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 Nation524. 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 reënter 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 Confederates525. Cooper's Choctaws and Chickasaws fought valiantly but so also did Phillips's Cherokees. They lost heavily in horses526, their own poorly shod ponies; but they themselves stood fire well. To rally them after defeat proved, however, a difficult matter. Their
Footnote 524: (return)Report of M.W. Buster to Cooper, September 19, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 273-277.
Footnote 525: (return)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: (return)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 Scalping528 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: (return)"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].
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: (return)"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.
always scouting531 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 reënforced 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 532: (return)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: (return)Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, 366; Crawford, Kansas in the Sixties, 54.
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: (return)(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.
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
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 privations545 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
grumbling546 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 expostulated547 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 reëmploy him for service among the red men.
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 letter548 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: (return)Blunt to Caleb Smith, November 21, 1862 [Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862, I 860].
Footnote 549: (return)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 agent552 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: (return)Coffin to Elder, August 9, 1862; Coffin to Mix, August 16, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Neosho, C 1745 of 1862.
Footnote 551: (return)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 554: (return)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 August556 and again in the first week of September557 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: (return)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: (return)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: (return)Branch to Dole, October 3, 1862, transmitting letter from Abbott to Branch, September 25, 1862, ibid., Shawnee, 1855-1862, B 1583.
Footnote 558: (return)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: (return)Governor Robinson issued a proclamation, on the occasion of this emergency for volunteers against guerrillas.
Footnote 560: (return)Farnsworth to Dole, July 23, 1862 [Indian Office General Files, Kansas, 1855-1862, F 386].
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 reservation565 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 563: (return)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: (return)"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: (return)Johnson to Dole, April 2, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Delaware, 1862-1866.
Footnote 566: (return)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: (return)Johnson to Dole, May 28, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Delaware, I 667 of 1862.
Footnote 568: (return)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: (return)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: (return)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: (return)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: (return)(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: (return)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 574: (return)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: (return)"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.