that he should vindicate himself. So maligned had he been that his
sensitiveness on the score of the discharge of his duties was very
natural, very pardonable. After all he had done for the Confederacy
and for the Indians, it seemed hardly right that he should be blamed
for all that others had failed to do. His motives were pure and could
not be honestly impugned by anybody. The address was an error of
judgment but it was made with the best of intentions.
And so the authorities at Richmond seem to have regarded it; that is,
if the reference in President Davis's letter[449] to Pike of August 9
is to this affair. Pike wrote to the president on the same day that he
started his address upon its rounds, but that letter,[450] in which
he rehearsed the wrongs he had been forced to endure, also those more
recently inflicted upon him, did not reach Richmond until September
20. His address was transmitted by Colonel D.H. Cooper, who had
taken great umbrage at it and who now charged the author with having
violated an army regulation, which prohibited publications concerning
Confederate troops.[451] Davis took the matter under advisement and
wrote to Pike a mild reprimand. It was as follows:
Richmond, Va., August 9, 1862.
Brig. Gen. Albert Pike,
Camp McCulloch, Choctaw Nation:
General: Your communication of July 3 is at hand. I regret the
necessity of informing you that it is an impropriety for an
officer of the Army to address the President through a printed
circular.[452] Under the laws for the government of
[Footnote 449: Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 822.]
[Footnote 450:--Ibid., vol. xiii, 860-869.]
[Footnote 451:--Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 820-821.]
[Footnote 452: It is possible that the printed circular here referred
to was some other one that was directly addressed to the president but
none such has been found.]
the Army the publication of this circular was a grave military
offense, and if the purpose was to abate an evil, by making an
appeal that would be heeded by me, the mode taken was one of the
slowest and worst that could have been adopted.
Very respectfully, yours, Jefferson Davis.
The sympathy of Secretary Randolph was conceivably with Pike; for, on
the fourteenth of July, he wrote assuring him that certain general
orders had been sent out by the Adjutant and Inspector General's
Office which were "intended to prevent even the major-general
commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department from diverting from their
legitimate destination (the Department of Indian Territory) munitions
of war and supplies procured by 'him' for that department."[453]
That did not prevent Hindman's continuing his pernicious practices,
however. On the seventeenth he demanded[454] that Pike deliver to
him his best battery and Pike, discouraged and yet thoroughly beside
himself with ill-suppressed rage,[455] sent it to him.[456] At
the same time he insisted that he be immediately relieved of his
command.[457] He could endure the indignities to which he was
subjected no longer. The order for his relief arrived in due course
and also directions for him to report in person at Hindman's
headquarters.[458] He had not then issued his circular; but, as
[Footnote 453: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 903; Pike to
Holmes, December 30, 1862, Pike _Papers_, Library of the
Supreme Council, 33º. Pike did not receive Randolph's letter of July
fourteenth until some time in August and not until after he had had an
interview with Holmes. See Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862.]
[Footnote 454: Official Records, vol. xiii, 970.]
[Footnote 455: This is inferred from the very peculiar _General
Orders_ that issued from Fort McCulloch that selfsame day. They
were sarcastic in the extreme. No general in his right senses would
have issued them. They are to be found, Ibid., 970-973.]
[Footnote 456:--Ibid., 973, 974.]
[Footnote 457:--_Ib id_., 973.]
[Footnote 458: Pike to Hindman, July 31, 1862, Ibid., 973.]
soon as he had, the whole situation changed. He had deliberately put
himself in the wrong and into the hands of his enemies. The address
was, in some respects, the last act of a desperate[459] man. And there
is no doubt that General Pike was desperate. Reports were spreading in
Texas that he was a defaulter to the government and, as he himself in
great bitterness of spirit said, "The incredible villainy of a slander
so monstrous, and so without even any ground for suspicion," was
"enough to warn every honest man not to endeavor to serve his
country."[460]
Not until August 6 did General Pike's circular address reach Colonel
D.H. Cooper, who was then at Cantonment Davis. Cooper wisely
suppressed all the copies he could procure and then, believing Pike to
be either insane or a traitor, ordered his arrest,[461] sending out
an armed force for its accomplishment. Hindman, as soon as notified,
"indorsed and approved" his action.[462] This is his own account of
what he did:
... I approved his action, and ordered General Pike sent to Little
Rock in custody. I also forwarded Colonel Cooper's letter to
Richmond, with an indorsement, asking to withdraw my approval
of General Pike's resignation, that I might bring him before a
court-martial on charges of falsehood, cowardice, and treason. He
was also liable to the penalties prescribed by section 29 of the
act of Congress regulating intercourse with the Indians and to
preserve peace on the frontiers, approved April 8, 1862....
But his resignation had been accepted....[463]
[Footnote 459: And yet, August 1, 1862, Pike wrote to Davis one of the
sanest papers he ever prepared. It was full of sage advice as to the
policy that ought to be pursued in Indian Territory [_Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 871-874].]
[Footnote 460: Pike to S. Cooper, August 3, 1862, Ibid., 975.
See also Pike to Newton, August 3, 1862, Ibid., 976.]
[Footnote 461: D.H. Cooper to Hindman, August 7, 1862, ibid., 977.]
[Footnote 462: Pike to Anderson, October 26, 1862, Ibid., 903.]
[Footnote 463: Hindman's Report, Ibid., 41.]
VII. ORGANIZATION OF THE ARKANSAS AND RED RIVER SUPERINTENDENCY
The mismanagement of southern Indian affairs of which General Pike so
vociferously complained was not solely or even to any great degree
attributable to indifference to Indian interests on the part of
the Confederate government and certainly not at all to any lack of
appreciation of the value of the Indian alliance or of the strategic
importance of Indian Territory. The perplexities of the government
were unavoidably great and its control over men and measures, removed
from the seat of its immediate influence, correspondingly small.
It was not to be expected that it would or could give the same
earnestness of attention to events on the frontier as to those nearer
the seaboard, since it was, after all, east of the Mississippi that
the great fight for political separation from the North would have to
be made.
The Confederate government had started out well. It had dealt with the
Indian nations on a basis of dignity and lofty honor, a fact to be
accounted for by the circumstance that Indian affairs were at first
under the State Department with Toombs at its head;[464] and, in this
connection, let it be recalled that it was under authority of the
State Department that Pike had
[Footnote 464: Toombs did not long hold the portfolio. Among the
Pickett _Papers_, is a letter from Davis to Toombs, July 24,
1861, accepting with regret his resignation [Package 89].]
entered upon his mission as diplomatic agent to the tribes west of
Arkansas.[465] Subsequently, and, indeed, before Pike had nearly
completed his work, Indian affairs were transferred[466] to the
direction of the Secretary of War and a bureau created in his
department for the exclusive consideration of them, Hubbard receiving
the post of commissioner.[467]
The Provisional Congress approached the task of dealing with Indian
matters as if it already had a big grasp on the subject and intended,
at the outset, to give them careful scrutiny and to establish, with
regard to them, precedents of extreme good faith. Among the
[Footnote 465: In evidence of this, note, in addition to the material
published in Abel, _The American Indian as Slaveholder and
Secessionist_, the following letters, the first from Robert Toombs
to L.P. Walker, Secretary of War, dated Richmond, August 7, 1861;
and the second from William M. Browne, Acting Secretary of State, to
Walker, September 4, 1861:
1. "I have the honor to inform you that under a resolution of
Congress, authorizing the President to send a Commissioner to the
Indian tribes west of Arkansas and south of Kansas, Mr. Albert Pike of
Arkansas was appointed such Commissioner under an autograph letter of
the President giving him very large discretion as to the expenses
of his mission. Subsequent to the adoption of the resolution, above
named, Congress passed a law placing the Indian Affairs under the
control of your Department and consequently making the expenses of
Mr. Pike and all other Indian Agents, properly payable out of
the appropriation at your disposal for the service of the Indian
Bureau."--Pickett _Papers_, Package 106, Domestic Letters,
Department of State, vol. i, p.86.
2. "The accompanying letters and reports from Commissioner Albert Pike
addressed to your Department are respectfully referred to you,
the affairs to which they relate being under your supervision and
control."--Ibid., P-93.]
[Footnote 466: A re-transfer to the State Department was proposed
as early as the next November [_Journal of the Congress of the
Confederate States_, 489].]
[Footnote 467: President Davis recommended the creation of the
bureau, March 12, 1861 [Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the
Confederacy_, vol. i, p. 58: Journal of the Congress of the
Confederate States, vol. i, p. 142]. On the sixteenth, he nominated
David Hubbard of Alabama for commissioner [Pickett Papers, Package
88]. The bill for the creation of the bureau of Indian Affairs was
signed the selfsame day [Journal, vol. i, 151]. S.S. Scott became
Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs before the year was out.]
things[468] it considered and in some cases favorably disposed of
were, the treaties of amity and alliance negotiated by Albert Pike,
the transfer of Indian trust
[Footnote 468: The preliminaries of the negotiations with the Indians
have not been enumerated here, although they might well have been. On
the twentieth of February, 1861, W.P. Chilton of Alabama offered a
resolution to inquire into the expediency of opening negotiations
[_Journal_, vol. i, 70]. March 4, Toombs urged that a special
agent be sent and offered a resolution to that effect [Ibid.,
105]. The day following, Congress passed the resolution [Ibid.,
107]: but left the powers and duties of the special agent, or
commissioner, undefined. Davis appointed Pike to the position and,
after Congress had expressed its wishes regarding the mission in the
act of May 21, 1861, had a copy of the act transmitted to him as his
instructions [Richardson, vol. i, 149].
The act of May 21, 1861, carried a blanket appropriation of $100,000,
which was undoubtedly used freely by Pike for purposes connected
with the successful prosecution of his mission. In December, the
Provisional Congress appropriated money for carrying into effect the
Pike treaties. The following letter is of interest in connection
therewith:
Richmond, Va., 9" December 1861.
Sir: On the 1st or 2nd of August 1861, after I had made Treaties with
the Creeks and Seminoles, I authorized James M.C. Smith, a resident
citizen of the Creek Nation, to raise and command a company of Creek
Volunteers, to be stationed at the North Fork Village, in the Creek
country, on the North Fork of the Canadian, where the great road from
Missouri to Texas crosses that river, to act as a police force, watch
and apprehend disaffected persons, intercept improper communications,
and prevent the driving of cattle to Kansas.
The Company was soon after raised, and has remained in the service
ever since. At my appointment George W. Stidham acted as Quartermaster
and Commissary for it, and without funds from the Government, has
supplied it.
By the Treaty with the Seminoles, made on the 1st of August, they
agreed to furnish, and I agreed to receive, five companies of mounted
volunteers of that Nation. Two companies, and perhaps more, were
raised, and have since been received, I understand, by Col. Cooper,
and with Captain Smith's company employed in putting down the
disaffected party among the Creeks. Under my appointment, Hugh
McDonald has acted as Quartermaster and Commissary for the Seminole
companies, and made purchases without funds from the Government. After
I had made the Treaties with the Reserve Indians and Comanches, in
August 1861, Fort Cobb being about to be abandoned by the Texan
Volunteers who had held it, I authorized M. Leeper, the Wichita
agent, to enlist a small force, of twenty or twenty-five men, under a
Lieutenant, for the security of the Agency. He enlisted, (cont.)]
funds from the United to the Confederate States government,[469] the
payment of Indian troops and their pensioning.[470] Its disposition to
be grateful and generous came out in the honor which it conferred upon
John Jumper, the Seminole chief.[471]
A piece of very fundamental work the Provisional Congress did not have
time or opportunity to complete.
[Footnote 468: (cont.) I learn, only some fifteen, and he has had them
for some time in the service.
I also appointed a person named McKuska, formerly a soldier, to take
charge of what further property remained at Fort Cobb, and employed
another person to assist him, agreeing that the former should be paid
as Ordnance Sergeant, and the latter as private; and directing the
Contractor for the Indians to issue to the former two rations, and to
the latter one.
In consequence of the collection of some force of disaffected Creeks
and others, and an apprehended attack by them, Col. Douglas H. Cooper
called for troops from all the Nations, and I understand that several
companies were organized and marched to join his regiment. I think
they are still in the service.
I am now empowered to receive all the Indians who offer to enter the
service. To induce them to enlist, what is already owing them must be
paid; and I earnestly hope that Congress will pass the bill introduced
for that purpose. Respectfully your obedient servant
Albert Pike, _Brig. Genl Commd Dept of Ind. Terr'y_.
Hon. W. Miles, Chairman Com. on Mil. Affs.
[War Department, Office of the Adjutant-General, Archives Division,
_Confederate Records_.]]
[Footnote 469: Journal, vol. i, 650, 743, 761. The Confederate
government took, in the main, a just, reasonable, and even charitable
view on the subject of the assumption of United States obligations.
Pike had exceeded his instructions in promising the Indians that
monetary obligations would be so assumed. See his letter to Randolph,
June 30, 1862.]
[Footnote 470: This matter went over into the regular Congress,
which began its work, February 18, 1862. For details of the bill for
pensions see _Journal_, vol. i, 43, 79.]
[Footnote 471: "_The Congress of the Confederate States of America
do enact_, That the President of the Confederate States be
authorized to present to Hemha Micco, or John Jumper, a commission,
conferring upon him the honorary title of Lieutenant Colonel of the
army of the Confederate States, but without creating or imposing the
duties of actual service or command, or pay, as a complimentary mark
of honor, and a token of good will and confidence in his friendship,
good faith, and loyalty to this government...."--_Statutes at Large
of the Provisional Government_, 284.]
That work was, the establishment of a superintendency of Indian
Affairs in the west that should be a counterpart, in all essentials,
of the old southern superintendency, of which Elias Rector had been
the incumbent. Elias Rector and the agents[472] under him, all
of whom, with scarcely a single exception, had gone over to the
Confederacy, had been retained, not under authority of law, but
provisionally. The intention was to organize the superintendency
as soon as convenient and give all employees their proper official
status. Necessarily, a time came when it was most expedient for army
men to exercise the ordinary functions of Indian agents;[473] but
even that arrangement was to be only temporary. Without doubt, the
enactment of a law for the establishment of a superintendency of
Indian affairs was unduly delayed by the prolonged character of Pike's
diplomatic mission. The Confederate government evidently did not
anticipate that the tribes with which it sought alliance would be so
slow[474] or so wary in accepting the protectorate it offered. Not
until January 8, 1862, did the Provisional Congress have before it
the proposition for superintendency organization. The measure was
introduced by Robert W. Johnson of Arkansas and it
[Footnote 472: Quite early a resolution was submitted that had in
view "the appointment of agents to the different tribes of Indians
occupying territory adjoining this Confederacy..." [_Journal_,
vol. i, 81.]]
[Footnote 473: _Journal_, vol. i, 245.]
[Footnote 474: Pike was not prepared beforehand for so extended a
mission. In November, he wrote to Benjamin, notifying him that he was
enclosing "an account in blank for my services as commissioner to the
Indian nations west of Arkansas.
"It was not my intention to accept any remuneration, but the great
length of time during which I found it necessary to remain in the
Indian Country caused me such losses and so interfered with my
business that I am constrained unwillingly to present this account. I
leave it to the President or to Congress to fix the sum that shall
be paid me...."--Pike to Benjamin, November 25, 1861, Pickett
_Papers_, Package 118.]
went in succession to the Judiciary and Indian Affairs committees; but
never managed to get beyond the committee stage.[475]
February 18, 1862, saw the beginning of the first session of the
first congress that met under the Confederate constitution. Six
days thereafter, Johnson, now senator from Arkansas, again took
the initiative in proposing the regular establishment of an Indian
superintendency.[476] As Senate Bill No. 3, his measure was referred
to the Committee[477] on Indian Affairs and, on March 11, reported
back with amendments.[478] Meanwhile, the House was considering a
bill of similar import, introduced on the third by Thomas B. Hanly,
likewise from Arkansas.[479] On the eighteenth, it received Senate
Bill No. 3 and substituted it for its own, passing the same on April
Fool's day. The bill was signed by the president on April 8.[480]
The information conveyed by the journal entries is unusually meagre;
nevertheless, from the little that is given, the course of debate on
the measure can be inferred to a certain extent. The proposition as
a whole carried, of course, its own recommendation, since the
Confederacy was most anxious to retain the Indian friendship and it
certainly could not be retained were not some system introduced into
the service. In matters of detail, local interests, as always in
American legislation, had full play. They asserted themselves most
prominently, for example, in the endeavor made
[Footnote 475: _Journal_, vol. i, 640, 672, 743.]
[Footnote 476:--Ibid., vol. ii, 19.]
[Footnote 477: The Committee on Indian Affairs, at the time, consisted
of Johnson, chairman, Clement C. Clay of Alabama, Williamson S. Oldham
of Texas, R.L.Y. Payton of Missouri, and W.E. Simms of Kentucky.]
[Footnote 478: _Journal_, vol. ii, 51-52.]
[Footnote 479: _Journal_, vol. v, 47.]
[Footnote 480:--Ibid., 210.]
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 regulations[482] 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: 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: 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
[Footnote 483: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 871-874.]