the more pressing needs of the refugees, Dole accomplished another
thing greatly to their interest. He secured from the staff of General
Lane a special agent, Dr. William Kile of Illinois,[175] who
had formerly been a business partner of his own[176] and, like
Superintendent Coffin, his more or less intimate friend. Kile's
particular duty as special agent was to be the purchasing of supplies
for the refugees[177] and he at once visited their encampment in order
the better to determine their requirements. His investigations more
than corroborated the earlier accounts of their sufferings and
privations and his appointment under the circumstances seemed fully
justified, notwithstanding that on the surface of things it appeared
very suggestive of a near approach to nepotism, and of nepotism Dole,
Coffin, and many others were unquestionably guilty. They worked into
the service just as many of their own relatives and friends as they
conveniently and safely could. The official pickings were considered
by them as their proper perquisites. "'Twas ever thus" in American
politics, city, county, state, and national.
The Indian encampment upon the occasion of
[Footnote 174: (cont.) the Indians and they are feeding them a
little...." See also Moore, _Rebellion Record_, vol. iv, 30.]
[Footnote 175: Dole was from Illinois also, from Edgar County; Coffin
was from Indiana [Indian Office Miscellaneous Records, no. 8, p.
432].]
[Footnote 176: _Daily Conservative_, February 8, 1862.]
[Footnote 177: Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Southern
Superintendency_, D 576 of 1862; _Letter Book_, no. 67, pp.
450-452.]
Kile's[178] visit was no longer on Fall River. Gradually, since first
discovered, the main body of the refugees had moved forward within the
New York Indian Lands to the Verdigris River and had halted in the
neighborhood of Fort Roe, where the government agents had received
them; but smaller or larger groups, chiefly of the sick and their
friends, were scattered all along the way from Walnut Creek.[179] Some
of the very belated exiles were as far westward as the Arkansas, over
a hundred miles distant. Obviously, the thing to do first was to get
them all together in one place. There were reasons why the Verdigris
Valley was a most desirable location for the refugees. Only a very few
white people were settled there and, as they were intruders and had
not a shadow of legal claim to the land upon which they had squatted,
any objections that they might make to the presence of the Indians
could be ignored.[180]
For a few days, therefore, all efforts were directed, at large
expense, towards converting the Verdigris Valley, in the vicinity of
Fort Roe, into a concentration camp; but no precautions were taken
against allowing unhygienic conditions to arise. The Indians
themselves were much diseased. They had few opportunities for personal
cleanliness and less ambition. Some of the food doled out to them was
stuff that the army had condemned and rejected as unfit for use. They
were emaciated, sick, discouraged. Finally, with
[Footnote 178: Indian Office Land Files, 1855-1870, _Southern
Superintendency_, K 107 of 1862.]
[Footnote 179: Some had wandered to the Cottonwood and were camped
there in great destitution. Their chief food was hominy [_Daily
Conservative_, February 14, 1862].]
[Footnote 180: For an account of the controversy over the settlement
of the New York Indian Lands, see Abel, _Indian Reservations in
Kansas and the Extinguishment of their Title_, 13-14.]
the February thaw, came a situation that soon proved intolerable. The
"stench arising from dead ponies, about two hundred of which were
in the stream and throughout the camp,"[181] unburied, made removal
imperatively necessary.
The Neosho Valley around about Leroy presented itself as a likely
place, very convenient for the distributing agents, and was next
selected. Its advantages and disadvantages seemed about equal and had
all been anticipated and commented upon by Captain Turner.[182] It
was near the source of supplies--and that was an item very much to
be considered, since transportation charges, extraordinarily high in
normal times were just now exorbitant, and the relief funds very, very
limited. No appropriation by Congress had yet been made although one
had been applied for.[183] The great disadvantage of the location was
the presence of white settlers and they objected, as well they might,
to the near proximity of the inevitable disease and filth and,
strangely enough, more than anything else, to the destruction of the
timber, which they had so carefully husbanded. The concentration on
the Neosho had not been fully accomplished when the pressure from the
citizens became so great that Superintendent Coffin felt obliged to
plan for yet another removal. Again the sympathy of the Sacs and
Foxes of Mississippi manifested itself and most opportunely. Their
reservation
[Footnote 181: Annual Report of Superintendent Coffin, October 15,
1862, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862, p. 136.
Compare with Coffin's account given in a letter to Dole, February 13,
1862.]
[Footnote 182: February 11, 1862, Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
_Report_, 1862, p. 153; Indian Office Special Files, no. 201,
_Southern Superintendency_, D 576 of 1862.]
[Footnote 183: _Congressional Globe_, 37th congress, second
session, part I, pp. 815, 849. Dole's letter to Smith, January 31,
1862, describing the destitution of the refugees, was read in the
Senate, February 14, 1862, in support of joint resolution S. no. 49,
for their relief.]
lay about twenty-five miles to the northward and they generously
offered it as an asylum.[184] But the Indians balked. They were
homesick, disgusted with official mismanagement[185] and indecision,
and determined to go no farther. They complained bitterly of the
treatment that they had received at the hands of Superintendent Coffin
and of Agent Cutler and, in a stirring appeal[186] to President
Lincoln, set forth their injuries, their grievances, and
their incontestable claim upon a presumably just and merciful
government.[187]
The Indians were not alone in their rebellious attitude. There was
mutiny seething, or something very like it, within the ranks of the
agents.[188] E.H. Carruth
[Footnote 184: Coffin to Dole, March 28, 1862 [Indian Office Special
Files, no. 201, _Southern Superintendency_, C 1565 of 1862].]
[Footnote 185: Mismanagement there most certainly had been. In no
other way can the fact that there was absolutely no amelioration in
their condition be accounted for. Many documents that will be cited in
other connections prove this point and Collamore's letter is of itself
conclusive. George W. Collamore, known best by his courtesy title of
"General," went to Kansas in the critical years before the war under
circumstances, well and interestingly narrated in Stearns' _Life and
Public Services of George Luther Stearns_, 106-108. He had been
agent for the New England Relief Society in the year of the great
drouth, 1860-1861 [_Daily Conservative_, October 26, 1861] and
had had much to do with Lane, in whose interests he labored, and who
had planned to make him a brigadier under himself as major-general
[Stearns, 246, 251]. He became quartermaster-general of Kansas
[_Daily Conservative_, March 27, 1862] and in that capacity made,
in the company of the Reverend Evan Jones, a visit of inspection to
the refugee encampment. His discoveries were depressing [Ibid.,
April 10, 1862]. His report to the government [Indian Office General
Files, _Southern Superintendency_, C 1602 of 1862] is
printed almost _verbatim_ in Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
_Report_, 1862, 155-158.]
[Footnote 186: Coffin's letter to Dole of April 21, 1862 [Indian
Office General Files, _Wichita_, 1862-1871, C 1601 of 1862] seems
to cast doubt upon the genuineness of some of the signatures attached
to this appeal and charges Agent Carruth with having been concerned in
making the Indians discontented.]
[Footnote 187: Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la and other prominent refugees
addressed their complaints to Dole, March 29, 1862 [Indian Office Land
Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1855-1870, O 43 of 1862] and
two days later to President Lincoln, some strong partisan, supposed by
Coffin to be Carruth, acting as scribe.]
[Footnote 188: On the way to the Catholic Mission, whither he was
going in order (cont.)]
who had been so closely associated with Lane in the concoction of the
first plan for the recovery of Indian Territory, was now figuring as
the promoter of a rising sentiment against Coffin and his minions, who
were getting to be pretty numerous. The removal to the Sac and Fox
reservation would mean the getting into closer and closer touch with
Perry Fuller,[189] the contractor, whose dealings in connection with
the Indian refugees were to become matter, later on, of a notoriety
truly disgraceful. Mistrust of Coffin was yet, however, very vague in
expression and the chief difficulty in effecting the removal from the
Neosho lay, therefore, in the disgruntled state of the refugees,
which was due, in part, to their unalleviated misery and, in part, to
domestic
[Footnote 188: (cont.) to coöperate with Agent Elder in negotiating
with the Osages, Coffin heard of "a sneaking conspiracy" that was "on
foot at Iola for the purpose of prejudicing the Indians against us
[himself and Dole, perhaps, or possibly himself and the agents]."
The plotters, so Coffin reported, "sent over the Verdigris for E.H.
Carruth who" was "deep in the plot," which was a scheme to induce the
Indians to lodge complaint against the distributers of relief. One of
the conspirators was a man who had studied law under Lane and who had
wanted a position under Kile. Lane had used his influence in the man's
behalf and the refusal of Coffin to assign him to a position was
supposed to be the cause of all the trouble. Coffin learned that
his enemies had even gone so far as to plan vacancies in the Indian
service and to fill them. They had "instructed Lane, Pomeroy, and
Conway accordingly," leaving graciously to Lane the choice of
superintendent. A Mr. Smith, correspondent of the Cincinnati
_Gazette_ was their accredited secretary [Coffin to Dole,
April 2, 1862, Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Southern
Superintendency_, C 1571 of 1862].
Further particulars of the disaffection came to Coffin's ears before
long and he recounted them to Dole in a letter of April 9, 1862
[Ibid., General Files, _Southern Superintendency_,
1859-1862].]
[Footnote 189: Perry Fuller had been in Kansas since 1854 [U.S.
House _Reports_, 34th congress, first session, no. 200, p. 8 of
"Testimony"]. The first time that his name is intimately used in the
correspondence, relative to the affairs of the refugees, is in a
letter from Kile to Dole, March 29, 1862 [Indian Office Consolidated
Files, _Southern Superintendency_, K 113 of 1862, which also
makes mention of the great unwillingness of the Indians to move to the
Sac and Fox reservation.]]
tribal discord. There was a quarrel among them over leadership, the
election of Ock-tah-har-sas Harjo as principal chief having
aroused strong antagonistic feeling among the friends of
Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la.[190] Moreover, dissatisfaction against their agent
steadily increased and they asked for the substitution of Carruth; but
he, being satisfied with his assignment to the Wichitas,[191] had no
wish to change.[192]
[Footnote 190: Carruth gave particulars of this matter to Dole, April
20, 1862 [Indian Office General Files, _Wichita_, 1862-1871, C
1601 of 1862].]
[Footnote 191: Dole to Carruth, March 18, 1862 [Indian Office
_Letter Book_, no. 67, pp. 493-494].]
[Footnote 192: Carruth to Dole, April 10, 1862 [Ibid.,
General Files, _Wichita_, 1862-1871, C 1588 of 1862; _Letters
Registered_, vol. 58].]
IV. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE FIRST INDIAN EXPEDITION
Among the manifold requests put forward by the refugees, none was so
insistent, none so dolefully sincere, as the one for means to return
home. It is a mistake to suppose that the Indian, traditionally
laconic and stoical, is without family affection and without that
noblest of human sentiments, love of country. The United States
government has, indeed, proceeded upon the supposition that he is
destitute of emotions, natural to his more highly civilized white
brother, but its files are full to overflowing with evidences to the
contrary. Everywhere among them the investigator finds the exile's
lament. The red man has been banished so often from familiar and
greatly loved scenes that it is a wonder he has taken root anywhere
and yet he has. Attachment to the places where the bones of his people
lie is with him the most constant of experiences and his cry for those
same sacred places is all the stronger and the more sorrowful because
it has been persistently ignored by the white man.
The southern Indians had not been so very many years in the Indian
Territory, most of them not more than the span of one generation, but
Indian Territory was none the less home. If the refugees could only
get there again, they were confident all would be well with them. In
Kansas, they were hungry, afflicted with disease, and dying daily by
the score.[193] Once at home
[Footnote 193: And yet they did have their amusements. Their days of
exile were not filled altogether with bitterness. Coffin, in a letter
to the (cont.)]
all the ills of the flesh would disappear and lost friends be
recovered. The exodus had separated them cruelly from each other.
There were family and tribal encampments within the one large
encampment,[194] it is true, but there were also widely isolated
groups, scattered indiscriminately across two hundred miles of bleak
and lonely prairie, and no amount of philanthropic effort on the part
of the government agents could mitigate the misery arising therefrom
or bring the groups together. The task had been early abandoned as,
under the circumstances, next to impossible; but the refugees went on
begging for its accomplishment, notwithstanding that they had
neither the physical strength nor the means to render any assistance
themselves. Among them the wail of the bereaved vied in tragic cadence
with the sad inquiry for the missing.
When Dole arrived at Leavenworth the latter part of January,
representatives of the loyal Indians interviewed him and received
assurances, honest and well-meant at the time given, that an early
return to Indian Territory would be made possible. Lane, likewise
interviewed,[195] was similarly encouraging and had every reason to
be; for was not his Indian brigade in process of formation? Much
cheered and even exhilarated in spirit, the Indians went away to
endure and to wait. They had great confidence in Lane's power to
accomplish; but, as the days and the weeks passed and he did not come,
they grew tired of waiting. The waiting
[Footnote 193: (cont.) _Daily Conservative_, published April 16,
1862, gives, besides a rather gruesome account of their diseases, some
interesting details of their camp life.]
[Footnote 194: On their division into tribal encampments, see Kile
to Dole, April 10, 1862 [Indian Office General Files, _Southern
Superintendency_, 1859-1862, K 119 of 1862].]
[Footnote 195: They had their interview with Lane at the Planters'
House while they were awaiting the arrival of Dole. Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la
(Crazy Dog) and a Seminole chief, Aluktustenuke (Major Potatoes) were
among them [_Daily Conservative_, January 28, February 8, 1862].]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF COLONEL W.A. PHILLIPS]
seemed so hopeless to them miserable, so endlessly long. Primitive as
they were, they simply could not understand why the agents of a great
government could not move more expeditiously. The political and
military aspects of the undertaking, involved in their return home,
were unknown to them and, if known, would have been uncomprehended.
Then, too, the vacillation of the government puzzled them. They became
suspicious; for they had become acquainted, through the experience of
long years, with the white man's bad faith and they had nothing to go
upon that would counteract the influence of earlier distrust. And so
it happened, that, as the weary days passed and Lane's brigade did not
materialize, every grievance that loomed up before them took the shape
of a disappointed longing for home.
So poignant was their grief at the continued delay that they despaired
of ever getting the help promised and began to consider how they could
contrive a return for themselves. And yet, quite independent of Lane's
brigade, there had been more than one movement initiated in their
behalf. The desire to recover lost ground in Indian Territory, under
the pretext of restoring the fugitives, aroused the fighting instinct
of many young men in southern Kansas and several irregular expeditions
were projected.[196] Needless to say they came to nothing. In point of
fact, they never really developed, but died almost with the thought.
There was no adequate equipment for them and the longer the delay,
the more necessary became equipment; because after the Battle of Pea
Ridge, Pike's brigade had been set free to operate, if it so willed,
on the Indian Territory border.
[Footnote 196: In addition to those referred to in documents already
cited, the one, projected by Coffin's son and a Captain Brooks, is
noteworthy. It is described in a letter from Coffin to Dole, March 24,
1862.]
Closely following upon the Federal success of March 6 to 8, came
numerous changes and readjustments in the Missouri-Kansas commands;
but they were not so much the result of that success as they were
a part of the general reorganization that was taking place in the
Federal service incident to the more efficient war administration of
Secretary Stanton. By order of March 11, three military departments
were arranged for, the Department of the Potomac under McClellan,
that of the Mountain under Frémont, and that of the Mississippi under
Halleck. The consolidation of Hunter's Department of Kansas with
Halleck's Department of Missouri was thus provided for and had long
been a consummation devoutly to be wished.[197] Both were naturally
parts of the same organic whole when regarded from a military point
of view. Neither could be operated upon independently of the other.
Moreover, both were infested by political vultures. In both, the army
discipline was, in consequence, bad; that is, if it could be said to
be in existence at all. If anything, Kansas was in a worse state than
Missouri. Her condition, as far as the military forces were concerned,
had not much improved since Hunter first took command and it was then
about the worst that could possibly be imagined. Major Halpine's
description[198] of it, made by him in his capacity as assistant
adjutant-general, officially to Halleck, is anything but flattering.
Hunter was probably well rid of his job and Halleck, whom Lincoln much
admired because he was "wholly for the service,"[199] had asked for
the entire command.[200]
[Footnote 197: Halleck, however, had not desired the inclusion of
Kansas in the contemplated new department because he thought that
state had only a remote connection with present operations.]
[Footnote 198: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 615-617.]
[Footnote 199: Thayer, _Life and Letters of John Hay_, vol. i,
127-128.]
[Footnote 200: Badeau, _Military History of U.S. Grant_, vol. i,
53, _footnote_.]
Halleck's plans for remodeling the constituent elements of his
department were made with a thorough comprehension of the difficulties
confronting him. It is not surprising that they brought General Denver
again to the fore. Hunter's troubles had been bred by local politics.
That Halleck well knew; but he also knew that Indian relations were a
source of perplexity and that there was no enemy actually in Kansas
and no enemy worth considering that would threaten her, provided her
own jay-hawking hordes could be suppressed. Her problems were chiefly
administrative.[201] For the work to be done, Denver seemed the
fittest man available and, on the nineteenth, he, having previously
been ordered to report to Halleck for duty,[202] was assigned[203] to
the command of a newly-constituted District of Kansas, from which
the troops,[204] who were guarding the only real danger zone,
the southeastern part of the state, were expressly excluded. The
hydra-headed evil of the western world then asserted itself, the
meddling, particularistic spoils system, with the result that Lane and
Pomeroy, unceasingly vigilant whenever and wherever what they regarded
as their preserves were likely to be encroached upon, went to
President Lincoln and protested against the preferment of Denver.[205]
Lincoln weakly yielded and wired to Halleck to suspend
[Footnote 201: Halleck to Stanton, March 28, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. viii, 647-648.]
[Footnote 202:--Ibid., 612]
[Footnote 203:--Ibid., 832.]
[Footnote 204: Those troops, about five thousand, were left under
the command of George W. Deitzler, colonel of the First Kansas
(Ibid., 614), a man who had become prominent before the war in
connection with the Sharpe's rifles episode (Spring, _Kansas_,
60) and whose appointment as an Indian agent, early in 1861, had been
successfully opposed by Lane (Robinson, _Kansas Conflict_, 458).
There will be other occasions to refer to him in this narrative. He is
believed to have held the secret that induced Lane to commit suicide
in 1866 [Ibid., 457-460].]
[Footnote 205: Stanton to Halleck, March 26, 1862 [_Official
Records_, vol. liii, supplement, 516].]
the order for Denver's assignment to duty until further notice.[206]
Stanton, to whom Halleck applied[207] for an explanation,
deprecated[208] the political interference of the Kansas senators and
the influence it had had with the chief executive, but he, too, had to
give way. So effective was the Lane-Pomeroy objection to Denver that
even a temporary[209] appointment of him, resorted[210] to by Halleck
because of the urgent need of some sort of a commander in Kansas, was
deplored by the president.[211] Denver was then sent to the place
where his abilities and his experience would be better appreciated, to
the southernmost part of the state, the hinterland of the whole Indian
country.[212] Official indecision and personal envy pursued him
even there, however, and it was not long before he was called
eastward.[213] The man who succeeded him in command of the District of
Kansas[214] was one who proved to be his ranking officer[215] and his
rival, Brigadier-general S.D. Sturgis. Blunt succeeded him at Fort
Scott.
[Footnote 206: Lincoln to Halleck, March 21, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. liii, supplement, 516.]
[Footnote 207: Halleck to Stanton, March 26, 1862, Ibid.]
[Footnote 208: "Deprecated" is, perhaps, too mild a word to describe
Stanton's feeling in the matter. Adjutant-general Hitchcock is
authority for the statement that Stanton threatened "to leave the
office" should the "enforcement" of any such order, meaning the
non-assignment of Denver and the appointment of a man named Davis
[Davies?], believed by Robinson to be a relative of Lane [_Kansas
Conflict_, 446], be attempted [Hitchcock to Halleck, March 22,
1862, _Official Records_, vol. viii, 832-833].]
[Footnote 209:--Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 519.]
[Footnote 210:--Ibid., vol. viii, 647-648.]
[Footnote 211:--Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 519.]
[Footnote 212: Concerning the work, mapped out for Denver, see Halleck
to Sturgis, April 6, 1862 [_Official Records_, vol. viii, 668]
and Halleck to Stanton, April 7, 1862 [Ibid., 672].]
[Footnote 213: May 14, 1862 [Ibid., vol. iii, part i,
supplement, 249].]
[Footnote 214:--Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 520.]
[Footnote 215: "It is stated that the commission of Gen. Sturgis is
dated April 10 and that of Gen. Denver Aug. 14 and consequently Gen.
Sturgis is the ranking officer in this military District."--_Daily
Conservative_, April 10, 1862.]