to make Fort Smith, although quite a distance from all parts of the Indian Territory except the Cherokee and Choctaw countries, the permanent headquarters, also in that to compel disbursing agents to make payments in no other funds than specie or treasury notes. The amendment of greatest importance among those that passed muster was the one attaching the superintendency temporarily to the western district of Arkansas for judicial purposes. It was a measure that could not fail to be exceedingly obnoxious to the Indians; for they had had a long and disagreeable experience, judicially, with Arkansas. They had their own opinion of the white man's justice, particularly as that justice was doled out to the red man on the white man's ground.481 Taken in connection with regulations482 made by the War Department for the conduct of Indian affairs, the Act of April 8 most certainly exhibited an honest intention on the part of the Confederate government to carry out the provisions of the Pike treaties. The following constituted its principal features: With headquarters at either Fort Smith or Van Buren, as the president might see fit to direct, the superintendency was to embrace "all the Indian country annexed to the Confederate States, that lies west of Arkansas and Missouri, north of Texas, and east of Texas and New Mexico." A superintendent and six agents were immediately provided for, individually bonded and obligated to continue resident during the term of office, to engage in no mercantile pursuit or gainful occupation
Footnote 481: (return)The Confederacy, as a matter of fact, never did keep its promise regarding the establishment of a judiciary in Indian Territory. Note Commissioner Scott's remarks in criticism, December i, 1864 [Official Records, vol. xli, part iv, 1088-1089].
Footnote 482: (return)The regulations referred to can be found in Confederate Records, chap. 7, no. 48.
whatsoever, and to prosecute no Indian claims against the government. In the choice of interpreters, preference was to be given to applicants of Indian descent. Indian trade privileges were to be greatly circumscribed and, in the case of the larger nations, the complete control of the trade was to rest with the tribal authorities. In the case, also, of those same larger nations, the restrictions formerly placed upon land alienations were to be removed. Intruders and spirituous liquors were to be rigidly excluded and all payments to Indians were to be carefully safeguarded against fraud and graft. Indian customs of citizenship and adoption were to be respected. No foreign interference was to be permitted. Foreign emissaries were to be dealt with as spies and as such severely punished. The Confederate right of eminent domain over agency sites and buildings, forts, and arsenals was to be recognized, as also the operation of laws against counterfeiting and of the fugitive slave law. In default of regular troops, the Confederacy was to support an armed police for protection and the maintenance of order. The judicial rights of the Indians were to be very greatly extended but the Confederacy reserved to itself the right to apprehend criminals other than Indian.
The intentions of the Confederate government were one thing, its accomplishments another. The act of April 8 was not put into immediate execution, and might have been allowed to become obsolete had it not been for the controversy between Pike and Hindman. On the first of August, while the subject-matter of the address, which he had so imprudently issued to the Indians, was yet fresh in his mind, General Pike wrote a letter of advice, eminently sound advice, to President Davis.483 Avoiding all captiousness, he set forth a
programme of what ought to be done for Indian Territory and for the Indians, in order that their friendly alliance might be maintained. He urged many things and one thing very particularly. It was the crux of them all and it was that Indian Territory should be absolutely separated from Arkansas, in a military way, and that no troops from either Arkansas or Texas should be stationed within it. Other suggestions of Pike's were equally sound. Indeed, the entire letter of the first of August was sound and in no part of it more sound than in that which recommended the immediate appointment of a superintendent of Indian affairs for the Arkansas and Red River Superintendency, also the appointment of Indian agents for all places that had none.484 It was high time that positions in connection with the conduct of Indian affairs should be something more than sinecures.
Aspirants for the office of superintendent had already made their wants known. Foremost among them was Douglas H. Cooper. It was not in his mind, however, to separate the military command from the civil and he therefore asked that he be made brigadier-general and ex officio superintendent of Indian affairs in the place of Pike removed.485 His own representations of Pike's grievous offence had fully prepared him for the circumstance of Pike's removal and he anticipated it in making his own application for office. Subsequent knowledge of Pike's activities and of his standing at Richmond must have come to Cooper as a rude awakening.
Nevertheless, Cooper did get his appointment. It
Footnote 484: (return)In his message of August 18, 1862 [Richardson, vol. i, 238, President Davis remarked upon the vacancies in these offices and said that, in consequence of them, delays had occurred in the payment of annuities and allowances to which the Indians were entitled.
came the twenty-ninth of September in the form of special orders from the adjutant-general's office.486 Pike was still on the ground, as will be presently shown, and Cooper's moral unfitness for a position of so much responsibility was yet to be revealed. The moment was one when the Confederacy was taking active steps to keep its most significant promise to the Indian nations, give them a representation in Congress. The Cherokees had lost no time in availing themselves of the privilege of electing a delegate, neither had the Choctaws and Chickasaws. Elias C. Boudinot had proved to be the successful candidate of the former and Robert M. Jones487 of the latter. Over the credentials of Boudinot, the House of Representatives made some demur; but, as there was no denying his constitutional right, under treaty guarantee, to be present, they were accepted and he was given his seat.488 Provisions had, however, yet to be determined for regulating Indian elections and fixing the pay and mileage, likewise also, the duties and privileges of Indian delegates.489 Perhaps it is unfair to intimate that the provisions would have been determined earlier, had congress not preferred to go upon the assumption that they would never be needed, since it was scarcely likely that the Indians would realize the importance of their rights and act upon them.490
Footnote 486: (return)War Department, Confederate Records, Special Orders of the Adjutant and Inspector General's Office, C.S.A., 1862, p. 438; Official Records, vol. xiii, 885.
Footnote 487: (return)See document of date, October 7, 1861, signed by Douglas H. Cooper, certifying that Robert M. Jones had received the "greatest number of votes cast" as delegate in Congress for the Choctaws and Chickasaws [Pickett Papers, Package 118].
Footnote 490: (return)Davis had thrown the responsibility of the whole matter upon Congress, when he insisted that the "delegate" clauses in the treaties should (cont.)
While Congress was debating the question of Indian delegate credentials and their acceptance, a tragedy took place in Indian Territory that more than confirmed General Pike's worst prognostications and proved his main contention that Indian affairs should be considered primarily upon their own merits, as an end in themselves, and dealt with accordingly. Had the Arkansas and Red River Superintendency been regularly established, the tragedy referred to might never have occurred; but it was not yet established and for many reasons, one of them being that, although Douglas H. Cooper's appointment had been resolved upon, he had not yet been invested with the office of superintendent.491 His commission was being withheld because charges of incapacity and drunkenness had been preferred against him.492
General Pike's disclosures had aroused suspicion and grave apprehension in Richmond, so much so, indeed, that the War Department, convinced that conditions in Indian Territory were very far from being what they should be, decided to undertake an investigation of its own through its Indian bureau. Promptly, therefore, S.S. Scott, acting commissioner, departed for the West. General Pike was in Texas.
Now one of the contingencies that Pike had most constantly dreaded was tribal disorder on the Leased
Footnote 490: (return)(cont.) be so modified as to make the admission of the Indians dependent, not upon the treaty-making power, but upon the legislative. See his message of December 12, 1861, Richardson, vol. i, 149-151.
Footnote 491: (return)Elias Rector, who had been retained as superintendent under the Confederate government, seems never to have exercised the functions of the office subsequent to the assumption by Pike of his duties as commander of the Department of Indian Territory. He was probably envious of Pike and resigned rather than serve in a subordinate capacity. He seems to have made some troube for Pike [Official Records, vol. xiii, 964, 976].
District,493 a disorder that might at any moment extend itself to Texas and to other parts of the Indian Territory, imperiling the whole Confederate alliance. So long as there was a strong force at Fort McCulloch and at the frontier posts of longer establishment, particularly at Fort Cobb, the Reserve Indians could be held in check with comparative ease. Hindman, ignorant of or indifferent to the situation, no matter how serious it might be for others, had ordered the force to be scattered and most of it withdrawn from the Red River Valley.
The so-called Wichita, or Reserve, Indians, to call them by a collective term only very recently bestowed, had ever constituted a serious problem for the neighboring states as well as for the central government. It was with the Confederacy as with the old Union. The Reserve Indians were a motley horde, fragments of many tribes that had seen better days. They were all more or less related, either geographically or linguistically. Some of them, it is difficult to venture upon what proportion, had been induced to enter into negotiations with Pike and through him had formed an alliance with the Confederacy. Apparently, those who had done this were chiefly Tonkawas. Other Reserve Indians continued true to the North. As time went on hostile feelings, engendered by living in opposite camps, gained in intensity, the more especially because white men, both north and south, encouraged them to go upon the war-path, either against their own associates or others. Reprisals, frequently bloody, were regularly instituted. With Pike's departure from Fort McCulloch an opportunity for greater vindictiveness offered, notwithstanding the fact that the Choctaw and Chickasaw
troops had been left behind and were guarding the near-by country, their own.
Sometime in the latter part of August or the early part of September, Matthew Leeper, the Wichita agent under the Confederate government, a left-over from Buchanan's days, went from the Leased District,494 frightened away, some people thought, perhaps afraid of the inevitable results of the mischief his own hands had so largely wrought, and sojourned in Texas, his old home. The sutler left also and a man named Jones was then in sole charge of the agency. The northern sympathizers among the Indians thereupon aroused themselves. They had gained greatly of late in strength and influence and their numbers had been augmented by renegade Seminoles from Jumper's battalion and by outlawed Cherokees. They warned Jones that Leeper would be wise not to return. If he should return, it would be the worse for him; for they were determined to wreak revenge upon him for all the misery his machinations in favor of the Confederacy and for his own gain had cost them. Presumably, Jones scorned to transmit the warning and, in course of time, Leeper returned.
The twenty-third of October witnessed one of the bloodiest scenes ever enacted on the western plains. The northern Indians of the Reserve together with a lot of wandering Shawnees, Delawares, and Kickapoos, many of them good-for-nothing or vicious, some Seminoles and Cherokees attacked Leeper unawares, killed him,495 as also three white male employees of the agency.
Footnote 495: (return)On the murder of Agent Leeper, see Scott to Holmes, November 2, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 919-921; Holmes to Secretary of War, November 15, 1862, ibid., 919: F. Johnson to Dole, January 20, 1863, Abel, American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist, 329-330, footnote; (cont.)
They then put "the bodies into the agency building and fired it." The next morning they made an equally brutal attack upon the Tonkawas and with most telling effect. More than half of them were butchered. The survivors, about one hundred fifty, fled to Fort Arbuckle.496 Their condition was pitiable. The murderers, for they were nothing less than that, fled northward, they and their families, to swell the number of Indian refugees already living upon government bounty in Kansas.
Commissioner Scott then at Fort Washita hurried to the Leased District to examine into the affair. He had made many observations since leaving Richmond, had talked with Pike, now returned from Texas, and had come around pretty much to his way of thinking. His recommendations to the department commander that were intended to reach the Secretary of War as well were in every sense a corroboration of Pike's complaints in so far as the woeful neglect of the Indians was concerned. Better proof that Hindman's conduct had been highly reprehensible could scarcely be asked for.
Footnote 495: (return)(cont.) Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. vi, 6; W.F. Cady to Cox, February 16, 1870, Indian Office Report Book, no. 19, 186-188; Coffin to Dole, September 24, 1863, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1863, 177.
Footnote 496: (return)S.S. Scott asked permission of Governor Winchester Colbert, November 10, 1862, to place the fugitive Tonkawas "temporarily on Rocky or Clear Creek, near the road leading from Fort Washita to Arbuckle." Colbert granted the permission, "provided they are subject to the laws of the Chickasaw Nation, and will furnish guides to the Home Guards and the Chickasaw Battalion, when called upon to do so."
The tragedy at the Wichita agency brought General Pike again to the fore. His resignation had not been accepted at Richmond as Hindman supposed was the case at the time he released him from custody. In fact, as events turned out, it looked as though Hindman were decidedly more in disrepute there than was Pike. His arbitrary procedure in the Trans-Mississippi District had been complained of by many persons besides the one person whom he had so unmercifully badgered. Furthermore, the circumstances of his assignment to command were being inquired into and everything divulged was telling tremendously against him.
The irregularity of Hindman's assignment to command has been already commented upon in this narrative. Additional details may now be given. Van Dorn had hopes, on the occasion of his own summons to work farther east, that Sterling Price would be the one chosen eventually to succeed him or, at all events, the one to take the chief command of the Confederate forces in the West. He greatly wished that upon him and upon him alone his mantle should fall.497 The filling of the position by Hindman was to be but tentative, to last only until Price,498 perhaps also Van Dorn,
Footnote 497: (return)Van Dorn to President Davis, June 9, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 831-832.
Footnote 498: (return)Price was preferred to H.M. Rector; because Van Dorn felt that Rector's influence with the people of Arkansas had greatly declined. The truth was, Governor Rector had become incensed at the disregard shown for Arkansas by Confederate commanders. In a recent proclamation, he had announced that the state would henceforth look out for herself.
could discuss matters personally with the president and remove the prejudice believed to be existing in his mind against Price; but the War Department had quite other plans developed, a rumor of which soon reached the ears of Van Dorn. It was then he telegraphed, begging Davis to make no appointment for the present to the command of the Trans-Mississippi District and informing him that Hindman had been sent there temporarily.499 The request came to Richmond too late. An appointment had already been resolved upon and made. The man chosen was John Bankhead Magruder, a major-general in the Army of Northern Virginia. However, as he was not yet ready to take up his new duties, Hindman was suffered to assume the command in the West; but Magruder's rights held over. They were held in abeyance, so to speak, temporarily waived.500
The controversy between Pike and Hindman would seem to have impelled Secretary Randolph to wish to terminate early Magruder's delay; but Magruder was loath to depart. His lack of enthusiasm ought to have been enough to convince those sending him that he
Footnote 499: (return)The orders for Hindman to repair west, issuing from Beauregard's headquarters, were explicit, not upon the point of the temporary character of his appointment, but upon that of its having been made "at the earnest solicitation of the people of Arkansas." [Official Records, vol. x, part ii, 547].
Footnote 500: (return)Price, nothing daunted, continued to seek the position and submitted plans for operations in the West. His importunities finally forced the inquiry from Davis as to whether Magruder's appointment had ever been rescinded and whether, since he seemed in no hurry to avail himself of it, he really wanted the place. Randolph reported that Magruder had no objection to the service to which he had been ordered but desired to remain near Richmond until the expected battle in the neighborhood should have occurred. Randolph then suggested that Price be tendered the position of second in command [Randolph to Davis, June 23, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 837], an arrangement that met with Magruder's hearty approval [Magruder to R.E. Lee, June 26, 1862, Ibid., 845].
was hardly the man for the place. His acquaintance with Trans-Mississippi conditions was very superficial, yet even he found out that they were of a nature to admonish those concerned of their urgency, especially in the matter of lack of arms.501 By the fourteenth of July his indecision was apparently overcome. At any rate, on that day Randolph wrote Pike that Magruder, the real commander of the Trans-Mississippi District, would soon arrive at Little Rock and that the offences of which Pike had had reason to complain would not be repeated.
Letters travelled slowly in those days and Randolph's comforting intelligence did not reach Pike in time to avert the catastrophe of his proclamation and consequent arrest. And it was just as well, all things considered, for Magruder never reached Little Rock. He was a man of intemperate habits and, while en route, was ordered back to Richmond to answer "charges of drunkenness and disobedience of orders."502 His appointment was thereupon rescinded. The man selected in his place, to the total ignoring of Price's prior claims, was Theophilus H. Holmes, a native of North Carolina.503 President Davis was still possessed of the notion that frontier affairs could be best conducted by men who had no local attachments there. Late events had all too surely lent weight to his theory. Nevertheless, in holding it, Davis was strictly inconsistent and illogical; for loyalty to the particular home state constituted the strongest asset that the Confederacy had. It was the lode-star that had drawn Lee and
Footnote 502: (return)Clark to Price, July 17, 1862, Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 816-817.
many another, who cared not a whit for political principles in and for themselves, from their allegiance to the Union. It was the great bulwark of the South.
Holmes was ordered west July 16;504 but, as he had the necessary preparations to make and various private matters to attend to, August had almost begun before it proved possible for him to reach Little Rock.505 The interval had given Hindman a new lease of official life and a further extension of opportunity for oppression, which he had used to good advantage. The new department commander, while yet in Richmond, had discussed the Pike-Hindman controversy with his superior officers and had arrived at a conclusion distinctly favorable to Pike. He frankly confessed as much weeks afterwards. Once in Little Rock, however, he learned from the Hindman coterie of Pike's Indian proclamation and immediately veered to Hindman's side.506 Pike talked with him, recounted his grievances in a fashion that none could surpass, but made absolutely no impression upon him. So small a thing and so short a time had it taken to develop a hostile prejudice in Holmes's mind, previously unbiased, so deep-seated that it never, in all the months that followed, knew the slightest diminution. Conversely and most fortuitously, a friendliness grew up between Holmes and the man whom he had supplanted that made the former, either forget the orders given him in Richmond or put so new a construction upon them that they were rendered nugatory. It was a situation, exceedingly fortunate for
Footnote 505: (return)He had reached Vicksburg by the thirtieth of July and from that point he issued his orders assuming the command [ibid., 860].
Footnote 506: (return)Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862 (Appendix); Confederate Military History, vol. x, 121-122.
the service as a whole, no doubt, but most unhappy for Indian Territory.
It finally dawned upon Pike that it was useless to argue any longer upon the matters in dispute between him and Hindman, for Holmes had pre-judged the case. Moreover, Holmes was beginning to appreciate the advantage of being in a position where he could, by ignoring Pike's authority and asserting his own, be much the gainer in a material way. How he could have reconciled such an attitude with the instructions he had received from Randolph it is impossible to surmise. The instructions, whether verbal or written, must have been in full accord with the secretary's letter to Pike of the fourteenth of July, which, although Pike was as yet ignorant of it, had explicitly said that no supplies for Indian Territory should be diverted from their course and that there should be no interference whatever with Pike's somewhat peculiar command.507 All along the authorities in Richmond, their conflicting departmental regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, had insisted that the main object of the Indian alliance had been amply attained when the Indians were found posing as a Home Guard. Indians were not wanted for any service outside the limits of their own country. Service outside was to be deprecated, first, last, and always. Indeed, it was in response to a suggestion from Pike, made in the autumn of 1861, that the Indian Territory ought to be regarded as a thing apart, to be held for the Confederacy most certainly but not to be involved in the warfare outside, that Pike's department had been created and no subsequent
Footnote 507: (return)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 family510 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 510: (return)For an account of Pike's movements, see Confederate Military History, vol. x, 126.
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, orders514 issued from
Footnote 513: (return)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].
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: (return)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 517: (return)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