, captured, and captured property and cannon can be credited to them. I had a number of General Smith’s address struck off for circulation here, and knowing the omission would be noticed and felt, I inserted after Louisiana, “and of the Indian Territory,” which I hope will not meet General Smith’s disapproval.
I would suggest that want of transportation in this Territory will cripple movements very much….
During my absence General Cooper urged General McCulloch to help him in this particular; General M. replies he can do “absolutely nothing.” I am not disposed to complain about anything, but I do think this thing ought to be understood and regulated. Supplies of breadstuffs and forage, as well as clothing, sugar, etc., all having to be drawn from beyond the limits of this Territory, a more than ordinary supply of transportation is necessary. To that for the troops must be added that made necessary by the destitute thrown on the hands of the Government and who must be taken care of. I do not expect General Smith to investigate and study the peculiar
[Footnote 956: (cont.) the relative rank of officers [Maxey to Cooper, June 29, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part iv, 698-699] and he held that Confederate law recognized no distinction between Indian and white officers of the same rank. Charles de Morse, a Texan, with whom General Steele had had several differences, took great exception to Maxey’s decision. Race prejudice was strong in him. Had there been many like him, the Indians, with any sense of dignity, could never have continued long identified with the Confederate cause. For De Morse’s letter of protest, see Ibid., 699-700.]
characteristics of command here so closely as I have. He hasn’t the time, nor is it necessary. In my opinion no effort should be spared to hold this country. Its loss would work a more permanent injury than the loss of any State in the Confederacy. States can be recovered–the Indian Territory, once gone, never. Whites, when exiled by a cruel foe, find friends amongst their race; Indians have nowhere to go. Let the enemy once occupy the country to Red River and the Indians give way to despair. I doubt whether many of the highest officials in our Government have ever closely studied this subject. It is the great barrier to the empire State of the South from her foe now and in peace. Let Federalism reach the Red River, the effects will not stop there. The doctrine of _uti possidetis_ may yet play an important part.
I believe from what I have heard that Mr. Davis has a fair knowledge of this subject, and I think from conversations with General Smith he has, but his whole time being occupied with his immense department–an empire–I trust he will pardon me when I say that no effort of commissaries, quartermasters, or anybody else should be spared to hold this country, and I only regret that it has not fallen into abler hands than mine….[957]
Military reorganization[958] for the Indian troops had, in reality, come too late. Confederate warfare all along the frontier, in the summer and autumn of 1864, was little more than a series of raids, of which Price’s Missouri was the greatest. For raiding, the best of organization was never needed. Watie, Shelby, Price were all men of the same stamp. Watie was the greatest of Indian raiders and his mere name became almost as much of a terror as Quantrill’s with which it was frequently found associated, rightly or wrongly. Around Fort Smith in July and farther north in August the Indian raided to good effect. Usually, when he raided in the upper part of his own country, Federal
[Footnote 957: Maxey to Boggs, May 11, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. xxxiv, part iii, 820.]
[Footnote 958: For progress reached in reorganization by October, see orders issued by direction of Maxey, Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 1023.]
supply trains were his objective, but not always. The refugees were coming back from Kansas and their new home beginnings were mercilessly preyed upon by their Confederate fellow tribesmen, who felt for the owners a vindictive hatred that knew no relenting.
Watie’s last great raid was another Cabin Creek affair that reversed the failure of two years before. It occurred in September and was undertaken by Watie and Gano together, the former waiving rank in favor of the latter for the time being.[959] A brilliant thing, it was, so Maxey, and Smith’s adjutant after him, reported.[960] The booty taken was great in amount and as much as possible of it utilized on the spot. Maxey regretted that the Choctaws were not on hand also to be fitted out with much-needed clothing.[961] It was in contemplation that Watie should make a raid into Kansas to serve as a diversion, while Price was raiding Missouri.[962] The Kansans had probably much to be thankful for that circumstances hindered his penetrating far, since, at Cabin Creek, some of his men, becoming intoxicated, committed horrible excesses and “slaughtered indiscriminately.”[963]
Had the force at Fort Gibson been at all adequate to the needs of the country it was supposed to defend, such raids as Watie’s would have been an utter impossibility. Thanks to Federal indifference and mismanagement, however, the safety of Indian Territory was
[Footnote 959: Cooper to T.M. Scott, October 1, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. xli, part i, 783; Watie to T.B. Heiston, October 3, 1864, Ibid., 785.]
[Footnote 960:–Ibid., 793, 794. Cooper described it “as brilliant as any one of the war” [Ibid., 783] and Maxey confessed that he had long thought that movements of the raiding kind were the most valuable for his district [Ibid., 777].]
[Footnote 961: Maxey to Boggs, October 9, 1864, Ibid., part iii, 990.]
[Footnote 962: Cooper to Bell, October 6, 1864, Ibid., 982-984.]
[Footnote 963: Curtis Johnson to W.H. Morris, September 20, 1864 [Ibid., part i, 774].]
of less consequence now than it had been before. The incorporation with the Department of Arkansas and the consequent separation from that of Kansas had been anything but a wise move. The relations of the Indian country with the state in which its exiles had found refuge were necessarily of the closest and particularly so at this time when their return from exile was under way and almost over. For reasons not exactly creditable to the government, when all was known, Colonel Phillips had been removed from command at Fort Gibson. At the time of Watie’s raid, Colonel C.W. Adams was the incumbent of the post; but, following it, came Colonel S.H. Wattles[964] and things went rapidly from bad to worse. The grossest corruption prevailed and, in the midst of plenty, there was positive want. Throughout the winter, cattle-driving was indulged in, army men, government agents, and civilians all participating. It was only the ex-refugee that faced starvation. All other folk grew rich. Exploitation had succeeded neglect and Indian Territory presented the spectacle of one of the greatest scandals of the time; but its full story is not for recital here.
Great as Maxey’s services to Indian Territory had been and yet were, he was not without his traducers and Cooper was chief among them, his overweening
[Footnote 964: _Official Records_, vol. xli, part iii, 301. Wattles was not at Fort Gibson a month before he was told to be prepared to move even his Indian Brigade to Fort Smith [Ibid., part iv, 130]. The necessity for executing the order never arose, although all the winter there was talk off and on of abandoning Fort Gibson entirely, sometimes also there was talk of abandoning Fort Smith. So weak had the two places been for a long time that Cooper insisted there was no good reason why the Confederates should not attempt to seize them. It is interesting that Thayer notified Wattles to be prepared to move just when there was the greatest prospect of a Confederate Indian raid into Kansas.]
ambition being still unsatisfied. In November, at a meeting of the general council for the confederated tribes, Maxey spoke[965] in his own defence and spoke eloquently; for his cause was righteous. General Smith was his friend[966] in the sense that he had been Steele’s; but there soon came a time when even the department commander was powerless to defend him further. Early in 1865, Cooper journeyed to Richmond.[967] What he did there can be inferred from the fact that orders were soon issued for him to relieve Maxey.[968] He assumed command of the district he had so long coveted and had sacrificed honor to get, March first,[969] General Smith disapproving of the whole procedure. “The change,” said he, “has not the concurrence of my judgment, and I believe will not result beneficially.”[970]
But Smith was mistaken in his prognostications. The change was not just but it did work beneficially. Cooper knew how to manage the Indians, none better, and the time was fast approaching when they would need managing, if ever. As the absolute certainty of Confederate defeat gradually dawned upon them, they became almost desperate. They had to be handled very carefully lest they break out beyond all restraint.[971]
[Footnote 965: _Official Records_, vol. xli, part iv, 1035-1037; vol. liii, supplement, 1027.]
[Footnote 966: In July, 1864, orders issued from Richmond for the retirement of Maxey and the elevation of Cooper [Ibid., part ii, 1019]; but Smith held them in abeyance [Ibid., part iii, 971]; for he believed that Maxey’s “removal, besides being an injustice to him, would be a misfortune to the department.” The suppression of the orders failed to meet the approval of the authorities at Richmond and some time subsequent to the first of October Smith was informed that the orders were “imperative and must be carried into effect” [Ibid.,].]
[Footnote 967: _Official Records_, vol. xlviii, part i, 1382.]
[Footnote 968:–Ibid., 1403.]
[Footnote 969:–Ibid., 1408.]
[Footnote 970:–Ibid.]
[Footnote 971: The evidence for this is chiefly in Cooper’s own letter book. One published letter is especially valuable in this connection. It is from Cooper (cont.)]
Phillips was again in charge of their northern compatriots[972] and, at Fort Gibson, he, too, was handling Indians carefully. It was in a final desperate sort of a way that a league with the Indians of the Plains was again considered advisable and held for debate at the coming meeting of the general council. To effect it, when decided upon, the services of Albert Pike were solicited.[973] No other could be trusted as he. Apparently he never served or agreed to serve[974] and no alliance was needed; for the war was at an end. On the twenty-sixth of May, General E. Kirby Smith entered into a convention with Major-general E.R.S. Canby, commanding the Military Division of West Mississippi, by which he agreed to surrender the Trans-Mississippi Department and everything appertaining to it.[975] The Indians had made an alliance with the Southern Confederacy in vain. The promises of Pike, of Cooper, and of many another government agent had all come to naught.
[Footnote 971: (cont.) confidentially to Anderson, May 15, 1865. _Official Records_, vol. xlviii, part ii, 1306.]
[Footnote 972: For Phillips’s own account of his reinstallment, see his letter to Herron, January 16, 1865, Ibid., part i, 542-543.]
[Footnote 973: Smith to Pike, April 8, 1864, Ibid., part ii, 1266-1269. It was necessary to have someone else beside Throckmorton, who was a Texan, serve; because the Indians of the Plains had a deep distrust of Texas and of all Texans [Smith to Cooper, April 8, 1864, Ibid., 1270-1271; and Smith to Throckmorton, April 8, 1864, Ibid., 1271-1272].]
[Footnote 974: Smith issued him a commission however. See Ibid., 1266.]
[Footnote 975:–Ibid., 604-606.]
APPENDIX
LITTLE ROCK,[976]
December 30, 1862.
SIR: My letters, in respectful terms, addressed to your Adjutant General, when I re-assumed command of the Indian Country, late in October, have not been fortunate enough to be honored with a reply. This will reach you through another medium, and so that others besides yourself shall know its contents. I am no longer an officer under you, but a private citizen, and _free_, so far as any citizen of Arkansas can call himself free while he lives in this State; and I will see whether you are as impervious to _all_ other considerations, as you are to all sense of courtesy and justice.
You were sent out to Arkansas with certain _positive_ orders, which you were _immediately_ to enforce. You _knew_ that “Gen Hindman never was the commanding General of the Trans. Mississippi Department,” and was not sent there by the War Department; and that, _therefore_ and _of course_, all his orders were illegal, for want of power. You _knew_ that he never had any right to interfere with my command in the Department of Indian Territory, to take away my troops and ordnance, or to send me _any_ orders whatever; and that _therefore_ I was _wholly_ in the right, in all my controversy with him. You _knew_, also, that in stripping the Indian Country of troops, artillery, arms and ammunition, he had been guilty of multiplied outrages, contrary to the will and policy of the President, forbidden by the Secretary of War for the future, and hostile to the interests of the Confederacy.
I had been advised by the Secretary of War, on the 14th of July, before _you_ were unfortunately thought of [in] connection with the Trans. Mississippi Department, that Gen. Magruder was assigned to the command of it; and that although I would be under his command, it was not doubted that my relations with him would be pleasant and harmonious, and that I would have such latitude in command of the Indian country, as might be necessary for me to
[Footnote 976: Scottish Rite Temple, Pike _Papers_.]
act to the best advantage in its defence. And by the same letter I was advised, that it was regretted I had met with so many embarrassments in procuring supplies; and that an order had been issued from the Adjutant and Inspector General’s Office, to prevent the pursuing of such courses as I had complained of, in the seizure of what I had procured; and the Secretary said it was to be hoped that neither I nor any other officer would hereafter have cause to complain of supplies being diverted from their legitimate destination. And that Gen. Magruder might fully understand my position, &c., a copy of my letter of 8th June, to General Hindman, stating in detail the plundering process to which the Indian Service had before then been subjected, was furnished to the former officer. Three several copies of this letter were sent me, that it might be certain to reach me.
I do not repeat the substance of that letter, for _your_ benefit. You have known it, no doubt, ever since you left Richmond. You told me in August, that the War Department was fully informed in regard to the matters between myself and Generals Van Dorn and Hindman. You spoke it in the way of a taunt, and as if the Department justified them and condemned me. You _meant_ me so to understand it. You are a _very_ ingenious person; inasmuch as you _knew_ the exact contrary to be true. When I afterwards received the Secretary’s letter, I remembered your remark, and did not doubt, and do not now doubt, that when you were substituted for Gen. Magruder, you received the same instructions that had been given _him_ and were yourself furnished with a copy of the same letter, for the same purpose.
At all events, you were sent out to put an end to his outrages, and to avert, if you could, the mischiefs about to spring from them. But when you reached Little Rock, you found him there, and you found that the troops, artillery, ammunition and stores that had reached and were on their way there from the Indian Country, under his unrighteous orders, _and which it was your duty to restore to me_, were too valuable to be parted with, if that could be in any way avoided. Probably you foresaw that you might, by and by need to seize money and supplies procured by me. Twenty-six pieces of artillery, a supply of fixed ammunition and other trifles, on hand, with $1,350,000 in money, and over 6,000 suits of clothing in prospect, were the bait Hindman had to tempt you withal; and for it you
sold your soul, as Faust sold his to Mephistopheles. Your Lieutenant became your master; you found it convenient to believe his version of every thing, and to justify him in every thing, and you ended in making all his devilments your own, and adopting the whole infernal spawn and brood, with additions of your own to the family.
You told me in August, that you had been prepared to judge me favorably, until you read my address to the Indians on resigning my command, but after that, you could not judge me fairly. I did not in the least doubt the _fact_; but I did _not_ believe the _reason_. What, moreover, had _you_ to _judge_ in regard to _me_? You were not sent to _judge_ any body. Hindman was the criminal you _were_ to operate upon.
And, if you were sent, or had otherwise any right, to judge _me_, you administered the sort of justice that is in vogue in hell. Before you _saw me, you heard him_. You adopted all his views, and never asked me a question in regard to our controversy, or as to my own action, or the condition of things in the Indian Country. I had been infamously and assiduously slandered, from the moment when I began to resist his illegal, impolitic and outrageous attempts to deprive the Indian Department of every thing, to make it a mere appanage of, and appendix to, North-Western Arkansas, to take the Indians again out of their own country, and to compel me to unite in that insane and miserable “expedition into Missouri,” which was projected and planned by Folly, mis-managed and misconducted by Imbecility and ended, as I knew it would, in disaster and disgrace. Lies of all varieties were ingeniously and laboriously invented at and about Head Quarters, and despatches, by special and _fit_ agents, to be industriously circulated throughout the Indian Country and Texas, as well as Arkansas. The Indians were told that I had carried away into Texas the gold and silver belonging to _them_; while the Texans were made to believe that I was paying _their_ moneys to the Indians. It was reported, in Bonham, Texas, by officers sent from Hindman’s Head Quarters, that I was defaulter to the amount of $125,000 and at last there crawled out from the sewer under the throne, and sneaked about the Indian Country and Texas, the damnable lie, that an Indian had been taken, bearing letters from me to the Northern Indians, or, to the enemy in Kansas; or, as another version had it, from Gen. James H. Lane to me; and
three months ago it was whispered about that I was a member of the secret disloyal organization in Northern Texas. Such lies could have been counted by scores. Most of them are dead and rotten; but some still live, by means of assiduous nursing. And all these lies, and more either you or Hindman sent to the President at Richmond.
I say, sir, you never _inquired_ into _any_ thing. You never wished to _hear_ any thing, whatever from _me_. You disobeyed the orders with which you were sent as a public curse and calamity into Arkansas, as if the State were not already sufficiently infested by Hindman. Is it true that he has lately, upon his single order, and without the ceremony of even a _mock_ trial, caused three men “suspected of disloyalty” to be shot; and that, two of them being proven to him to be true Southern men, he sent a reprieve, which, either setting out too late, or lagging on the way, reached the scene of murder after their blood had bathed the desecrated soil of Arkansas? It has come to me so, from officers direct from Fort Smith. At any rate, he has put to death nine or ten persons, without any legal trial. Who is _he_, that he should do these things in this nineteenth century? And who are _you_, sir, that you should suffer, and by suffering, _approve_ and adopt them? How many _more_ murders will suffice to awaken public vengeance?
Was the Star Chamber any worse than Hindman’s Military Commissions, that are ordered to preserve no records? Were the _Lettres de Cachet_ of Louis XV, any greater outrage on the personal liberty of _French subjects_, than Hindman’s arrests and committal to the Penitentiary of _suspected_ persons? Was Tristan l’Hermite any more the minister of tyranny, than his Provost Marshals? or Caligula, Caesar Borgia or Colonel Kirke any more cruel and remorseless than he, that you have sustained all his acts, and made all his atrocities your own? Take care, sir! You are not so high, that you may not be reached by the arm of justice. The President is above you both, and God is above him, and _sometimes_ interferes in human affairs.
Unless the late Secretary of War, through the President, sent an official falsehood to the Congress of the Confederate States, you were sent to Arkansas with _positive_ and _unconditional_ instructions, that, if Gen. Hindman _had_ declared Martial Law in Arkansas, and adopted oppressive police regulations under it, _you should rescind the_
_declarations of Martial Law, and the Regulations adopted to carry it into effect_. You have not done so. You have not only _not_ rescinded _any_ thing; but you have, by a General Order, long ago, continued in force all orders of General Hindman, not specially revoked by you. That order could have no retroactive effect, to make _his_ orders _to have been valid_ in the _past_. It could only put them in force for the _future_; and you thereby made them _your_ orders, as fully as if you had re-issued them. In so doing, you became the enemy of your country, if not of the Human race, and outlawed yourself.
You have _yourself_ established a tariff of prices exclusively on articles produced by the farmers, including the sweet potatoes raised by old women and superannuated negroes. You leave the Jews and extortioners, some of the former of whom go about in uniforms, claiming to be _officers_ and your agents to charge these same venders of produce, whatever infamous prices they please for wares they need to purchase with the pittances received according to your scale of prices, for the vegetables that supply your and other tables.
You pretend, I learn, that the President gave you discretionary power, in regard to Martial Law, and the Regulations in question. I do not believe it; for, if he did, then he and the Secretary intentionally deceived Congress by the equivalent of a lie. Do you pretend that the President paltered with Congress in a double sense? I put you face to face. Is it _your_ act, in _defiance_ of orders, that continues Martial Law in force in Arkansas, stifles freedom of speech, muzzles the Press, tramples on all the rights at once of the People of that State, and makes the State itself only a congregation of Helots, incompetent to be represented in Congress? Is it merely a contest between you and Phelps, _which_ of the two shall be Military Governor? If it _is_ your act, then justice ought at once to be done upon you, lest the President, winking at the outrage, and not stripping from your back your uniform of Lieutenant General, should deserve to be impeached, as your accomplice.
Or, do you dare assert that it is _his_ act, because he gave you discretionary power on the subject, after informing Congress that Hindman never was Commanding General of the Department, and that you had been ordered to rescind his declaration of Martial Law,–nay, after publicly proclaiming that _no_ General had any power to declare Martial Law? All the Confederacy thanked and applauded
him for so striking at the root of an immense outrage and abuse and an unexpected public course; but if he has authorized or sanctions _your_ course, he is unworthy longer to be President. If he has not, you have defied his orders and justified men in judging yourself authorized and him guilty; and so you are unworthy longer to be General.
When I saw you in August, you were greatly exercised on the subject of my printed address to the Indians, publication of which in Little Rock you had suppressed, _as if it could do any harm in Arkansas_. You suppressed it, because it exposed those whose acts were losing the Indian Country. You wanted to keep what had been taken from _me_, and to escape damnation for the probable _consequences_ of the acts, the _profit_ of which you were reluctant to part with. I do not wonder the letter troubled you; for it told _the truth_, and condemned and denounced in advance _more_ unjustifiable courses of conduct that you were about to pursue.
You pretended that it had produced a great “ferment” among the Indians; and that even many of the Chickasaws had in consequence of it, left the service. It had produced _no_ ferment, and _none_ of the Chickasaws had left us. On the contrary, the Indians were quieted by it, the Creeks re-organized, in numbers, two regiments, and the Chickasaws five companies. That was its purpose, and such was its effect.
But to _you_, its enormity consisted in its exposure of the conduct of two Major Generals. I told the Indians _plainly_, that it was not _my_ fault or the fault of the Government, but of these two Generals, that moneys, clothing, arms and ammunition, procured for them, had not reached them; that troops raised for service among them had never entered their country; and that, finally, troops, artillery and ammunition were carried out of it. This censure of my _superiors_, in vindication of the President and Government, shocked your tender sensibilities. You were ready to follow in their footsteps, and already _had_ the plunder; and you told me that “the act of the officer was the act of the Government.” Did you really _mean_, that the Indians should have been led or left to suppose that these acts were the acts of the Government? That would have been _almost_ as great an infamy, as it was to _take_ the supplies, and so give them cause and reason to believe the robbery the act of the Government, _and thus excite them to revolt_. Moreover, when I told you that the act of
the officer was _not_, in the case in question, the act of the Government; that, if I had permitted the Indians to suppose so, they would long have left us; and that, to quiet them, I had been compelled, for three months and more than a hundred times, to explain to them what had become of their supplies, and how and by whom they have been seized, you admitted that “that was right for local explanation.” As there could be no objection to telling all, what I had often told part, that _they_ might tell the rest; and as it was no more a crime to _print_ than to _say_ it; I have the right to believe and I _do_ believe that your _real_ objection to its publication was that it exposed _to our own people the actual_ conduct of other Generals, and the _intended_ conduct of yourself. Have _you_ left the Indians to believe that the late seizure and appropriation, by _yourself_, of their clothing and moneys, is the act of the Government? If you have, you ought to be shot as a Traitor, for provoking them to revolt, and giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
But you told me, that when you first read my letter, you held up your hands, and exclaimed, “What! is the man a Traitor?” And you said that not one of my friends in Little Rock, and I had, you said, a great many, pretended to justify the letter. You have never found a friend of mine, or an indifferent person, silly enough to think, like you, that it savored of treason. It is only rarely one meets a man so scantily furnished with sense as to misunderstand and pervert what is written in plain English. I was vindicating myself, and still more the Government, and persuading the Indians to remain loyal, notwithstanding the wrongs they had endured. I, too, was an officer; and _my_ acts _had_ been the acts of the Government. _My_ promises to them were _its_ promises. The procuring of supplies by _me_, was _its_ act; and when, reaching or not reaching the frontier, the supplies were like the unlucky traveler, who journeyed from Jerusalem to Jericho, _then_ the Government _ceased_ to act, and unlicensed outrage took its place. And, further, _my_ act was the act of the Government, when I told the Indians _why_ they had not received their supplies and money, and vindicated that Government at the expense of those who were guilty of the act; and who having done it and reaped the profit, should not be heard to object that all the world should know what they did, nor be allowed to escape the responsibility of _all_ the consequences.
If to tell the Indians that other Generals had wrongfully stopped
their supplies, in any degree _resembled_ Treason, that could only be so, because it _was_ treason to _do_ the act. It cannot be wrong to make known what it was right and proper to do. The truth is, that the acts done were outrages, which it was desirable for the doers to conceal from the Indians. I refused to become a party to those outrages, by concealing them. I would not agree in advance to be _silent_, when _you_ should repeat and improve on those outrages, and consummate what had been so felicitously begun.
I do not doubt that there are assassins wearing uniforms, who are knaves enough to _pretend_ to read my letter as you do, and to see in it the desire of a disappointed man to be revenged, even by the ruin of his country. Power always has its pimps and catamites. These would no doubt gladly have made my letter the means of murdering me by that devilish engine of Military despotism, a Military commission, that is _ordered_ to preserve no records. You, I think really look upon it with alarm. It is, no doubt, _very_ desirable to _you_, that the blame of losing the Indian Country, which, if not already a fact accomplished, is a fact inevitable, should be made to fall upon me. You, as the pliant and useful implement of Gen. Hindman, are the cause of this loss; and you know I can prove it. You and he have left nothing _undone_, that _could_ be done, to lose it. And you may rest assured, that whether I live or die, you shall not escape one jot or tittle of the deep damnation to which you are richly entitled for causing a loss so irretrievable, so astounding, so unnecessary and so _fatal_, and one which it will be impossible to excuse as owing to ignorance and stupidity. No degree of _these_ misfortunes, can be pleaded in bar of judgment. _You_ will have _forced_ the Indians to go to the North for protection. _You_ will have _given away_ their country to the enemy. _You_ will have turned their arms against us. You will have done this by disobeying the orders of your Government, continuing the courses it condemned, and to put an end to which it sent you out here; by falsifying its pledges and promises, taking for others’ uses the moneys which it sent out to pay the Indians, robbing them of the clothing sent by it to cover their nakedness, and thus thrusting aside all the considerations of common honesty, of justice, of humanity, and even of policy, expediency and common sense.
When Mr. C.B. Johnson agreed, in September to loan your Quartermaster at Little Rock, $350,000 of the money he was
conveying to Major Quesenbury, the Quartermaster of the Department of Indian Territory, _you promised_ him that it should be repaid to Major Quesenbury as soon as you should receive funds, and before he would have disposed of the remaining million. _You got the money by means of that promise; and you did not keep the promise_. On the contrary, by an order that reached Fort Smith three hours before Mr. Johnson did, you compelled Major Quesenbury, the moment he received the money, to turn every dollar of it, over to a _Commissary_ at Fort Smith; _and it was used to supply the needs of Gen. Hindman’s troops_; when the Seminoles, fourteen months in the service have never been paid a dollar; and the Chickasaw and Choctaw Battalion, and Chilly McIntosh’s Creeks, each corps a year and more in the service, have received only $45,000 each, and no clothing. Was this violation of your promise, the act of the Government?
To replace the clothing I had procured for the Indians in December, 1861, and which, with near 1,000 tents, fell into the hands of the troops of Generals Price and Van Dorn, I sent an agent, in June, to Richmond, who went to Georgia, and there procured some 6,500 suits, with about 3,000 shirts and 3,000 pairs of drawers, and some two or three hundred tents. These supplies were at Monroe early in September; and the Indians were informed that they and the moneys had been procured and were on the way. The good news went all over their country, as if on the wings of the wind; and universal content and rejoicing were the consequences.
The clothing reached Fort Smith; and its issue to Gen. Hindman’s people commenced immediately. I sent a Quartermaster for it and he was retained there. If _any_ of it has ever reached the Indians, it has been only recently, and but a small portion of it.
You pretend to believe that the Indians were in a “ferment” and discontented; and you took this very opportune occasion to stop all the moneys due their troops and for debts in their country and take and appropriate to the use of other troops the clothing promised to and procured for _them_. The clothing and the money were _theirs_; and you were in possession of an order from the War Department, forbidding you to divert any supplies from their legitimate destination; an order which was issued, _as you knew_, in consequence of _my_ complaints, and to prevent moneys and supplies for the _Indians_ being stopped: _and yet you stopped all_.
You borrow part of the money, and then seize the rest, like a _genteel_ highwayman, who first borrows all he can of a traveler, on promise of punctual re-payment; and then claps a pistol to his head, and orders him to “stand and deliver” the rest. And you did even more than this.
For you promised the Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs, when he was at Little Rock, about the 1st of October, on his way to the Indian Country, to give the Indians assurances of the good faith of the Government–_you promised him_, I say, _that the clothing in question should go to the Indians_. He told the Chickasaws and Seminoles, at least, of this promise. You broke it. You did _not_ send them the clothing. You placed the Commissioner and the Government in an admirable attitude before the Indians; and the consequence has been, I understand, the disbanding of the Chickasaws, and the failure of the Seminole troops to re-organize. The consequence will be far more serious yet. Indians cannot be deceived, and promises made them shamelessly broken, with impunity.
While _you_ were thus stopping their clothing, and robbing the half-naked Indians to clothe other troops, the Federals were sending home the Choctaws whom they had taken prisoners, after clothing them comfortably and putting money in their pockets. No one need be astonished, when _all_ the Indians shall have turned their arms against us.
Why did you and Gen. Hindman not procure by your own exertions what you need for your troops? He reached Little Rock on the 31st of May. You came here in August. I sent my agents to Richmond, for money and clothing, in June and July. I never asked either of _you_ for _any_ thing. I could procure for _my_ command all I wanted. You and he were Major Generals; I, only a Brigadier; and Brigadiers are plenty as blackberries in season. It is to be supposed that if I could procure money, clothing and supplies for _Indians_, you and he could do so for white troops. Both of you come blundering out to Arkansas with nothing, and supply yourselves with what _I_ procure. Some officers would be ashamed _so_ to supply deficiencies caused by their own want of foresight, energy or sense.
_You_ do not even know you need an Engineer, until one of mine comes by, with $20,000 in his hands for Engineer Service in the
Indian Territory, some of which belongs to _me_ for advances made, and with stationery and instruments procured by _me_, for _my_ Department, in Richmond, a year ago; and _then_ you find out that there are such things as Engineers, and that you need one; and you seize on Engineer, money, and stationery. You even take, notwithstanding Paragraph VI, of General Orders No. 50, the stationery procured by me for the Adjutant General’s Office of my Department, by purchase in Richmond in December, 1861; for the want of which I had been compelled to permit my own private stock to be used for months.
I no longer wonder that you do these things. When you told me that you could not judge me fairly, because I told the Indians that others had done them injustice, you confessed much more than you intended. It was a pregnant sentence you uttered. By it you judged and convicted yourself, and pronounced _your own sentence_, when you uttered _it_.
The Federal authorities were proposing to the Indians _at the very time when you stopped their clothing and money_, that, if they would return to the old Union, they should not be asked to take up arms, their annuities should be paid them in money, the negroes taken from them be restored, all losses and damage sustained by them be paid for, and they be allowed to retain, as so much clear profit, what had been paid them by the Confederate States. It was a liberal offer and a great temptation, to come at the moment when you and Hindman were felicitously completing your operations, and when there were no breadstuffs in their country, and they and their women and children were starving and half-naked. You chose an admirable opportunity to rob, to disappoint, to outrage and exasperate them, and make your own Government fraudulent and contemptible in their eyes. If any human action _can_ deserve it, the hounds of hell ought to hunt your soul and Hindman’s for it through all eternity.
Instead of co-operating with the Federal authorities, and doing all that he and you _could_ do to induce the Indians to listen to and accept their propositions, _he_ had better have expelled the enemy from Arkansas or “have perished in the attempt;” and you had better have marched on Helena, before its fortifications were finished, and purged the eastern part of the State of the enemy’s presence. If you had succeeded as admirably in that, as you have in losing
the Indian Country, you would have merited the eternal gratitude of Arkansas, instead of its execrations; and the laurel, instead of a halter. I said that you and your Lieutenant had left _nothing_ undone. I repeat it. Take another _small_ example. Until I left the command, at the end of July, the Indian troops had regularly had their half rations of coffee. As soon as I was got rid of, an order from Gen. Hindman took all the remaining coffee, some 3,000 lbs., to Fort Smith. Even in this small matter, he could not forego an opportunity of injuring and disappointing them.
You asked me, in August, what was the need of any white troops at all, in the Indian Country; and you said that the few mounted troops, I had, if kept in the Northern part of the Cherokee Country, would have been enough to repel any Federal force that ever would have entered it. As you and Hindman never allowed any ammunition procured by me, to reach the Indian Country, if you could prevent it, whether I obtained it at Richmond or Corinth, or in Texas, and as you approve of his course in taking out of that country all that was to be found in it, I am entitled to suppose that you regarded ammunition for the Indians as little necessary, as troops to protect them in conformity to the pledge of honor of the Government. One thing, however, is to be said to the credit of your next in command. When he has ordered anything to be seized, he has never denied having done so, or tried to cast responsibility on an inferior. After you had written to me that you had ordered Col. Darnell to seize, at Dallas, Texas, ammunition furnished by me, you denied to him, I understand, that you had given the order. Is it so? and _did_ he refuse to trust the order in your hands, or even to let you see it, but would show it to Gen. McCulloch?
Probably you know by this time, if you are capable of learning _any_ thing, whether any white troops are needed in the Indian Country. The brilliant result of Gen. Hindman’s profound calculations and masterly strategy, and of his long-contemplated invasion of Missouri, is before the country; and the disgraceful rout at Fort Wayne, with the manoeuvres and results on the Arkansas, are pregnant commentaries on the abuse lavished on me, for not taking “the line of the Arkansas,” or making Head Quarters on Spring River, with a force too small to effect any thing any where.
I have not spoken of your Martial Law and Provost Marshals
in the Indian Country, and your seizure of salt-works there, or, in detail, of your seizure of ammunition procured by me in Texas, and on its way to the Indian troops, of the withdrawal of all white troops and artillery from their country, of the retention for other troops of the mountain howitzers procured by me for Col. Waitie, and the ammunition sent me, for them and for small arms, from Richmond. This letter is but a part of the indictment I will prefer bye and bye, when the laws are no longer silent, and the constitution and even public opinion no longer lie paralyzed under the brutal heel of Military Power; and when the results of your _im_policy and _mis_management shall have been fully developed.
But I have a word or two to say as to myself. From the time when I entered the Indian Country, in May, 1861, to make Treaties, until the beginning of June, 1862, when Gen. Hindman, in the plentitude of his self-conceit and folly, assumed absolute control of the Military and other affairs of the Department of Indian Territory, and commenced plundering it of troops, artillery and ammunition, dictating Military operations, and making the Indian country an appanage of Northwestern Arkansas, there was profound peace throughout its whole extent. Even with the wild Camanches and Kiowas, I had secured friendly relations. An unarmed man could travel in safety and alone, from Kansas to Red River, and from the Arkansas line to the Wichita Mountains. The Texan frontier had not been as perfectly undisturbed for years. We had fifty-five hundred Indians in service, under arms, and they were as loyal as our own people, little as had been done by any one save myself to keep them so, and much as had been done by others to alienate them. They referred all their difficulties to me for decision, and looked to me alone to see justice done them and the faith of Treaties preserved.
Most of the time without moneys (those sent out to that Department generally failing to reach it) I had managed to keep the white and Indian troops better fed than any other portion of the troops of the Confederacy any where. I had 26 pieces of artillery, two of the batteries as perfectly equipped and well manned as any, any where. I had on hand and on the way, an ample supply of ammunition, after being once plundered. While in command, _I had procured, first and last_, 36,000 pounds of rifle and cannon powder. If you would like to know, sir, how I effected this, in the face
of all manner of discouragements and difficulties, it is no secret. My disbursing officers can tell you who supplied them with funds for many weeks, and whose means purchased horses for the artillery. Ask the Chickasaws and Seminoles who purchased the only shoes they had received–four hundred pairs, at five dollars each, procured and paid for by _me_, in Bonham, and which I sent up to them after I was taken “in personal custody” in November.
_You_ dare pretend, sir, that _I_ might be disloyal, or even in thought couple the word Treason with _my_ name. What _peculiar_ merit is it in _you_ to serve on our side in this war? You were bred a soldier, and your only chance for distinction lay in obtaining promotion in the army, and in the army of the Confederacy. You _were_ Major, or something of the sort, in the old army, and you _are_ a Lieutenant General. Your reward I think, for what you have done or not done, is sufficient.
I was a private citizen, over fifty years of age, and neither needing nor desiring military rank or civil honors. I accepted the office of Commissioner, at the President’s _solicitation_. I took that of Brigadier General, with all the odium that I knew would follow it, and fall on me as the Leader of a force of Indians, knowing there would be little glory to be reaped, and wanting no promotion, simply and solely to see _my_ pledges to the Indians carried out, to keep them loyal to us, to save their country to the Confederacy, and to preserve the Western frontier of Arkansas and the Northern frontier of Texas from devastation and desolation.
What has been my _reward_? All my efforts have been rendered nugatory, and my attempts even to _collect_ and _form_ an army frustrated, by the continual plundering of my supplies and means by other Generals, and your and their deliberate efforts to disgust and alienate the Indians. Once before this, an armed force was sent to arrest me. You all disobeyed the President’s orders, and treated me as a criminal for endeavoring to have them carried out. The whole country swarms with slanders against me; and at last, because I felt constrained reluctantly to re-assume command, after learning that the President would not accept my resignation, I am taken from Tishomingo to Washington, a prisoner, under an armed guard, it having been deemed necessary, for the sake of effect, to send two hundred and fifty men into the Indian Country to arrest me. _The Senatorial election was at hand_.
I had, unaided and alone, _secured_ to the Confederacy a magnificent country, equal in extent, fertility, beauty and resources to any of our States–nay, superior to any. I had secured the means, in men and arms, of keeping it. I knew how only it could be defended. I asked no aid of any of you. I only asked to be let alone. Verily, I have my reward also, as Hastings had his, for winning India for the British Empire.
It is _your_ day _now_. You sit above the laws and domineer over the constitution. “Order reigns in Warsaw.” But bye and bye, there will be a _just_ jury empannelled, who will hear _all_ the testimony and decide impartially–no less a jury than the People of the Confederate States; and for their verdict as to myself, I and my children will be content to wait; as also for the sure and stern sentence and universal malediction, that will fall like a great wave of God’s just anger on you and the murderous miscreant by whose malign promptings you are making yourself accursed.
Whether I am respectfully yours, you will be able to determine from the contents of this letter.
ALBERT PIKE, _Citizen of Arkansas_.
THEOPHILUS H. HOLMES, Major General &c.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SOURCES.
ABEL, ANNIE HELOISE, editor. The official correspondence of James S. Calhoun (Washington, D.C., 1915).
AMERICAN ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA, 1861-1865 (New York).
BISHOP, ALBERT WEBB. Loyalty on the frontier, or sketches of union men of the southwest (St. Louis, 1863).
CENTRAL SUPERINTENDENCY RECORDS. The Central Superintendency, embracing much of the territory included in the old St. Louis Superintendency, was established in 1851 under an act of congress, approved February 27 of that year.[977] Its headquarters were at St. Louis from the date of its founding to 1859,[978] at St. Joseph from that time to July, 1865,[979] at Atchison, from July, 1865 to 1869,[980] and at Lawrence, from 1869 to 1878.
In February of 1878, J.H. Hammond, who was then in charge of the superintendency, reported upon its records to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.[981] He spoke of the existence of “eight cases containing _Books, Records, Papers_,” and he enclosed with his report schedules of the contents of certain boxes labelled A,B,C,D,E,F,H,L. Of Box A, the schedule appertaining gave this information: “Old Records, Files, Memoranda, etc., Miscellaneous Papers accumulated prior to 1869, when Enoch Hoag became Sup’tCent.Sup’tcy.” More particularly, Box A contained “One Bundle Old Treaties of various years, three (bundles) of Agency Accounts,” and, for the period of 1830-1833, it contained “One Bundle Ancient Maps,” and one of “Old Bills and Papers.”
The collection as a whole, undoubtedly sent into the United States Indian Office as Hammond reported upon it, has long since been irretrievably broken up and its parts distributed. Knowing this the
[Footnote 977: 9 _United States Statutes at Large_, p. 586, sec. 2; Indian Office _Letter Book_, no. 44, p. 259.]
[Footnote 978: Greenwood to Robinson, November 21, 1859, Ibid., no. 62, p. 272.]
[Footnote 979: Dole to Murphy, June 23, 1865, Ibid., no. 77, p. 341.]
[Footnote 980: Parker to Hoag, May 26, 1869, Ibid., no. 90, p. 202.]
[Footnote 981: Dr. William Nicholson, who succeeded Enoch Hoag as superintendent, was ordered to deliver the records to Hammond [Hoyt to Nicholson, telegram, January 15, 1878, Office of Indian Affairs, _Correspondence of the Civilization Division_]. Hammond forwarded the records to Washington, D.C., February 11, 1878.]
investigator is fain to deplore the advent of “efficiency” methods into the government service. Such efficiency, when interpreted by the ordinary clerk, has ever meant confusion where once was order and a dislocation that can never be made good. From the break-up, in the instance under consideration, the following books have been recovered:
Letter Book, July 25, 1853 to May 10, 1861. ” November 1, 1859 to February 5, 1863. ” February, 1863.
” “Letters to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,” May 23, 1855 to October 31, 1859.
” “Letters to Commissioner,” “Records,” February 14, 1863 to June 6, 1868.
” “District of Nebraska, Letters to Commissioner,” June 6, 1868 to April 10, 1871.
” April 12, 1871 to February 21, 1874. ” “Letters to Commissioner,” February 21, 1874 to October 22, 1875.
” “Letters to Commissioner,” October 25, 1875 to January 31, 1876.
” “Letters to Agents,” October 4, 1858 to December 12, 1867. ” “Letters Sent to Agents, District of Nebraska,” December 12, 1867 to August 22, 1871.
Account Book of Central Superintendency, being Abstract of Disbursements, 1853 to 1865.
CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA. “Jefferson Davis Papers.”
These papers, miscellaneous in character and now located in the Archives Division of the Adjutant General’s Office of the United States War Department, seem to have belonged personally to President Davis or to have been retained by him. Among them is Albert Pike’s Report of the Indian negotiations conducted by him in 1861.
—- Journal of the Congress, 1861-1865.
United States Senate _Executive Documents_, 58th congress, second session, no. 234.
Private Laws of the Confederate States of America, First Congress (Richmond, 1862).
Private Laws of the Confederate States of America, Second Congress (Richmond, 1864).
Provisional and Permanent Constitutions of the Confederate States and Acts and Resolutions of the First Session of the Provisional Congress (Richmond, 1861).
Public Laws of the Confederate States of America, 1863-1864 (Richmond, 1864).
Statutes at Large of the Confederate States of America, First Congress, edited by J.M. Matthews (Richmond, 1862).
Statutes at Large of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America from February 8, 1861 to February 18, 1862, together with the Constitution for the Provisional Government and the Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States, and the
Treaties Concluded by the Confederate States with the Indian Tribes, edited by J.M. Matthews (Richmond, 1864).
Statutes at Large of the Confederate States, commencing First Session of the First Congress and including First Session of the Second Congress, edited by J.M. Matthews (Richmond, 1864).
Statutes at Large of the Confederate States of America, Second Congress (Richmond, 1864).
CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA. Papers of the Adjutant and Inspector General’s Office.
Special Orders (Richmond, 1862).
General Orders, January, 1862 to December, 1863 (Columbia, 1863).
General Orders for 1863 (Richmond, 1864).
Special Orders (Richmond, 1864).
General Orders, January 1, to June 30, 1864, compiled by R.C. Gilchrist (Columbia, 1864).
—- “Pickett Papers.”
State papers of the Southern Confederacy now lodged in the Library of Congress. Had Pike continued to prosecute his mission under the auspices of the State Department, these papers would undoubtedly have contained much of value for the present work, but as it is they yield only an occasional document and that of very incidental importance. The papers used were found in packages 81, 86, 88, 93, 95, 106, 107, 109, 113, 118. The “Pickett Papers” were originally in the hands of Secretary Benjamin. After coming into the possession of the United States government, they were at first confided to the care of the Treasury Department and were handed over later, by direction of the president, to the Library of Congress. The fact of their being in the charge of the Treasury Department explains the circumstance of its possession of the original treaty made by Pike with the Comanches, and the fact that that manuscript turned up long after the main body of “Pickett Papers” had been transferred to the Congressional Library suggests the possibility that detached Confederate records may yet repose in the recesses of the Treasury archives. Between the dates of their consignment and their transfer, they must have become to some degree disintegrated. The War Department borrowed some of the Pickett Papers for inclusion in the _Official Records of the War of the Rebellion_.
—- Records, or Archives.
Among these, which are to-day in the War Department in charge of the Chief Clerk of the Adjutant-general’s Office, are the following:
Chap. 2, no. 258, Letter Book, Brig. Gen. D.H. Cooper, C.S.A., Ex officio Indian Agent, etc., May 10-27, 1865 (File Mark, W. 236).
It is a mere fragment. Its wrapper bears the following endorsement: War Department, Archive Office, Chap. 2, No. 258.
Chap. 2, no. 270, Letter Book, Col. and Brig. Gen. Win. Steele’s command.
The contents are,
a. A few letters dealing with Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, March to July, 1862, pp. 7-22. These letters emanated from the
authority of William Steele, Colonel of the Seventh Regiment of Texas Mounted Volunteers.
b. Letters dealing with matters in the Department of Indian Territory, January 8, 1863 to May 18, 1863, pp. 27-254. Pages 1-6, 23-26, and 47 and 48 are missing.
The list of the whole, as given, is,
Letters Sent–Col. and Brig. Gen. Wm. Steele’s command–Mch. 7, 1862 to May 18, 1863, viz.,
1. 7th Regt Texas M. Vols. Mch. 7 to June 20/62
2. Dept. New Mexico, June 24/62
3. Forces of Arizona, July 12, 1862.
4. Dept of Indian Territory, Jan. 8-12, 1863
5. 1st Div. 1st. Corps Trans-Miss. Dept., Jan. 13-20, 1863.
6. Dept. of Indian Territory, Jan. 21 to May 18, 1863.
Chap. 2, no. 268, Letters Sent, Department of Indian Territory, from May 19, 1863 to September 27, 1863.
This is another William Steele letter book, but is not quite complete. In point of time covered, it succeeds no. 270 and is itself succeeded by no. 267.
Chap. 2, no. 267, Letters Sent, September 28, 1863 to June 17, 1864.
Pages 3 to 6, inclusive, are missing and there are no letters after page 119.
Chap. 2, no. 259, Inspector General’s Letters and Reports, from April 23, 1864, to May 15, 1865.
The cover has this as title: Letter Book A: Insp’t Gen’l’s Office–Dis’t of Indian Ter’y From April 23rd, 1864 to May 15, 1865. On the inside of the front cover, appears this in pencil: “Received from Gen’l M.J. Wright, Oct. 16/79.” Some pages at the beginning of the book have been cut out. Between pages 145 and 196, are reports, variously signed, some by E.E. Portlock, some by N.W. Battle, and some by James Patteson.
Chap. 2, no. 260, District of the Indian Territory, Inspector General’s Letter Book, April 23, 1864 to January 7, 1865.
“Received from Gen’l M.J. Wright, Oct. 16/79.” From a comparison of nos. 259 and 260, it is seen that no. 259 is a rough letter and report book and that no. 260 is a finished product. The 1864 material in no. 259 is duplicated by that in no. 260.
Chap. 7, no. 36. Indian Treaties.
Chap. 7, no. 48. Regulations adopted by the War Department, on the 15th of April 1862, for carrying into effect the Acts of Congress of the Confederate States, Relating to Indian Affairs, etc. (Richmond, 1862).
On page 1, is to be found, “Regulations for Carrying into effect, the Act of Congress of the Confederate States, approved May 21, 1861, entitled An Act for the protection of certain Indian Tribes, and of other Acts relating to Indian Affairs.”
FORT SMITH PAPERS. See Abel, _The American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist_, p. 361.
GREELEY, HORACE. The American conflict (Hartford, 1864-1867), 2 vols.
INDIAN BRIGADE, Inspection Reports of, for 1864 and 1865. These were loaned for perusal by Luke F. Parsons, who was brigade inspector under Colonel William A. Phillips.
KAPPLER, CHARLES J., compiler and editor. Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties. United States Senate Documents, 58th congress, second session, no. 319, 2 vols. Supplementary volume, United States Senate Documents, 62nd congress, second session, no. 719.
LEEPER PAPERS. See Abel, _The American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist_, pp. 360, 362.
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM. Complete Works, edited by John G. Nicolay and John Hay (New York, 1890), 10 vols.
MCPHERSON, EDWARD. Political History of the United States of America during the Great Rebellion (Washington, D.C., 1864).
MISSIONARY HERALD, containing the proceeding of the American Board for Foreign Missions (Boston), vols. 56, 57, 60.
MOORE, FRANK, editor. Rebellion Record: Diary of American Events (New York, 1868), 11 vols. and a supplementary volume for 1861-1864.
PHILLIPS, WILLIAM ADDISON. Conquest of Kansas by Missouri and her allies (Boston, 1856).
“PIKE PAPERS.” On subjects other than Indian, extant manuscripts written and received by Albert Pike are exceedingly numerous. One collection of his personal papers is in the possession of Mr. Fred Allsopp of Little Rock; but the largest proportion of those of more general interest, as also of more special, is in the Scottish Rite Temple, Washington, D.C., under the care of Mr. W.L. Boyden. Three things only deserve particular mention; viz.,
a. Autobiography of General Albert Pike. A bound typewritten manuscript, “from stenographic notes, furnished by himself.”
b. Confederate States, a/c’s with. These papers are in a small file-box and are chiefly receipts from John Crawford, Matthew Leefer, Douglas H. Cooper, John Jumper, and
others for money advanced to them and vouchers for purchases made by Pike. There are three personal letters in the box: D.H. Cooper to Pike, July 28, 1873; William Quesenbury to Pike, August 10, 1873; William Quesenbury to Pike, August 11, 1873. All three letters have to do with a certain $5000 seemingly unaccounted for, a subject in controversy between Pike and Cooper, reflecting upon the latter’s integrity. One of the papers is an itemized account of the money Pike expended for the Indians, money “placed in his hands to be disbursed among the Indian Tribes under Treaty stipulations in January, A.D. 1862.” It contains an enclosure, the receipt signed by Edward Cross, depositary, showing that Pike restored to the Confederate Treasury the unexpended balance, $19,263 10/100 specie, $49,980 55/100, treasury notes. The receipt is dated Little Rock, March 13, 1863.
c. Choctaw Case. Two packages of papers come under this heading. One is of manuscript matter mainly, the other of printed matter solely. In the latter is the _Memorial of P.P. Pitchlynn_, House Miscellaneous Documents, no. 89, 43d congress, first session, and on it Pike has inscribed, “Written by me, Albert Pike.”
RICHARDSON, JAMES D., editor. Compilation of the messages and papers of the Confederacy, including the diplomatic correspondence (Nashville, 1905), 2 vols.
—- Compilation of the messages and papers of the presidents, 1789-1897 (Washington, 1896-1899), 10 vols.
United States of America. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Reports_, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865.
—- Congressional Globe, 37th and 38th congresses, 1861-1865.
—- Department of the Interior, Files.
The files run in two distinct series. One series has its material arranged in boxes, the other, in bundles. The former comprises letters from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs only, and has been examined to the extent here given,
No. 9, January 1, 1861 to December 1, 1861. ” 10, December 1, 1861 to November 1, 1862. ” 11, November 1, 1862 to July 1, 1863. ” 12, July 1, 1863 to June 15, 1864.
” 13, June 15, 1864 to April 1, 1865.
The latter were difficult of discovery. After an exhausting search, however, they were located on a top-most shelf, under the roof, in the file-room off from the gallery in the Patent Office building. The bundles are small and each is bandaged as were the Indian Office files, originally. The bandage, or wrapper, is labelled according to the contents. For example, one bundle is labelled, “No. 1, 1849-1864, War;” another, “No. 24, 1852-1868, Exec.” In the first are letters from the War Department, in the second, from the White House. Some of the letters are from a
given department by reference only. A great number of the bundles have nothing but a number to distinguish them,
No. 53, January to June, 1865.
” 54, July to August, 1865.
” 55, September to December, 1865. ” 56, January to December, 1866.
United States of America. Department of the Interior, Letter Books, “Records of Letters Sent.”
No. 3, July 22, 1857 to January 3, 1862. ” 4, January 3, 1862 to June 30, 1864. ” 5. July 1, 1864 to December 12, 1865. ” 6, December 14, 1865 to September 22, 1865.
—- Department of the Interior, Letter Press Books, “Letters, Indian Affairs.”
No. 3, August 20, 1858 to March 5, 1862. ” 4, March 5, 1862 to July 1, 1863.
” 5. July 1, 1863 to June 22, 1864. ” 6, June 22, 1864 to April 11, 1865.
Department of the Interior, Register Books, “Register of Letters Received,” Corresponding to the two series of files, are two series of registers. One series is a register of letters received from the Indian Office and each volume is labelled “Commissioner of Indian Affairs.” The particular volume used for the present work covers the period from December 5, 1860 to January 6, 1866. It will be found cited as “D,” that being a designation given to it by Mr. Rapp, the person at present in charge of the records. The second series is a register of letters received from persons other than the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Each volume is labelled, “Indians.”
“Indians,” No. 3, January 8, 1856 to October 27, 1861. ” 4, January 2, 1862 to December 27, 1865.
—- Office of Indian Affairs, Consolidated Files. During the last few years and since the time when most of this investigation was made, the various files of the Indian Office have been consolidated and, in many cases, hopelessly muddled. It has been thought best to refer in the text, wherever possible, to the old separate files, inasmuch as all letter books and registers were kept with the separate filing in view.
—- Office of Indian Affairs,
General Files.
Central Superintendency, boxes 1860-1862, 1863-1868; Southern Superintendency, boxes 1859-1862, 1863-1864, 1865, 1866; Cherokee, 1859-1865, 1865-1867, 1867-1869, 1869-1870; Chickasaw, 1854-1868; Choctaw, 1859-1866; Creek, 1860-1869; Delaware, 1855-1861, 1862-1866; Kansas, 1855-1862, 1863-1868; Kickapoo, 1855-1865; Kiowa, 1864-1868; Miscellaneous, 1858-1863, 1864-1867, 1868-1869; Osage River, 1855-1862, 1863-1867;
Otoe, 1856-1862, 1863-1869; Ottawa, 1863-1872; Pottawatomie, 1855-1861, 1862-1865; Sac and Fox, 1862-1866; Seminole, 1858-1869; Wichita, 1860-1861, 1862-1871.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Office of Indian Affairs, Irregularly-Shaped Papers.
This was a collection made for the convenience of the Indian Office.
The name itself is a sufficient explanation.
—- Office of Indian Affairs, John Ross Papers.
These were evidently part of the evidence furnished at the Fort Smith Council, 1865.
—- Office of Indian Affairs, Land Files.
Central Superintendency, box 10, 1852-1869; Southern Superintendency, 1855-1870; Cherokee, box 21, 1850-1869; Choctaw, box 38, 1846-1873; Creek, box 45, 1846-1873; Dead Letters, box 51; Freedmen in Indian Territory, 2 boxes; Indian Talks, Councils, &c., box 3, 1856-1864, box 4, 1865-1866; Kansas, box 80, 1863-1865; Kickapoo, box 86, 1857-1868; Miscellaneous, box 103, 1860-1870; Neosho, box 117, 1833-1865; New York, box 130, 1860-1874; Osage, box 143, 1831-1873; Osage River, box 146, 1860-1866; Shawnee, box 190, 1860-1865; Special Cases, box 111, “Invasion of Indian Territory by White Settlers;” Treaties, box 2, 1853-1863, box 3, 1864-1866.
—- Office of Indian Affairs, Special Files.
No. 87, “Claims of Loyal Seminoles.” ” 106, “Claims of Delawares for Depredations, 1863.” ” 134, “Claims of Choctaws and Chickasaws.”