[Footnote 507: Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862. The same assurance had apparently been given to Pike in May [Official Records, vol. xiii, 863].]

arrangements for the Trans-Mississippi Department or District, whichever it may have been at the period, were intended to militate against that fundamental fact.[508]

Despairing of accomplishing anything by lingering longer in Little Rock, Pike applied to Holmes for a leave of absence and was granted it for such time as might have to elapse before action upon his resignation could be secured.[509] The circumstance of Hindman's having relieved Pike from duty was thus ignored or passed over in silence. General Pike had come to Little Rock to see his family[510] but he now decided upon a visit to Texas. Exactly what he expected to do there nobody knows; but he undoubtedly had at heart the interests of his department. He went to Warren first and later to Grayson County. At the latter place, he made Sherman his private headquarters and it was from there that he subsequently found it convenient to pass over again into Indian Territory.

Pike was in Arkansas as late as the nineteenth of August and probably still there when Randolph's letter of the fourteenth of July, much delayed, arrived.[511] If angry before, he was now incensed; for he knew for a certainty at last that Hindman had been a sort of usurper in the Trans-Mississippi District and, with power emanating from no one higher than Beauregard, had never legally possessed a flicker of authority for doing the many insulting things that he had arrogantly done to him.[512] Next, from some source, came the

[Footnote 508: Official Records, vol. xiii, 861, 864, 868.]

[Footnote 509: Holmes to the Secretary of War, November 15, 1862 [ibid., 918].]

[Footnote 510: For an account of Pike's movements, see Confederate Military History, vol. x, 126.]

[Footnote 511: Abel, American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist, 356.]

[Footnote 512: Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862, "Appendix."]

news that President Davis had refused positively to accept Pike's resignation.[513] What better proof could anyone want that Pike was sustained at headquarters? What that view of the matter may have meant in emboldening him to his later excessively independent actions must be left to the reader's conjecture. It never occurred to Pike that if his resignation had been refused, it had probably been refused upon the supposition that, with Hindman out of the way, all would be well. One good reason for thinking that that was the Richmond attitude towards the affair is the fact that no record of anything like immediate and formal action upon the resignation is forthcoming. Pike heard that it had been refused and positively, which was very gratifying; but it is far more likely that it had been put to one side and purposely; in order that, since Pike was unquestionably the best man for Indian Territory, all difficulties might be left to adjust themselves, the less said about Hindman's autocracy the better it would be for all concerned.

But it was soon apparent that Hindman was not to be put out of the way. It was to be still possible for him to work mischief in Indian Territory. With some slight modifications, the Trans-Mississippi District had been converted into the Trans-Mississippi Department and, on the twentieth of August, orders[514] issued from

[Footnote 513: There is something very peculiar about the acceptance or non-acceptance of Pike's resignation. Randolph wrote to Holmes, October 27, 1862, these words: "... General Pike's resignation having been accepted, you will be left without a commanding officer in the Indian Territory..." [Official Records, vol. xiii, 906]. A letter endorsement, made by Randolph, on or later than September 19th, was to this effect: "General Pike's resignation has not yet been accepted" [Ibid., liii, supplement, 821], and another, made by him, November 5th, to this: "Accept General Pike's resignation, and notify him of it" [Ibid., 822].]

[Footnote 514: Official Records, vol. xiii, 877.]

Little Rock, arranging for an organization into three districts, the Texas, the Louisiana,[515] and the Arkansas. The last-named district was entrusted to General Hindman and made to embrace Arkansas, Missouri, and the Indian Territory. Hindman took charge at Fort Smith, August twenty-fourth and straightway planned such disposition of his troops as would make for advancing the Confederate line northward of the Boston Mountains, Fort Smith, and the Arkansas River. The Indian forces that were concentrated around Forts Smith and Gibson were shifted to Carey's Ferry that they might cover the military road southward from Fort Scott. To hold the Cherokee country and to help maintain order there, a battalion of white cavalry was posted at Tahlequah and, in each of the nine townships, or districts, of the country, the formation of a company of home guard, authorized.[516]

The maintaining of order in the Cherokee Nation had come to be imperatively necessary. John Ross, the Principal Chief, was now a prisoner within the Federal lines.[517] His capture had been accomplished by strategy only a short time before and not without strong suspicion that he had been in collusion with his captors. Early in August, General Blunt, determined that the country north of the Arkansas should not be abandoned, notwithstanding the retrograde movement of Colonel Salomon, had ordered Salomon, now a brigadier in command of the Indian Expedition, to send

[Footnote 515: Not all of Louisiana was in Holmes's department and only that part of it west of the Mississippi constituted the District of Louisiana. Governor Moore had vigorously protested against a previous division, one that "tacked" "all north of Red River" "onto Arkansas" [Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 819].]

[Footnote 516:—Ibid., vol. xiii, 46-47.]

[Footnote 517: Nominally, Ross was yet a prisoner, although, as a matter of fact, he had started upon a mission to Washington, his desire being to confer with President Lincoln in person regarding the condition of the Cherokees [Blunt to Lincoln, August 13, 1862, ibid., 565-566].]

back certain white troops in support of the Indian.[518] Dr. Gillpatrick, who was the bearer of the orders, imparted verbal instructions that the expeditionary force so sent should proceed to Tahlequah and complete what Colonel Phillips had confessed he had not had sufficient time for, the making of diplomatic overtures to the Cherokee authorities.[519]

Blunt's expeditionary force had proceeded to Tahlequah and to Park Hill and there, under the direction of Colonel William F. Cloud, had seized John Ross and his family, their valuables, also official papers and the treasury of the Cherokee Nation.[520] The departure of the Principal Chief had had a demoralizing effect upon the Cherokees; for, when his restraining influence was removed, likewise the Federal support, political factions, the Pins, or full-bloods, and the Secessionists, mostly half-breeds, had been able to indulge their thirst for vengeance uninterruptedly.[521] Chaos had well-nigh resulted.

The departure of the expeditionary force had meant more than mere demoralization among the Indians. It had meant the abandonment of their country to the Confederates and the Confederates, once realizing that, delaying nothing, took possession. The secessionist Cherokees then called a convention, formally deposed John Ross, and elected Stand Watie as Principal Chief in his stead.[522] Back of all such revolutionary work, was General Hindman and it was not long before Hindman himself was in Tahlequah.[523] Once there, he proceeded to set his stamp upon things with customary

[Footnote 518: Official Records, vol. xiii, 531-532.]

[Footnote 519:—Ibid., 182.]

[Footnote 520:—Ibid., 552.]

[Footnote 521:—Ibid., 623, 648.]

[Footnote 522: Confederate Military History, vol. x, 129.]

[Footnote 523: Official Records, vol. xiii, 42.]

vigor and order was shortly restored both north and south of the Arkansas. Guerrilla warfare was summarily suppressed, marauding stopped, and the perpetrators of atrocities so deservedly punished that all who would have imitated them lost their taste for such fiendish sport. As far north as the Moravian Mission, the Confederates were undeniably in possession; but, at that juncture, Holmes called Hindman to other scenes. A sort of apathy then settled like a cloud upon the Cherokee Nation[524]. Almost lifeless, it awaited the next invader.

One part of the programme, arranged for at the time of the re-districting of the Trans-Mississippi Department, had called for a scheme to reenter southwest Missouri. Hindman was to lead but Rains, Shelby, Cooper, and others were to constitute a sort of outpost and were to make a dash, first of all, to recover the lead mines at Granby. The Indians of both armies were drawn thitherward, the one group to help make the advance, the other to resist it. At Newtonia on September 30 the first collision of any moment came and it came and it ended with victory for the Confederates[525]. Cooper's Choctaws and Chickasaws fought valiantly but so also did Phillips's Cherokees. They lost heavily in horses[526], their own poorly shod ponies; but they themselves stood fire well. To rally them after defeat proved, however, a difficult matter. Their

[Footnote 524: Report of M.W. Buster to Cooper, September 19, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 273-277.]

[Footnote 525: For detailed accounts of the Battle of Newtonia, see Ibid., 296-307; Edwards, Shelby and his Men, 83-89; Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, 355-363; Anderson, Life of General Stand Watie, 20; Crawford, Kansas in the Sixties, 54; Confederate Military History, vol. x, 132.]

[Footnote 526: Evan Jones to Dole, January 8, 1864, Indian Office General Files, Cherokee, 1859-1865, J 401.]

disciplining had yet left much to be desired.[527] Scalping[528] of the dead took place as on the battle-field of Pea Ridge; but, in other respects, the Indians of both armies acquitted themselves well and far better than might have been expected.

The participation of the Indians in the Battle of Newtonia was significant. Federals and Confederates had alike resorted to it for purposes other than the red man's own. The Indian Expedition had now for a surety definitely abandoned the intention for which it was originally organized and outfitted. As a matter of fact, it had long since ceased to exist. The military

[Footnote 527: "Since leaving the Fugitive Indians on Dry Wood Creek, nothing has occurred of material interest other than you will receive through official Dispatches from the Officers of our Army. The Indians under Col. Phillips fought well at the Battle Newtonia, they have at all times stood fire. The great difficulty of their officers is in keeping them together in a retreat, and should such be necessary on the field in presence of an enemy in their present state of discipline it would be almost impossible to again return them to the attack in good order—Another Battle was fought at this place in which the enemy were defeated with considerable loss, four of their guns being taken by a charge of the 2d Kansas.

"In this Contest the Indians behaved well, the officers and soldiers of our own regiments now freely acknowledge them to be valuable Allies and in no case have they as yet faltered, untill ordered to retire, the prejudice once existing against them is fast disappearing from our Army and it is now generaly conceded that they will do good service in our border warfare. This we have never doubted and confident as we have been of their fitness for border warfare we have been content to await, untill they had proven to the country not only their loyalty but their ability to fight. Since their organization they have been engaged in several battles and in every case successfully, one of us will start in a day or two for Tahlequah and may find something of interest on the march. We are now in the Cherokee Nation. An effort is now being made by Gen'l Blunt to punish plundering in the country. Union People have suffered from this as much as rebels. We have before called the attention of our Army Officers to this fact; with our Fifteen Hundred Cherokee Warriors in the service of our government—we feel that every possible protection should be extended to them as a people" [Carruth to Coffin, October 25, 1862, enclosed in Coffin to Dole, November 16, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency 1859-1862].]

[Footnote 528: Official Records, vol. xiii, 894.]

organization, of which the Indian regiments in the Federal service now formed a part, was Blunt's division of the Army of the Frontier and it had other objects in view, other tasks to perform, than the simple recovery of Indian Territory.

It is true General Blunt had set his heart upon that particular accomplishment but he was scarcely a free agent in the matter. Men above him in rank had quite other aims and his, perforce, had to be subordinated to theirs. In August, Blunt had planned a kind of second Indian Expedition to go south to Fort Gibson and to restore the refugees to their homes.[529] It had started upon its way when the powers higher up interposed.

General Schofield, anticipating the renewed endeavor of the Confederates to push their line forward, had called upon Blunt for assistance and Blunt had responded with such alacrity as was possible, considering that many of the troops he summoned for Schofield's use were those that had been doing hard service within and on the border of the Indian country for full two months. During all that time their horses had been deprived entirely of grain feed and had been compelled to subsist upon prairie grass. They were in a bad way.[530] Once outside the Indian Territory, the Indian regiments, begrudging the service demanded of them, were kept more fully occupied than were the white; for there was

[Footnote 529: "Orders have been given by General Blunt for the Indian Expedition to go South soon; he says the families of the Indians may go"—CARRUTH to Coffin, August 29, 1862, enclosed in Coffin to Mix, August 30, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendence, 1859-1862.

"Enclosed you will find an order from General James G. Blunt in regard to the removal of the Indian families to their homes. I start to-morrow for Fort Scott, Kansas, to overtake the second Indian expedition, commanded by General Blunt in person."—Carruth to Coffin, September 19, 1862, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, p. 166.]

[Footnote 530: Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, 337.]

always scouting[531] for them to do and frequently skirmishing. On Cowskin River, Phillips's Third Indian and, near Shirley's Ford on Spring River, Ritchie's Second had each engaged the Confederates with success, although not entirely with credit. Ritchie had allowed his men to run amuck even to the extent of attacking their comrades in Colonel Weer's brigade, which was the second in Blunt's reorganized army. On account of his lack of control over his troops, Ritchie was reported upon for dismissal from the service.[532]

The Battle of Newtonia was inconclusive. Subsequent to it, the Federals were greatly reenforced and, in the first days of October, Schofield and Blunt, who had both arrived recently upon the scene, coming to the aid of Salomon, who had been the vanquished one at Newtonia, were able, in combination with Totten, to deprive Cooper of all the substantial fruits of victory. He was obliged to fall back into Arkansas, whither a part of Blunt's division pursued him and encamped themselves on the old battle-field of Pea Ridge.[533]

Cooper was far from being defeated, however, and, under orders from Rains, soon made plans for attempting an invasion of Kansas; but Blunt, ably seconded by Crawford of the Second Kansas, was too quick for him. He followed him to Maysville and then a little beyond the Cherokee border to old Fort Wayne in the present Delaware District of the Nation. There, on the open prairie, a battle was fought,[534] on October 22, so

[Footnote 531: Phillips to Blunt, September 5, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 614-615.]

[Footnote 532: Weer to Moonlight, September 12, 1862, ibid., 627; Weer to Blunt, September 24, 1862, ibid., 665-666; Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, 352.]

[Footnote 533: Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, 366; Crawford, Kansas in the Sixties, 54.]

[Footnote 534: Anderson, Life of General Stand Watie, 20; Crawford, Kansas in the (cont.)]

disastrous to the Confederates, who, by the by, were greatly outnumbered, that they fled, a demoralized host, by way of Fort Gibson across the Arkansas River to Cantonment Davis,[535] Stand Watie and his doughty Cherokees covering their retreat. The Federals had then once again an undisputed possession of Indian Territory north of the Arkansas.[536]

Such was the condition of affairs when Pike emerged from his self-imposed retreat in Texas. The case for the Confederate cause among the Indians was becoming desperate. So many things that called for apprehension were occurring. Cooper and Rains were both in disgrace, the failure of the recent campaign having been attributed largely to their physical unfitness for duty. Both were now facing an investigation of charges for drunkenness. Moreover, the brutal attack upon and consequent murder of Agent Leeper had just shocked the community. Hearing of that murder and considering that he was still the most responsible party in Indian Territory, General Pike made preparations to proceed forthwith to the Leased District. His plans were frustrated by his own arrest at the command of General Holmes.

His unfriendliness to Pike was in part due to Holmes's own necessities. It was to his interest to assert authority over the man who could procure supplies for Indian Territory and when occasion offered, if that man should dare to prove obdurate, to ignore his position altogether. Nevertheless, Holmes had not seen fit in early October to deny Pike his title of

[Footnote 534: (cont.) Sixties, 56-62; Edwards, Shelby and his Men, 90; Official Records, vol. xiii, 43, 324. 325, 325-328, 329-331, 331-332, 332-336, 336-337, 759; Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, 364-375.]

[Footnote 535: Official Records, vol. xiii, 765.]

[Footnote 536: Blunt was ordered "to clean out the Indian country" [Ibid., 762].]

commander and had personally addressed him by it.[537] Yet all the time he was encroaching upon that commander's prerogatives, was withholding his supplies, just as Hindman had done, and was exploiting Indian Territory, in various ways, for his own purposes. Rumors came that Pike was holding back munition trains in Texas and then that he was conspiring with Texan Unionists against the Confederacy. To further his own designs, Holmes chose to credit the rumors and made them subserve the one and the same end; for he needed Pike's ammunition and he wanted Pike himself out of the way. He affected to believe that Pike was a traitor and, when he reappeared as brigade commander, to consider that he had unlawfully reassumed his old functions. Accordingly, he issued an order to Roane,[538] to whom he had entrusted the Indians, for Pike's arrest; but he had already called Pike to account for holding back the munition trains and had ordered him, if the charge were really true, to report in person at Little Rock.[539]

The order for General Pike's arrest bore date of November 3. Roane, the man to whom the ungracious task was assigned, was well suited to it. He had been adjudged by Holmes himself as absolutely worthless as a commander and, being so, had been sent to take care of the Indians,[540] a severe commentary upon Holmes's own fitness for the supreme control of anything that had to do with them or their concerns. Others had an equally poor opinion of Roane's generalship and character. John S. Phelps, indeed, was writing at this very time, the autumn of 1862, to Secretary

[Footnote 537: Official Records, vol. xiii, 924.]

[Footnote 538:—Ibid., 923, 980, 981.]

[Footnote 539:—Ibid., 904.]

[Footnote 540:—Ibid., 899.]

Stanton in testimony of Roane's unsavory reputation.[541]

The arrest of Pike took place November 14 at Tishomingo in the Chickasaw country and a detachment of Shelby's brigade was detailed to convey him to Little Rock.[542] Then, as once before, his reported resignation saved him from long confinement and from extreme ignominy. On the fifth of November, President Davis instructed the adjutant-general to accept Pike's resignation forthwith and five days thereafter,[543] before the arrest had actually taken place, Holmes advised Hindman that he had better let Pike go free so soon as he should leave the Indian country; inasmuch as his resignation was now an assured thing.[544] Holmes evidently feared to let the release take place within the limits of Pike's old command; for some of the Indians were still devotedly attached to him and were still pinning their faith upon his plighted word. John Jumper and his Seminole braves were among those most loyal to Pike; and Holmes was afraid that wholesale desertions from their ranks would follow inevitably Pike's degradation. Many desertions had already occurred, ostensibly because of lack of food and raiment. Commissioner Scott had complained to Holmes of the Indian privations[545] and Holmes had been forced to concede, although only at the eleventh hour, the Indian claim to some consideration. He had arbitrarily shared tribal quota of supplies, bought with tribal money, with white troops and had lamely excused himself by saying that he had done it to prevent

[Footnote 541: Official Records, vol. xiii, 752.]

[Footnote 542:—Ibid., 921.]

[Footnote 543:—Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 821.]

[Footnote 544:—Ibid., vol. xiii, 913.]

[Footnote 545:—Ibid., 920.]

grumbling[546] and the charge of favoritism. One other offence of which Holmes was guilty he did not attempt to palliate, the taking of the Indians out of their own country without their consent. To the very last Pike had expostulated[547] against such violation of treaty promises; but Holmes and Hindman were deaf alike to entreaty and to reprimand.

General Pike, poet and student, was now finally deprived of his command and the Indians left to their own devices or at the mercy of men, who could not be trusted or were not greatly needed elsewhere. No one attempted any longer to conceal the truth that alliance with the Indians was a supremely selfish consideration, and nothing more, on the part of those who coveted Indian Territory because of its geographical position, its strategic and economic importance. For a little while longer, Pike contended with his enemies by means of the best weapon he had, his facile pen. His acrimonious correspondence with the chief of those enemies, Hindman and Holmes, reached its highest point of criticism in a letter of December 30 to the latter. That letter summed up his grievances and was practically his last charge. Having made it, he retired from the scene, not to reappear until near the close of the war, when Kirby Smith found it advantageous to reemploy him for service among the red men.

[Footnote 546: Official Records, vol. xiii, 928.]

[Footnote 547:—Ibid., 905, 963.]



IX. THE REMOVAL OF THE REFUGEES TO THE SAC AND FOX AGENCY

General Blunt's decision to restore the Indian refugees in Kansas to their own country precipitated a word war of disagreeable significance between the civil and military authorities. The numbers of the refugees had been very greatly augmented in the course of the summer, notwithstanding the fact that so large a proportion of the men had joined the Indian Expedition. It is true they had not all stayed with it. The retrograde movement of Colonel Salomon and his failure later on to obey Blunt's order to the letter[548] that he should return to the support of the Indians had disheartened them and many of the enlisted braves had deserted the ranks, as chance offered, and had strayed back to their families in the refugee camps of southern Kansas.[549]

[Footnote 548: Blunt to Caleb Smith, November 21, 1862 [Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862, I 860].]

[Footnote 549: One of the first notices of their desertion was the following:

"We are getting along well, very well. The Indians seem happy and contented, and seemingly get enough to eat and wear. At least I hear no complaint. For the last two or three days the Indian soldiers have been stragling back, until now there are some three or four hundred in, and they are still coming. I held a council with them to-day to try and find out why they are here. But they don't seem to have any idea themselves. All I could learn was that Old George started and the rest followed. The Col. it seems told them to go some where else. I shall send an express to Col. Furness in the morning to find out if possible what it means. It seems to me it will not do to give the provisions purchased for the women and children to the soldiers....

"The soldiers look clean and hearty, and complain of being treated like dogs, starved etc, which I must say their looks belie...."—GEO.A. CUTLER to Wm. G. Coffin, August 13, 1862, Ibid.]

Then the numbers had been augmented in other ways. The Quapaws, who had been early driven from their homes and once restored,[550] had left them again when they found that their country had been denuded of all its portable resources. It was exposed to inroads of many sorts. Even the Federal army preyed upon it and, as all the able-bodied male Quapaws were gradually drawn into that army, there was no way of defending it. Its inhabitants, therefore, returned as exiles to the country around about Leroy.[551]

It was much the same with near neighbors of the Quapaws, with the Senecas and the Seneca-Shawnees. These Indians had been induced to accept one payment of their annuities from the Confederate agent[552] but had later repented their digression from the old allegiance to the United States and had solicited its protection in order that they might remain true. Some of them stayed with Agent Elder near Fort Scott,[553] others moved northward and lived upon the charity of the Shawnees near Lawrence.[554] But those Shawnees were doomed themselves to be depredated upon, especially that group of them known as Black Bob's Band, a band that had been assigned a settlement in Johnson

[Footnote 550: Coffin to Elder, August 9, 1862; Coffin to Mix, August 16, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Neosho, C 1745 of 1862.]

[Footnote 551: Some of the Quapaws that went to Leroy were not bona fide refugees. Elder reported them as lured thither by the idea of getting fed [Elder to Dole, July 9, 1862, Ibid., E 114 of 1862].]

[Footnote 552: Coffin to Dole, May 31, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Neosho.]

[Footnote 553: Coffin to Mix, July 30, 1862, Ibid., C 1732 of 1862.]

[Footnote 554: J.J. Lawler to Mix, August 2, 1862, Ibid., Shawnee, 1855-1862; Abbott to Branch, July 26, 1862, Ibid. Some of the Senecas, about one hundred twenty-three, went as far as Wyandot City. For them and their relief, the Senecas in New York interceded. See Chief John Melton to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, September 2, 1862, Ibid., Neosho, H 541; Mix to Coffin, September 11, 1862, Indian Office Letter Book, no. 69, 99.]

County, adjoining the Missouri border.[555] In August[556] and again in the first week of September[557] guerrillas under Quantrill,[558] crossed over the line and raided the Black Bob lands, robbing the Indians of practically everything they possessed, their clothing, their household goods, their saddles, their ponies, their provisions, and driving the original owners quite away. They fired upon them as they fled and committed atrocities upon the helpless ones who lagged behind. They then raided Olathe.[559] Somewhat earlier, guerrillas had similarly devastated the Kansas Agency, although not to the same extent.[560] The Black Bob Shawnees found a refuge in the western part of the tribal reserve.[561]

[Footnote 555: This group of Shawnee refugees must be distinguished from the so-called Absentee Shawnees, who also became refugees. The Shawnees had been very much molested and disturbed during the period of border strife following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Black Bob's Band was then exceedingly desirous of going south to dwell with the Seneca-Shawnees [Rector to Greenwood, January 6, 1860, enclosing Dorn to Greenwood, December 30, 1859, Indian Office General Files, Neosho, R 463 of 1860]. The Absentee Shawnees had taken refuge in Indian Territory prior to the war, but were expelled immediately after it began. They obtained supplies for a time from the Wichita Agent and lived as refugees on Walnut Creek [Paschal Fish and other Shawnee delegates to Cooley, December 5, 1865, Indian Office Land Files, Shawnee, 1860-1865]. Later on, they seem, at least some of them, to have gone up to the Shawnee Reserve [Dole to Coffin, July 27, 1863, Indian Office Letter Book, no. 71, 195; Dole to Usher, July 27, 1863, Ibid., Report Book, no. 13, 208-209].]

[Footnote 556: H.B. Branch to Dole, June 19, 1863, enclosing various letters from Agent Abbott, Indian Office General Files, Shawnee, 1863-1875, B 343.]

[Footnote 557: Branch to Dole, October 3, 1862, transmitting letter from Abbott to Branch, September 25, 1862, Ibid., Shawnee, 1855-1862, B 1583.]

[Footnote 558: Connelley, Quantrill and the Border Wars, 269, says that, from' August 15, 1863, the Confederate government was directly responsible for the work of Quantrill. From that day, the guerrillas were regular Confederate soldiers. They were not generally regarded as such, however; for, in November, 1863, Price was trying to prevail upon Quantrill and his men to come into the regular army [Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 907-908].]

[Footnote 559: Governor Robinson issued a proclamation, on the occasion of this emergency for volunteers against guerrillas.]

[Footnote 560: Farnsworth to Dole, July 23, 1862 [Indian Office General Files, Kansas, 1855-1862, F 386].]

[Footnote 561: Letter of Agent Abbott, June 5, 1863, Ibid., Shawnee, 1863-1875, B 343.]

Some Wyandot Indians, who before the war had sought and found homes among the Senecas,[562] were robbed of everything they possessed by secessionist Indians,[563] who would not, however, permit them to go in search of relief northward.[564] When all efforts to induce them to throw in their lot with the Confederacy proved unavailing, the strict watch over them was somewhat relaxed and they eventually managed to make their escape. They, too, fled into Kansas. And so did about one hundred Delawares, who had been making their homes in the Cherokee country. In the spring of 1862, they had begun to return destitute to the old reservation[565] but seem not to have been counted refugees until much later in the year.[566] The Delaware Reservation on the northern bank of the Kansas River and very near to Missouri was peculiarly exposed

[Footnote 562: Indian Office General Files, Neosho, I 81 of 1860.]

[Footnote 563: Lawrence and others, Wyandots, to Dole, December 23, 1862, ibid., Land Files, Shawnee, 1860-1865, L 12 of 1862. This letter was answered January 20, 1863, and, on the same day, Coffin was instructed to relieve their distress.]

[Footnote 564: "Being personally acquainted with the condition of the Wyandots ... would here state, that a portion of them are living among the Senecas bordering on the Cherokee Country, and they are in a suffering condition. The rebel portion of the Senecas and Cherokees have robbed them of all of their ponies, and in fact all the property they had, and will not allow them to leave to come to Wyandott, which is about 2 hundred miles in distance, and their friends in Wyandott are unable to relieve them (on account of the rebel forces) without protection of our armies. The Wyandotts that are here are anxious to go and relieve their friends, and would respectfully request that they be allowed to form into a military company and be mustered into Gov'nt service and go with the expedition south to relieve their friends and assist in reclaiming the rebel Indians. A few of the Wyandotts are in service ... They are all very anxious to be transferred into a company by themselves for the purpose above stated...."—CHARLES MOORE to Dole, February 9, 1862, Indian Office Special Files, no. 201, D 576.]

[Footnote 565: Johnson to Dole, April 2, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Delaware, 1862-1866.]

[Footnote 566: Johnson to Dole, November 5, 1862, ibid., Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862.]

to ravages, horses and cattle being frequently stolen.[567] For that reason and because so much urged thereto by Agent Johnson,[568] who was himself anxious for service, the Delawares were unusually eager to enlist.

The Osages had been induced by Ritchie and others to join the Indian Expedition or to serve as independent scouts.[569] Their families, consequently, found it safe and convenient to become refugees.[570] In July, they formed much the larger part of some five hundred from Elder's agency, who sought succor at Leroy. That did not deter the Osages, however, from offering a temporary abiding-place, within their huge reserve, to the homeless Creeks under Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la.[571]

[Footnote 567: Johnson to Dole, May 28, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Delaware, I 667 of 1862.]

[Footnote 568: Johnson wished to retain his agency and also hold a commission as colonel of volunteers, Department of the Interior, Register of Letters Received, no. 4, pp. 214, 357. James H. Lane endorsed his request and it was granted.]

[Footnote 569: The Osages rendered occasionally some good service. They and the Comanches plundered the Chickasaws very considerably [Holmes Colbert to N.G. Taylor, April 14, 1868, Indian Office Consolidated Files, Chickasaw, C 716 of 1868. See also Office letter to Osage treaty commissioners, May 4, 1868]. In October, the Osage force advanced as far as Iola and then retreated [Henning to Blunt, October 11, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 726]. Soon after that they were mustered out and in a very disgruntled condition. They claimed that the government had used them very badly and had never paid them anything [Henning to Chipman, November 13, 1862, Ibid., 790]. They knew little of the discipline of war and left the army whenever they had a mind to.]

[Footnote 570: The Osages joined the Indian Expedition only upon condition that their families would be supported during their absence [Coffin to Dole, June 4, 1862, Indian Office Consolidated Files, Neosho, C 1662 of 1862]. The families were soon destitute. Coffin ordered Elder to minister to them at Leroy; but he seems to have distrusted the southern superintendent and to have preferred to keep aloof from him. Coffin then appointed a man named John Harris as special Osage agent [Coffin to Dole, July 7, 1862, Ibid., C 1710]. Elder tried to circumvent Coffin's plans for the distribution of cattle [Coffin to Elder, July 16, 1862, ibid., C 1717] and Coffin lodged a general charge of neglect of duty against him [Coffin to Dole, July 19, 1862, Ibid.].]

[Footnote 571: The invitation was extended by White Hair and Charles Mograin [Coffin to Dole, November 16, 1862, Ibid., C 1904]. Coffin was anxious for (cont.)]

During the summer the wretched condition of the Indian refugees had, thanks to fresh air, sunlight, and fair weather, been much ameliorated. Disease had obtained so vast a start that the medical service, had it been first-class, which it certainly was not, would otherwise have proved totally inadequate. The physicians in attendance claimed to have from five to eight thousand patients,[572] yet one of them, Dr. S.D. Coffin, found it possible to be often and for relatively long periods absent from his post. Of this the senior physician, Dr. William Kile, made complaint [573] and that circumstance marked the beginning of a serious estrangement between him and Superintendent Coffin.[574]

In August, General Blunt announced his intention of returning the Indian families to their homes.[575] He was convinced that some of the employees of the Indian Office and of the Interior Department were personally profiting by the distribution of supplies to the refugees and that they were conniving with citizens of Kansas in perpetrating a gigantic fraud against the government. The circumstances of the refugees had been well aired

[Footnote 571: (cont.) Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la who had been rather obstreperous, to accept [Coffin to Dole, November 14, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862].]

[Footnote 572: Dr. S.D. Coffin, to Dole, July 5, 1862, ibid., General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862; J.C. Carter to Dole July 22, 1862, ibid.]

[Footnote 573: Kile to Dole, ibid.]

[Footnote 574: The estrangement resulted in the retirement of Kile from the service. In September, Dr. Kile asked for a leave of absence. Shortly afterwards, Secretary Smith instructed Charles E. Mix, the acting commissioner, that the services of Kile were no longer needed, since the superintendent could attend to the purchasing and distributing of supplies [Smith to Mix, September 22, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862]. Mix promptly informed Kile that his resignation was accepted [Mix to Kile, September 22, 1862, ibid., Letter Book, no. 69, p. 133].]

[Footnote 575: "Orders have been given by General Blunt for the Indian Expedition to go South soon; he says the families of the Indians may go. They wish to do so but no provision is made for their subsistence or conveyance. We wish immediate instructions in this particular."—Carruth to Coffin, August 29, 1862, ibid., General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862.]

in Congress, first in connection with a Senate resolution for their relief.[576] On July fifth, Congress had passed an act suspending annuity appropriations to the tribes in hostility to the United States government and authorizing the president to expend, at discretion, those same annuities in behalf of the refugees.[577] At once, the number[578] of refugees increased and white men rushed forward to obtain contracts for furnishing supplies.

There was a failure of the corn crop in southern Kansas that year and Dr. Kile, appreciating certain facts, that the Indian pony is dear, as is the Arabian horse, to his master, that the Indian ponies were pretty numerous in spite of the decimation of the past winter, and that they would have to be fed upon corn, advised a return to Indian Territory before the cold weather should set in.[579] He communicated with Blunt[580] and found Blunt of the same opinion, so also Cutler[581] and Coleman.[582] Contrariwise was Superintendent Coffin,[583] whose view of the case was strengthened by E.H. Carruth, H.W. Martin,[584] and A.C. Ellithorpe.[585]

[Footnote 576: U.S. Congressional Globe, 37th congress, second session, part i, 815, 849, 875, 891, 940.]

[Footnote 577: U.S. Statutes at Large, vol. xii, 528.]

[Footnote 578: In October, Coffin put the number of refugees, inclusive of the Cherokees on Drywood Creek, at almost seven thousand five hundred [Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report 1862, p. 137] and asked for sixty-nine thousand dollars for their support during the third quarter of 1862 [Coffin to Mix, September 16, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862].]

[Footnote 579: Kile to Dole, July 25, 1862, Ibid.]

[Footnote 580: Kile to Blunt, September 2, 1862, Ibid.]

[Footnote 581: Cutler to Coffin, September 30, 1862, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, 139.]

[Footnote 582: Coleman to Coffin, September 30, 1862, Ibid., 141.]

[Footnote 583: Coffin to Mix, August 30, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862: same to same, September 13, 1862, Ibid.]

[Footnote 584: Carruth and Martin to Coffin, September 28, 1862, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, 167.]

[Footnote 585: "In replying to the several interrogatorys contained in your letter of the 11th inst, I shall base my answer entirely upon my own (cont.)]

In the contest that ensued between the military and civil authorities or between Blunt and Coffin,[586] Coffin triumphed, although Blunt made no concealment of his

[Footnote 585: (cont.) observations and experience, obtained during a six months campaign with the Indians, and in the Creek and Cherokee countries. Taking a deep interest in the welfare of these loyal refugee Indians, who have sacrificed all, rather than fight against our Flag, I shall be cautious and advise no policy but that which will insure their safe restoration to their homes.

"The important question in your letter and that which embodies the whole subject matter is the following—'Would it be safe in the present condition of the country to restore the southern refugee Indians now in southern Kansas, the women and children, the old, feeble and infirm to their homes in the Indian country?'

"I answer—It would not be safe to take the women and children to the Creek or Cherokee countries this fall for the following reasons, 1st The corn and vegetable crop north of the Arkansas River will not afford them subsistence for a single month. The excessive drouth has almost completely destroyed it, and what little would have matured is laid waste by the frequent foraging parties of our own Army, or those of the Rebels.

"The amount of Military force necessary to restore and safely protect this people in their homes would far exceed what is at present at the disposal of the Department of Kansas; and should they be removed to the Indian country, and our forces again be compelled to fall back for the protection of Missouri or Kansas, it would again involve their precipitate flight, or insure their total destruction.

"Again—the effectiveness of our troops would be materially embarased by the presence of such a vast number of timid and helpless creatures—I base my judgment upon the following facts—viz.:

"The expedition which I have been with during the summer, exploring this country, consisted of three Brigades but containing actually only about 6 thousand men. We routed, captured, and pursued the fragments of several Rebel commands, driving them south of the Arkansas River, opposite to, and in the vicinity of Fort Gibson. This done, we found the whole of Western Arkansas alive, and the numerous rebel squads were at once reinforced from the guerila parties of Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and the various rebel Indian tribes, until they now number a force of from 30 to 40 thousand strong, under the command of Pike, Drew, McIntosh, Rains, Stand Watie and others, ready to contest the passage of the Arkansas River at any point and in fact capable of crossing to the north side of the river and possessing the country we have twice passed over. Why did our command fall back? Simply because we had not force sufficient to cross the Arkansas River and maintain our position and because we were to remote from our dipo of supplies.

"The Creek country west of the Verdigris River is almost destitute (cont.)]

[Footnote 586: A dispute between Blunt and Coffin had been going on for some time. In August, Coffin wrote to Mix that "The contrariness and (cont.)]

suspicions of graft and peculation[587] and the moment, following the defeat of the Confederates at old Fort Wayne, seemed rather auspicious for the return of the refugees. In reality, it was not, however; for the Federals were far from possessing Indian Territory and they had no force that they could devote to it exclusively.

[Footnote 585: (cont.) of forage for man or beast, owing to the drouth—Hence to remove these families would involve to the gov't great additional expense, not only to subsist but to protect them—Where they are they need no military protection and food is abundant.

"You will bear in mind that a large portion of the Indian country is south of the Arkansas River and is at present the stronghold of the Rebels. Many portions of it mountainous and rugged, affording secure retreats that will require a powerful army to dislodge."—A.C. ELLITHORPE to Coffin, September 12, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862.]

[Footnote 586: (cont.) interference manifested by the military authorities in the Indian Country towards those who are having charge of the Indians within the Cherokee Nation is so annoying and embarrassing that it has become unpleasant, difficult, and almost impossible for them to attend to the duties of their official capacities with success. If the Military would only make it their business to rid the Indian Territory of Rebels instead of intermeddling with the affairs of the Interior Department or those connected with or acting for the same, the Refugee Indians in Kansas might have long since been enabled to return to their homes ..."—Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1863-1864, C 466.]

[Footnote 587: It was not long before the Indians were complaining of the very things that General Blunt suspected. For instance, in December, the Delawares begged President Lincoln to remove Agent Johnson because of his peculations and ungovernable temper. They also asked that the store of Thomas Carney and Co. be ordered away from their reservation. The latter request had been made before, the Delawares believing that Leavenworth and Lawrence were sufficiently near for them to trade independently [Indian Office General Files, Delaware, 1862-1866]. Coffin made a contract with Stettaner Bros. November 29, 1862, and Dole confirmed it by letter, December 13, 1862 [ibid., Southern Superintendency, 1863-1864]. Secretary Smith was not very well satisfied with the Stettaner bids. They were too indefinite [Ibid., 1859-1862, 1837]. Nevertheless, Dole, who was none too scrupulous himself, recommended their acceptance [Dole to Smith, December 11, 1862]. Number 201 of Indian Office Special Files is especially rich in matter relating to transactions of Stettaner Bros., Carney and Stevens, and Perry Fuller, so also are the files of the Indian Division of the Interior Department, and also, to some extent, the House Files in the Capitol Building at Washington, D.C.]

Aside from pointing out the military inadequacy, Coffin had chiefly argued that provisions could easily be obtained where the refugees then were; but his opposition to Blunt's suggestion was considerably vitiated by recommendations of his own, soon given, for the removal of the refugees to the Sac and Fox Agency upon the plea that they could not be supported much longer to advantage in southern Kansas. The drouth was the main reason given; but, as Kile had very truly said, the settlers were getting pretty tired of the Indian exiles, whose habits were filthy and who were extremely prodigal in their use of timber. The Sac and Fox Agency was headquarters for the Sacs and Foxes of Mississippi, for the Ottawas, and for the confederated Chippewas and Munsees. C.C. Hutchinson was the agent there and there Perry Fuller, Robert S. Stevens, and other sharpers had their base of operations.

The removal northward was undertaken in October and consummated in a little less than two months; but at an expense that was enormous and in spite of great unwillingness on the part of most of the Indians, who naturally objected to so greatly lengthening the distance between them and their own homes.[588] The refugees were distributed in tribal groups rather generally over the reserves included within the Sac and Fox Agency. At the request of Agent Elder, the Ottawas consented to accommodate the Seneca-Shawnees and the Quapaws, although not without expressing their fears that the dances and carousals of the Quapaws would demoralize their young men[589] and, finally, not without insisting upon a mutual agreement that no

[Footnote 588: Coffin to Dole, November 14, 1862, Ibid., Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862.]

[Footnote 589: C.C. Hutchinson to Dole, August 21, 1863, Indian Office General Files, Ottawa, 1863-1872, D 236.]

spirituous liquors should be brought within the limits of their Reserve under any circumstances whatsoever.[590] The Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws found a lodgment on the Sac and Fox Reservation and the Seminoles fairly close at hand, at Neosho Falls. That was as far north as they could be induced to go.

Of the Cherokees, more needs to be said for they were not so easily disposed of. At various times during the past summer, Cherokees, opposed to, not identified with, or not enthusiastic in the Confederate cause, had escaped from Indian Territory and had collected on the Neutral Lands. Every Confederate reverse or Federal triumph, no matter how slight, had proved a signal for flight. By October, the Cherokee refugees on the Neutral Lands were reported to be nearly two thousand in number, which, allowing for some exaggeration for the sake of getting a larger portion of relief, was a goodly section of the tribal population.[591] At the end of October, Superintendent Coffin paid them a visit and urged them to remove to the Sac and Fox Agency, whither the majority of their comrades in distress were at that very moment going.[592] The Cherokees refused; for General Blunt had given them his word that, if he were successful in penetrating the Indian Territory, they should at once go home.[593] Not long after Coffin's departure, their camp on Drywood

[Footnote 590: J.T. Jones to Dole, December 30, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Sac and Fox, 1862-1866. The precautions proved of little value. Whiskey was procured by both the hosts and their guests and great disorders resulted. Agent Hutchinson did his best to have the refugees removed, but, in his absence, the Ottawas were prevailed upon by Agent Elder to extend their hospitality for a while longer.]

[Footnote 591: Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, 137.]

[Footnote 592:—Ibid., 1863, 175.]

[Footnote 593: Coffin to Dole, November 10, 1862, enclosing copies of a correspondence between him and a committee of the Cherokee refugees, October 31, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Cherokee, 1859-1865, C 1892.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 603:—Ibid., 379.]

[Footnote 604:—Ibid., 380; Bishop, Loyalty on the Frontier, 56.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 613: Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, p. 382.]

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

[Footnote 615:—Ibid., vol. i, chapter xxx; Official Records, vol. xxii, part i, 66-82, 82-158, vol. liii, supplement, 458-461, 866, 867; Livermore, The Story of the Civil War, part iii, bk. 1, 84-85.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



X. NEGOTIATIONS WITH UNION INDIANS

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

When the war broke out, negotiations, begun in the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 632: Daily Conservative, May 10, 1862. Note the arguments in favor of confiscation as quoted from the Western Volunteer.,]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 635: Cyrus Aldrich, representative from Minnesota and chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs referred the memorial to the Indian Office [Letters Registered, vol. 58, Southern Superintendency, A. 484 of 1862].]

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

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

[Footnote 636: Robinson, Kansas Conflict, 358.]

[Footnote 637:—Ibid., 370. For other facts touching Wattles and his earlier career, see Villard, John Brown, index; Wilson, John Brown: Soldier of Fortune, index.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 643: Department of the Interior, Register of Letters Received, "Indians," no. 4, p. 439.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 645: Indian Office Consolidated Files, Central Superintendency, W 528 of 1862; Department of the Interior, Register of Letters Received, "Indians," no. 4, p. 517.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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