stationed the First and Second Regiments Indian Home Guards as a corps
of observation along the Grand and Verdigris Rivers; also to guard the
fords of the Arkansas. Yesterday evening a courier reached me at Prior
Creek with dispatches saying that a commissary train was at Hudson's
Crossing, 75 miles north of us, waiting for an additional force as an
escort. Information also reaches me this morning that Colonel Watie,
with a force of 1,200 men, passed up the east side of Grand River
yesterday for the purpose of cutting off this train. I have sent out
strong reconnoitering parties to the east of the river, and if the
information proves reliable will take such further measures as I deem
best for its security.
I design simply to hold the country we are now in, and will make
no important moves except such as I may deem necessary for the
preservation of this command until I receive specific
instructions from you. I send Major Burnett with a small escort to
make his way through to you. He will give you more at length the
position of this command, their condition, &c.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
F. Salomon, _Colonel Ninth Wis. Vols_.,
_Comdg. Indian Expedition_.
Salomon's insubordination brought the Indian Expedition in its
original form to an abrupt end, much to the disgust and righteous
indignation of the Indian service. The arrest of Colonel Weer threw
the whole camp into confusion,[372] and it was some hours before
anything like order could be restored. A retrograde movement of the
white troops had evidently been earlier resolved upon and was at once
undertaken. Of such troops, Salomon assumed personal command and
ordered them to begin a march northward at two o'clock on the morning
of the nineteenth.[373] At the same time, he established the troops,
he was so brutally abandoning, as a corps of observation on or near
the Verdigris and Grand Rivers. They were thus expected to cover his
retreat, while he, unhampered, proceeded to Hudson's Crossing.[374]
With the departure of Salomon and subordinate commanders in sympathy
with his retrograde movement, Robert W. Furnas, colonel of the First
Indian, became the ranking officer in the field. Consequently it was
his duty to direct the movements of the troops that remained. The
troops were those of the three Indian regiments, the third of which
had not yet been formally recognized and accepted by the government.
Not all of these troops were in camp when the arrest of Weer took
place. One of the last official acts of Weer as
[Footnote 372: Carruth and Martin to Blunt, July 19, 1862.]
[Footnote 373: Blocki, by order of Salomon, July 18, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 477.]
[Footnote 374: Carruth and Martin to Coffin, August 2, 1862.]
commander of the Indian Expedition had been to order the First Indian
to proceed to the Verdigris River and to take position "in the
vicinity of Vann's Ford." Only a detachment of about two hundred men
had as yet gone there, however, and they were there in charge of
Lieutenant A.C. Ellithorpe. A like detachment of the Third Indian,
under John A. Foreman, major, had been posted at Fort Gibson.[375]
Salomon's _pronunciamento_ and his order, placing the Indian
regiments as a corps of observation on the Verdigris and Grand Rivers,
were not communicated to the regimental commanders of the Indian Home
Guard until July 22;[376] but they had already met, had conferred
among themselves, and had decided that it would be bad policy to take
the Indians out of the Territory.[377] They, therefore agreed to
consolidate the three regiments into a brigade, Furnas in command,
and to establish camp and headquarters on the Verdigris, about twelve
miles directly west of the old camp on the Grand.[378]
The brigading took place as agreed upon and Furnas, brigade commander,
retained his colonelcy of the First Indian, while Lieutenant-colonel
David B. Corwin took command of the Second and Colonel William
A. Phillips of the Third. Colonel Ritchie had, prior to recent
happenings, been detached from his command in order to conduct a party
of prisoners to Fort Leavenworth, also to arrange for the mustering in
of Indian recruits.[379] But two days' rations were on hand, so jerked
beef was accepted as the chief article of diet until other supplies
could be obtained.[380] There was likely to be plenty of
[Footnote 375: Furnas to Blunt, July 25, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 512.]
[Footnote 376:--Ibid., 512.]
[Footnote 377: Britton, _Civil War on the border_, vol. i, 309.]
[Footnote 378: _Official Records_, vol. xii, 512; Commissioner of
Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, 163.]
[Footnote 379: Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862,
163-164.]
[Footnote 380: Carruth and Martin to Coffin, July 25, 1862,
Ibid., 160.]
that; for, as Weer had once reported, cattle were a drug on the market
in the Cherokee country, the prairies "covered with thousands of
them."[381] The encampment on the Verdigris was made forthwith; but it
was a failure from the start.
The Indians of the First Regiment showed signs of serious
demoralization and became unmanageable, while a large number of the
Second deserted.[382] It was thought that deprivation in the midst of
plenty, the lack of good water and of the restraining influence of
white troops had had much to do with the upheaval, although there had
been much less plundering since they left than when they were present.
With much of truth back of possible hatred and malice, the special
agents reported that such protection as the white men had recently
given Indian Territory "would ruin any country on earth."[383]
With the hope that the morale of the men would be restored were they
to be more widely distributed and their physical conditions improved,
Colonel Furnas concluded to break camp on the Verdigris and return to
the Grand. He accordingly marched the Third Indian to Pryor Creek[384]
but had scarcely done so when orders came from Salomon, under cover of
his usurped authority as commander of the Indian Expedition, for
him to cross the Grand and advance northeastward to Horse Creek and
vicinity, there to pitch his tents. The new camp was christened Camp
Wattles. It extended from Horse to Wolf Creek and constituted a point
from which the component parts of the Indian Brigade did
[Footnote 381: Weer to Moonlight, July 12, 1862.]
[Footnote 382: Furnas to Blunt, July 25, 1862.]
[Footnote 383: Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862,
160-161.]
[Footnote 384: Named in honor of Nathaniel Pryor of the Lewis and
Clark expedition and of general frontier fame, and, therefore,
incorrectly called Prior Creek in Furnas's report.]
extensive scouting for another brief period. In reality, Furnas was
endeavoring to hold the whole of the Indian country north of the
Arkansas and south of the border.[385]
Meanwhile, Salomon had established himself in the neighborhood of
Hudson's Crossing, at what he called, Camp Quapaw. The camp was on
Quapaw land. His idea was, and he so communicated to Blunt, that he
had selected "the most commanding point in this (the trans-Missouri)
country not only from a military view as a key to the valleys of
Spring River, Shoal Creek, Neosho, and Grand River, but also as the
only point in this country now where an army could be sustained with a
limited supply of forage and subsistence, offering ample grazing[386]
and good water."[387] No regular investigation into his conduct
touching the retrograde movement, such as justice to Weer would seem
to have demanded, was made.[388] He submitted the facts to Blunt and
Blunt, at first alarmed[389] lest a complete abandonment of Indian
Territory would result, acquiesced[390] when, he found that the Indian
regiments were holding their own there.[391] Salomon, indeed, so far
strengthened Furnas's hand as to supply him with ten days rations and
a section of Allen's battery.
[Footnote 385: For accounts of the movements of the Indian Expedition
after the occurrence of Salomon's retrograde movement, see the
_Daily Conservative_, August 16, 21, 26, 1862.]
[Footnote 386: On the subject of grazing, see Britton, _Civil War on
the Border_, vol. i, 308.]
[Footnote 387: Salomon to Blunt, July 29, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 521.]
[Footnote 388: H.S. Lane called Stanton's attention to the matter,
however, Ibid., 485.]
[Footnote 389: Blunt to Salomon, August 3, 1862, Ibid.,
531-532.]
[Footnote 390: He acquiesced as, perforce, he had to do but he was
very far from approving.]
[Footnote 391: In November, Dole reported to Smith that Salomon's
retrograde movement had caused about fifteen hundred or two thousand
additional refugees to flee into Kansas. Dole urged that the Indian
Expedition should be reenforced and strengthened [Indian Office
_Report Book_, no. 12, 503-504].]
VI. GENERAL PIKE IN CONTROVERSY WITH GENERAL HINDMAN
The retrograde movement of Colonel Salomon and the white auxiliary of
the Indian Expedition was peculiarly unfortunate and ill-timed since,
owing to circumstances now to be related in detail, the Confederates
had really no forces at hand at all adequate to repel invasion. On the
thirty-first of May, as earlier narrated in this work, General Hindman
had written to General Pike instructing him to move his entire
infantry force of whites and Woodruff's single six-gun battery to
Little Rock without delay. In doing this, he admitted that, while
it was regrettable that Pike's force in Indian Territory should be
reduced, it was imperative that Arkansas should be protected, her
danger being imminent. He further ordered, that Pike should supply the
command to be sent forward with subsistence for thirty days, should
have the ammunition transported in wagons, and should issue orders
that not a single cartridge be used on the journey.[392]
To one of Pike's proud spirit, such orders could be nothing short
of galling. He had collected his force and everything he possessed
appertaining to it at the cost of much patience, much labor, much
expense. Untiring vigilance had alone made possible the formation of
his brigade and an unselfish willingness to advance his own funds had
alone furnished it with quartermaster and commissary stores. McCulloch
and Van
[Footnote 392: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 934.]
Dorn[393] each in turn had diverted his supplies from their destined
course, yet he had borne with it all, uncomplainingly. He had even
broken faith with the Indian nations at Van Dorn's instance; for,
contrary to the express terms of the treaties that he had negotiated,
he had taken the red men across the border, without their express
consent, to fight in the Pea Ridge campaign. And with what result?
Base ingratitude on the part of Van Dorn, who, in his official report
of the three day engagement, ignored the help rendered[394] and left
Pike to bear the stigma[395] of Indian atrocities alone.
With the thought of that ingratitude still rankling in his breast,
Pike noted additional features of Hindman's first instructions to him,
which were, that he should advance his Indian force to the northern
border of Indian Territory and hold it there to resist invasion from
Kansas. He was expected to do this unsupported
[Footnote 393: Van Dorn would seem to have been a gross offender in
this respect. Similar charges were made against him by other men and
on other occasions [_Official Records_, vol. liii, supplement,
825].]
[Footnote 394: It was matter of common report that Van Dorn despised
Pike's Indians [Ibid., vol. xiii, 814-816]. The entire Arkansas
delegation in Congress, with the exception of A.H. Garland, testified
to Van Dorn's aversion for the Indians [Ibid., 815].]
[Footnote 395: How great was that stigma can be best understood from
the following: "The horde of Indians scampered off to the mountains
from whence they had come, having murdered and scalped many of the
Union wounded. General Pike, their leader, led a feeble band to the
heights of Big Mountain, near Elk Horn, where he was of no use to
the battle of the succeeding day, and whence he fled, between roads,
through the woods, disliked by the Confederates and detested by the
Union men; to be known in history as a son of New Hampshire--a poet
who sang of flowers and the beauties of the sunset skies, the joys of
love and the hopes of the soul--and yet one who, in the middle of the
19th century, led a merciless, scalping, murdering, uncontrollable
horde of half-tame savages in the defense of slavery--themselves
slave-holders--against that Union his own native State was then
supporting, and against the flag of liberty. He scarcely struck a blow
in open fight.... His service was servile and corrupt; his flight
was abject, and his reward disgrace."--_War Papers and Personal
Recollections of the Missouri Commandery_, 232.]
by white troops, the need of which, for moral as well as for physical
strength, he had always insisted upon.
It is quite believable that Van Dorn was the person most responsible
for Hindman's interference with Pike, although, of course, the very
seriousness and desperateness of Hindman's situation would have
impelled him to turn to the only place where ready help was to be had.
Three days prior to the time that Hindman had been assigned to the
Trans-Mississippi Department, Roane, an old antagonist of Pike[396]
and the commander to whose immediate care Van Dorn had confided
Arkansas,[397] had asked of Pike at Van Dorn's suggestion[398] all the
white forces he could spare, Roane having practically none of his own.
Pike had refused the request, if request it was, and in refusing it,
had represented how insufficient his forces actually were for purposes
of his own department and how exceedingly difficult had been the task,
which was his and his alone, of getting them together. At the time of
writing he had not a single dollar of public money for his army and
only a very limited amount of ammunition and other supplies.[399]
Pike received Hindman's communication of May 31 late in the afternoon
of June 8 and he replied to it that same evening immediately after
he had made arrangements[400] for complying in part with its
requirements.
The reply[401] as it stands in the records today is a strong
indictment of the Confederate management of Indian
[Footnote 396: Pike had fought a duel with Roane, Roane having
challenged him because he had dared to criticize his conduct in
the Mexican War [Hallura, _Biographical and Pictorial History of
Arkansas_, vol. i, 229; _Confederate Military History_, vol.
x, 99].]
[Footnote 397: Maury to Roane, May 11, 1862, _Official Records_,
vol. xiii, 827.]
[Footnote 398: Maury to Pike, May 19, 1862, Ibid.]
[Footnote 399: Pike to Roane, June 1, 1862, Ibid., 935-936.]
[Footnote 400: General Orders, June 8, 1862, Ibid., 943.]
[Footnote 401: Pike to Hindman, June 8, 1862, Ibid., 936-943.]
affairs in the West and should be dealt with analytically, yet also as
a whole; since no paraphrase, no mere synopsis of contents could ever
do the subject justice. From the facts presented, it is only too
evident that very little had been attempted or done by the Richmond
authorities for the Indian regiments. Neither officers nor men had
been regularly or fully paid. And not all the good intentions, few as
they were, of the central government had been allowed realization.
They had been checkmated by the men in control west of the
Mississippi. In fact, the army men in Arkansas had virtually exploited
Pike's command, had appropriated for their own use his money, his
supplies, and had never permitted anything to pass on to Indian
Territory, notwithstanding that it had been bought with Indian funds,
"that was fit to be sent anywhere else." The Indian's portion was the
"refuse," as Pike so truly, bitterly, and emphatically put it, or, in
other words of his, the "crumbs" that fell from the white man's table.
Pike's compliance with Hindman's orders was only partial and he
offered not the vestige of an apology that it was so. What he did send
was Dawson's[402] infantry regiment and Woodruff's battery which went
duly on to Little Rock with the requisite thirty days' subsistence and
the caution that not a single cartridge was to be fired along the way.
The caution Pike must have repeated in almost ironical vein; for the
way to Little Rock lay through Indian Territory and cartridges like
everything else under Pike's control had been collected solely for its
defense.
Respecting the forward movement of the Indian troops, Pike made not
the slightest observation in his
[Footnote 402: C.L. Dawson of the Nineteenth Regiment of Arkansas
Volunteers had joined Pike at Fort McCulloch in April [_Fort Smith
Papers_].]
reply. His silence was ominous. Perhaps it was intended as a warning
to Hindman not to encroach too far upon his department; but that is
mere conjecture; inasmuch as Pike had not yet seen fit to question
outright Hindman's authority over himself. As if anticipating an echo
from Little Rock of criticisms that were rife elsewhere, he ventured
an explanation of his conduct in establishing himself in the extreme
southern part of Indian Territory and towards the west and in
fortifying on an open prairie, far from any recognized base.[403] He
had gone down into the Red River country, he asserted, in order to be
near Texas where supplies might be had in abundance and where, since
he had no means of defence, he would be safe from attack. He deplored
the seeming necessity of merging his department in another and larger
one. His reasons were probably many but the one reason he stressed
was, for present purposes, the best he could have offered. It
was, that the Indians could not be expected to render to him as a
subordinate the same obedience they had rendered to him as the chief
officer in command. Were his authority to be superseded in any degree,
the Indians would naturally infer that his influence at Richmond had
declined, likewise his power to protect them and their interests.
During the night Pike must have pondered deeply
[Footnote 403: His enemies were particularly scornful of his work
in this regard. They poked fun at him on every possible occasion.
Edwards, in _Shelby and His Men_, 63, but echoed the general
criticism,
"Pike, also a Brigadier, had retreated with his Indian contingent out
of North West Arkansas, unpursued, through the Cherokee country, the
Chickasaw country, and the country of the Choctaws, two hundred and
fifty miles to the southward, only halting on the 'Little Blue', an
unknown thread of a stream, twenty miles from Red river, where he
constructed fortifications on the open prairie, erected a saw-mill
remote from any timber, and devoted himself to gastronomy and poetic
meditation, with elegant accompaniments..."]
over things omitted from his reply to Hindman and over all that was
wanting to make his compliance with Hindman's instructions full and
satisfactory. On the ninth, his assistant-adjutant, O.F. Russell,
prepared a fairly comprehensive report[404] of the conditions in and
surrounding his command. Pike's force,[405] so the report stated, was
anything but complete. With Dawson gone, there would be in camp, of
Arkansas troops, one company of cavalry and one of artillery and, of
Texas, two companies of cavalry. When men, furloughed for the wheat
harvest, should return, there would be "in addition two regiments
and one company of cavalry, and one company of artillery, about 80
strong."[406] The withdrawal of white troops from the Territory would
be interpreted by the Indians to mean its abandonment.
Of the Indian contingent, Russell had this to say:
The two Cherokee regiments are near the Kansas line, operating on
that frontier. Col. Stand Watie has recently had a skirmish there,
in which, as always, he and his men fought gallantly, and were
successful. Col. D.N. McIntosh's Creek Regiment is under orders to
advance up the Verdigris, toward the Santa Fé road. Lieut. Col.
Chilly McIntosh's Creek Battalion, Lieut. Col. John Jumper's
Seminole Battalion, and Lieut. Col. J.D. Harris' Chickasaw
Battalion are under orders, and part of them now in motion toward
the Salt Plains, to take Fort Larned, the post at Walnut Creek,
and perhaps Fort Wise, and intercept trains going to New Mexico.
The First Choctaw (new)[407] Regiment, of Col. Sampson Folsom,
and the Choctaw Battalion (three companies), of Maj. Simpson (N.)
Folsom, are at Middle Boggy, 23 miles northeast of this point.
They were under orders to march northward to
[Footnote 404: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 943-945.]
[Footnote 405: For tabulated showing of Pike's brigade, see
Ibid., 831.]
[Footnote 406: Compare Russell's statement with Hindman's
[Ibid., 30]. See also Maury to Price, March 22, 1862
[Ibid., vol. viii, 798].]
[Footnote 407: The parentheses appear here as in the original.]
the Salt Plains and Santa Fé road; but the withdrawal of Colonel
Dawson's regiment prevents that, and the regiment is now ordered
to take position here, and the battalion to march to and take
position at Camp McIntosh, 17 miles this side of Fort Cobb, where,
with Hart's Spies, 40 in number, it will send out parties to
the Wichita Mountains and up the False Wichita, and prevent, if
possible, depredations on the frontier of Texas.
The First Choctaw and Chickasaw Regiment, of Col. Douglas H.
Cooper, goes out of service on the 25th and 26th of July. It is
now encamped 11 miles east of here.... The country to the westward
is quiet, all the Comanches this side of the Staked Plains being
friendly, and the Kiowas[408] having made peace, and selected
a home to live at on Elk Creek, not far from the site of Camp
Radziwintski, south of the Wichita Mountains.
The Indian troops have been instructed, if the enemy[409] invades
the country, to harass him, and impede his progress by every
possible means, and, falling back here as he advances, to assist
in holding this position against him.
Included in Russell's report there might well have been much
interesting data respecting the condition of the troops that Pike
was parting with; for it can scarcely be said that he manifested any
generosity in sending them forth. He obeyed the letter of his order
and ignored its spirit. He permitted no guns to be taken out of the
Territory that had been paid for with money that he had furnished.
Dawson's regiment had not its full quota of men, but that was scarcely
Pike's fault. Neither was it his fault that its equipment was so
sadly below par that it could make but very slow progress on the nine
hundred mile march between Fort McCulloch and Little Rock. Moreover,
the health of the
[Footnote 408: Pike had just received assurances of the friendly
disposition of the Kiowas [Bickel to Pike, June 1, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 936].]
[Footnote 409: The enemy in mind was the Indian Expedition. Pike had
heard that Sturgis had been removed "on account of his tardiness in
not invading the Indian country...." [Ibid., 944].]
men was impaired, their duties, especially the "fort duties, throwing
up intrenchments, etc.,"[410] had been very fatiguing. Pike had no
wagons to spare them for the trip eastward. So many of his men had
obtained furloughs for the harvest season and every company, in
departing, had taken with it a wagon,[411] no one having any thought
that there would come a call decreasing Pike's command.
So slowly and laboriously did Dawson's regiment progress that Hindman,
not hearing either of it or of Woodruff's battery, which was slightly
in advance, began to have misgivings as to the fate of his orders of
May 31. He, therefore, repeated them in substance, on June 17, with
the additional specific direction that Pike should "move at once to
Fort Gibson." That order Pike received June 24, the day following his
issuance of instructions to his next in command, Colonel D.H. Cooper,
that he should hasten to the country north of the Canadian and there
take command of all forces except Chief Jumper's.