had been appointed Cherokee agent in the place of John Crawford,
removed [Dole to Coffin, March 18, 1862, ibid., _Letter Book_,
no. 67 pp. 492-493] had died, August 31, at the Sac and Fox Agency
[Hutchinson to Mix September 1, 1862, Ibid., General Files,
_Cherokee_, H 538 of 1862]; [Coffin to Dole, September 13,
1862, Ibid., C 1827: W.H. Herndon to Dole, November 15, 1862,
Ibid., H 605]. Harlan was not regularly commissioned as
Cherokee agent until January, 1863 [Coffin to Dole, April 7, 1863,
Ibid., C 143 of 1863; Harlan to Dole, January 26, 1863,
Ibid., H 37 of 1863].]
[Footnote 597: John Ross asked help for his own family and for the
families of various relations, thirty-four persons in all. He wanted
five hundred dollars for each person [Ross to Dole, October 13, 1862,
Ibid., R 1857 of 1862]. Later, he asked for seventeen thousand
dollars, likewise for maintenance [Ross to Dole, November 19, 1862,
Ibid.]. The beginning of the next year, he notified the
department that some of his party were about to return home (cont.)]
of their opponents for living in too sumptuous a manner.[598]
The removal, under military supervision, of the Cherokee refugees,
had some justification in various facts, Blunt's firm conviction that
Coffin and his instigators or abettors were exploiting the Indian
service, that the refugees at Leroy were not being properly cared for,
and that those on the Neutral Lands had put themselves directly under
the protection of the army.[599] His then was the responsibility. When
planning his second Indian Expedition, Blunt had discovered that the
Indian men were not at all inclined to accompany it unless they could
have some stronger guarantee than any yet given that their families
would be well looked after in their absence. They had returned from
the first expedition to find their women and children and aged men,
sick, ill-fed, and unhappy.
It was with knowledge of such things and with the hope that they would
soon be put a stop to and their repetition prevented by a return of
the refugees to Indian Territory, that John Ross, in October, made a
personal appeal to President Lincoln and interceded with him to send
a military force down, sufficient to over-awe the Confederates and to
take actual possession
[Footnote 597: (cont.) [Ibid., R 14 of 1863] and requested that
transportation from Leavenworth and supplies be furnished them [Indian
Office General Files, _Cherokee_, R 13 of 1863]. Dole informed
Coffin that the request should be granted [see Office letter of
January 6, 1863] and continued forwarding to John Ross his share of
the former remittance [Indian Office _Letter Book_, no. 69, 503].
To make the monetary allowance to John Ross, Cherokee chief, the
Chickasaw funds were drawn upon [Second Auditor, E.B. Trench, to Dole,
June 19, 1863, Ibid., General Files, _Cherokee_, A 202 of
1863; Office letter of June 20, 1863].]
[Footnote 598: Ross and others to Dole, July 29, 1864 [Ibid.,
General Files, _Cherokee_, 1859-1865, R 360]; Secretary of the
Interior to Ross, August 25, 1864 [Ibid., I 651]; John Ross
and Evan Jones to Dole, August 26, 1864 [Ibid., R 378]; Office
letter of October 14, 1864; Coffin's letter of July 8, 1864.]
[Footnote 599: Blunt to Smith, November 21, 1862.]
of the land. Lincoln's sympathies and sense of justice were
immediately aroused and he inquired of General Curtis, in the
field, as to the practicability of occupying "the Cherokee country
consistently with the public service."[600] Curtis evaded the direct
issue, which was the Federal obligation to protect its wards, by
boasting that he had just driven the enemy into the Indian Territory
"and beyond" and by doubting "the expediency of occupying ground so
remote from supplies."[601]
General Blunt's force continued to hold the northeastern part of the
Cherokee country until the end of October when it fell back, crossed
the line, and moved along the Bentonville road in order to meet its
supply train from Fort Scott.[602] Blunt's division finally took its
stand on Prairie Creek[603] and, on the twelfth of November, made its
main camp on Lindsay's prairie, near the Indian boundary.[604] The
rout of Cooper at Fort Wayne had shaken the faith of many Indians in
the invincibility of the Confederate arms. They had disbanded and gone
home, declaring "their purpose to join the Federal troops the first
opportunity" that presented itself.[605] To secure them and to
reconnoitre once more, Colonel Phillips had started out near the
beginning of November and, from the third to the fifth, had made his
way down through the Cherokee Nation, by way of Tahlequah and Park
Hill, to Webber's Falls on the Arkansas.[606] His return was by
[Footnote 600: Lincoln to Curtis, October 10, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 723.]
[Footnote 601: Curtis to Lincoln, October 10, 1862, Ibid.]
[Footnote 602: Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. i,
376-377.]
[Footnote 603:--Ibid., 379.]
[Footnote 604:--Ibid., 380; Bishop, _Loyalty on the
Frontier_, 56.]
[Footnote 605: Blunt to Schofield, November 9, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 785.]
[Footnote 606: H.W. Martin to Coffin, December 20, 1862, Indian Office
General Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1859-1862, C 1950.]
Dwight's Mission. His view of the country through which he passed must
have been discouraging.[607] There was little to subsist upon and the
few Indians lingering there were in a deplorable state of deprivation,
little food, little clothing[608] and it was winter-time.
So desolate and abandoned did the Cherokee country appear that General
Blunt considered it would be easily possible to hold it with his
Indian force alone, three regiments, yet he said no more about the
immediate return of the refugees,[609] but issued an order for their
removal to Neosho. The wisdom of his action might well be questioned
since the expense of supporting them there would be immeasurably
greater than in Kansas[610] unless, indeed, the military authorities
intended to assume the entire charge of them.[611] Special Agent
Martin regarded some talk that was rife of letting them forage upon
the impoverished people of Missouri as
[Footnote 607: It was not discouraging to Blunt, however. His letter
referring to it was even sanguine [_Official Records_, vol. xiii,
785-786].]
[Footnote 608: Martin to Coffin, December 20, 1862.]
[Footnote 609: The Interior Department considered it, however, and
consulted with the War Department as late as the twenty-sixth. See
_Register of Letters Received_, vol. D., p. 155.]
[Footnote 610: Coffin to Henning, December 28, 1862, Indian Office
Consolidated Files, _Cherokee_, C 17 of 1863.]
[Footnote 611: Coffin's letter to Dole of December 20 [Indian Office
General Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1859-1862, C 1950]
would imply that the superintendent expected that to be the case. He
said, having reference to Martin's report, "... The statement of facts
which he makes, from all the information I have from other sources, I
have no doubt are strictly true and will no doubt meet your serious
consideration.
"If the Programme as fixed up by the Military Officers, and which I
learn Dr. Gillpatrick is the bearer to your city and the solicitor
general to procure its adoption is carried out, the Indian Department,
superintendent, and agents may all be dispensed with. The proposition
reminds me of the Fable of the Wolves and the Shepherds, the wolves
represented to the shepherds that it was very expensive keeping dogs
to guard the sheep, which was wholly unnecessary; that if they would
kill off the dogs, they, the wolves, would protect the sheep without
any compensation whatever."]
sheer humbug. The army was not doing that and why should the
defenceless Indians be expected to do it. As it was, they seem to
have been reduced to plundering in Kansas.[612] On the whole, it
is difficult to explain Blunt's plan for the concentration of the
Cherokee refugees at Neosho, since there were, at the time, many
indications that Hindman was considering another advance and an
invasion of southwest Missouri.
The November operations of the Federals in northeastern Arkansas
were directed toward arresting Hindman's progress, if progress were
contemplated. Meanwhile, Phillips with detachments of his Indian
brigade was continuing his reconnoissances and, when word came that
Stand Watie had ventured north of the Arkansas, Blunt sent him to
compel a recrossing.[613] Stand Watie's exploit was undoubtedly
a preliminary to a general Confederate plan for the recovery of
northwestern Arkansas and the Indian Territory, a plan, which Blunt,
vigorous and aggressive, was determined to circumvent. In the action
at Cane Hill,[614] the latter part of November, and in the Battle of
Prairie Grove,[615] December seventh, the mettle of the Federals was
put to a severe test which it stood successfully and Blunt's cardinal
purpose was fully accomplished.[616] In both engagements, the Indians
played a part and played it
[Footnote 612: These Indians must have been the ones referred to in
Richard C. Vaughn's letter to Colonel W.D. Wood, December i, 1862
[_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 796].]
[Footnote 613: Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. i, p.
382.]
[Footnote 614:--Ibid., vol. i, chapter xxix.]
[Footnote 615:--Ibid., vol. i, chapter xxx; _Official
Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 66-82, 82-158, vol. liii, supplement,
458-461, 866, 867; Livermore, _The Story of the Civil War_, part
iii, bk. 1, 84-85.]
[Footnote 616: One opinion is to the effect that the result of
the Battle of Prairie Grove, Fayetteville, or Illinois Creek, was
virtually to end the war north of the Arkansas River [Ibid., p.
85; _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 82]. (cont.)]
conspicuously and well, the northern regiments so well,[617] indeed,
that shortly afterwards two additional ones, the Fourth and the Fifth,
were projected.[618] Towards the end of the year, Phillips, whom Blunt
had sent upon another excursion into Indian Territory,[619] could
report
[Footnote 616: (cont.) Bishop wrote, "After the battle of Prairie
Grove, and the gradual retrogression of the Army of the Frontier into
Missouri, Fayetteville was still held as a military post, and those of
us who remained there were given to understand that the place would
not be abandoned ... The demoralized enemy had fallen back to Little
Rock, with the exception of weak nomadic forces that, like Stygian
ghosts, wandered up and down the Arkansas from Dardanelle to Fort
Smith...." [_Loyalty on the Frontier_, 205]. Schofield was of
the opinion, however, that the Battle of Prairie Grove was a hard-won
victory. "Blunt and Herron were badly beaten in detail, and owed
their escape to a false report of my arrival with re-enforcements."
[_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, p. 6].]
[Footnote 617: And yet it was only a short time previously that Major
A.C. Ellithorpe, commanding the First Regiment Indian Home Guards, had
had cause to complain seriously of the Creeks of that regiment. On
November 7, he wrote from Camp Bowen that Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la was
enticing the Indians away from the performance of their duties. "You
will now perceive that we are on the border of the Indian country and
a very large portion of the Indians are now scouting through their own
Territory. What I now desire is that every man who was enlisted as a
soldier shall at once return to his command by the way of Fort Scott
unless otherwise ordered by competent authority...." [Indian Office
Land Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1855-1870, C 1933].
Coffin, as usual, appeared as an apologist for the Indians and
attempted to exonerate Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la from all blame [Letter to
Dole, December 3, 1862, Ibid.]. He called the aged chief, "that
noble old Roman of the Indians," and the chief himself protested
against the injustice and untruth of Ellithrope's accusation
[Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la to Coffin, November 24, 1862, Ibid.].]
[Footnote 618: Officers for these two regiments were appointed by the
president, December 26, 1862, and ordered to report to Blunt, who, in
turn ordered them to report to Phillips. When the officers arrived in
Indian Territory, they found no such regiments as the Fourth and Fifth
Indian [_U.S. Senate Report_, 41st congress, third session, no.
359]. They never did materialize as a matter of fact; but the officers
did duty, nevertheless, and were regularly mustered out of the service
in 1863. In 1864, Congress passed an act for the adjudication of their
claim for salary [_U.S. Statutes at Large_, vol. xiii, 413]. It
is rather surprising that the regiments were not organized; inasmuch
as many new recruits were constantly presenting themselves.]
[Footnote 619: Phillips to Blunt, December 25, 1862 [_Official
Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 873-874].]
that Stand Watie and Cooper had been pushed considerably below
the Arkansas, that many of the buildings at Fort Davis had been
demolished,[620] that one of the Creek regiments was about to retire
from the Confederate service, and that the Choctaws, once so deeply
committed, were wavering in their allegiance to the South.[621]
[Footnote 620: The buildings at Fort Davis were burnt, and
deliberately, by Phillips's orders. [See his own admission,
Ibid., part ii, 56, 62].]
[Footnote 621: Blunt to Weed, December 30, 1862, Ibid., part i,
168.]
X. NEGOTIATIONS WITH UNION INDIANS
As though the Indians had not afflictions enough to endure merely
because of their proximity to the contending whites, life was made
miserable for them, during the period of the Civil War, as much as
before and after, by the insatiable land-hunger of politicians,
speculators, and would-be captains of industry, who were more often
than not, rogues in the disguise of public benefactors. Nearly all
of them were citizens of Kansas. The cessions of 1854, negotiated
by George W. Manypenny, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, were but a
prelude to the many that followed. For years and years there was in
reality never a time when some sort of negotiation, _sub rosa_
or official, was not going on. The order of procedure was pretty much
what it had always been: a promise that the remaining land should be
the Indian's, undisturbed by white men and protected by government
guarantee, forever; encroachment by enterprising, covetous, and
lawless whites; conflict between the two races, the outraged and the
aggressive; the advent of the schemer, the man with political capital
and undeveloped or perverted sense of honor, whose vision was such
that he saw the Indian owner as the only obstacle in the way of
vast material and national progress; political pressure upon the
administration in Washington, lobbying in Congress; authorization of
negotiations with the bewildered Indians; delimitation of the meaning
of the solemn and grandly-sounding word, _forever_.
When the war broke out, negotiations, begun in the
border warfare days, were still going on. This was most true as
regarded the Osages, whose immense holding in southern Kansas
was something not to be tolerated, so the politicians reasoned,
indefinitely. Petitions,[622] praying that the lands be opened to
white settlement were constantly being sent in and intruders,[623] who
intended to force action, becoming more and more numerous and more
and more recalcitrant. One of the first official communications of
Superintendent Coffin embodied a plea for getting a treaty of cession
for which the signs had seemed favorable the previous year.
Coffin, however, discredited[624] a certain Dr. J.B. Chapman, who,
notwithstanding he represented white capitalists,[625] had yet found
favor with the Osages. To their
[Footnote 622: For example, take the petitions forwarded by M.W.
Delahay, surveyor-general of Kansas [Indian Office Consolidated Files,
_Neosho_, D 455 of 1861]. One of the petitions contains this
statement: "... The lands being largely settled upon and improved and
those adjacent being all claimed and settled upon by residents--while
a large emigration from Texas and other rebellious States are forced
to seek homes in a more northern and uncongenial climate greatly
against their interests and inclinations...."]
[Footnote 623: Intruders upon the Osage lands, as upon the Cherokee
Neutral, were numerous for years before the war. Agent Dorn was
continually complaining of them, chiefly because they were free-state
in politics. He again and again asked for military assistance in
removing them. See his letter to Greenwood, February 26, 1860,
_Neosho_, 1833-1865, D 107. Buchanan's administration had
conceived the idea of locating other Kansas Indians upon the huge
Osage Reserve. See Dorn to Greenwood, March 26, 1860, Ibid., D
119. Apparently, the fragments of tribes in the northeastern corner of
Indian Territory had been approached on the same subject, but they did
not favor it and Agent Dorn was doubtful if the Osages would [Dorn to
Greenwood, April 17, 1860, Ibid., D 129].]
[Footnote 624: He described him as a self-appointed guardian of the
Osages, as a scamp and a nuisance [Coffin to Dole, June 17, 1861,
Ibid., C 1223 of 1861].]
[Footnote 625: Chapman, August 26, 1860, inquired of Greenwood whether
there was any prospect of a treaty being negotiated with the Osages
and whether the capitalists he represented would be likely to secure
railroad rights to the South by it. He asserted that the Delawares had
been "humbugged" by their treaty, it having been negotiated "in the
interests of the Democrats at Leavenworth" [Ibid., C 702 of
1860].]
everlasting sorrow and despoliation, the Indians have been fated to
place a child-like trust in those least worthy.
The defection of portions of the southern tribes offered an undreamed
of opportunity for Kansas politicians to accomplish their purposes.
They had earlier thought of removing the Kansas tribes, one by one,
to Indian Territory; but the tribes already there had a lien upon
the land, titles, and other rights, that could not be ignored. Their
possession was to continue so long as the grass should grow and the
water should run. It was not for the government to say that they
should open their doors to anybody. An early intimation that the
Kansans saw their opportunity was a resolution[626] submitted by James
H. Lane to the Senate, March 17, 1862, proposing an inquiry into "the
propriety and expediency of extending the southern boundary of Kansas
to the northern boundary of Texas, so as to include within the
boundaries of Kansas the territory known as the Indian territory."
Obviously, the proposition had a military object immediately in view;
but Commissioner Dole, to whom it was referred, saw its ulterior
meaning and reported[627] adversely upon it as he had upon an earlier
proposition to erect a regular territorial form of government in the
Indian country south of Kansas.[628] He was "unable to perceive any
advantage to be derived from the adoption of such a measure, since the
same military power that would be required to enforce the authority
of territorial officers is all-sufficient to protect and enforce the
authority of such officers as are required in the management of our
present system
[Footnote 626: _United State Congressional Globe_, 37th congress,
second session, part ii, p. 1246.]
[Footnote 627: Dole to Smith, April 2, 1862, Indian Office _Report
Book_, no. 12, 353-354.]
[Footnote 628: Dole to Smith, March 17, 1862, Ibid., 335-337.]
of Indian relations."[629] And he insisted that the whole of the
present Indian country should be left to the Indians.[630] The honor
of the government was pledged to that end. Almost coincidently he
negatived[631] another suggestion, one advocated by Pomeroy for the
confiscation of the Cherokee Neutral Lands.[632] For the time being,
Dole was strongly opposed to throwing either the Neutral Lands or the
Osage Reserve open to white settlers.
Behind Pomeroy's suggestion was the spirit of retaliation, of meting
out punishment to the Indians, who, because they had been so basely
deserted by the United States government, had gone over to the
Confederacy; but the Kansas politicians saw a chance to kill two birds
with one stone, vindictively punish the southern Indians for their
defection and rid Kansas of the northern Indians, both emigrant and
indigenous. The intruders upon Indian lands, the speculators and the
politicians, would get the spoils of victory. Against the idea of
punishing the southern Indians for what after all was far from being
entirely their fault, the friends of justice marshaled their forces.
Dole was not exactly of their number; for he had other ends to serve
in resisting measures advanced by the Kansans, yet, to his credit be
it said that he did always hold firmly to the notion that tribes like
the Cherokee were more sinned against than sinning. The government
had been the first to shirk responsibility and to violate sacred
obligations. It had failed to give the protection guaranteed by
treaties and it was not giving it yet adequately.
[Footnote 629: Dole to Smith, March 17, 1862, Indian Office _Report
Book_, no. 12, 335.]
[Footnote 630: Report of April 2, 1862.]
[Footnote 631: Dole to Smith, March 20, 1862, Indian Office _Report
Book_, no. 12, 343-344.]
[Footnote 632: _Daily Conservative_, May 10, 1862. Note the
arguments in favor of confiscation as quoted from the _Western
Volunteer_.,]
The true friends of justice were men of the stamp of W.S.
Robertson[633] and the Reverend Evan Jones,[634] who went out of
their way to plead the Indian's cause and to detail the extenuating
circumstances surrounding his lamentable failure to keep faith.
Supporting the men of the opposite camp was even the Legislature of
Kansas. In no other way can a memorial from the General Assembly,
urging the extinguishment of the title of certain Indian lands in
Kansas, be interpreted.[635]
It is not easy to determine always just what motives did actuate
Commissioner Dole. They were not entirely above suspicion and his
name is indissolubly connected with some very nefarious Indian
transactions; but fortunately they have not to be recounted here. At
the very time when he was offering unanswerable arguments against
the propositions of Lane and Pomeroy, he was entertaining something
similar to those propositions in his own mind. A special agent,
Augustus Wattles, who had been sufficiently familiar and mixed-up with
the free state and pro-slavery controversy to be called upon to give
testimony before the Senate
[Footnote 633: Robertson wrote to the Secretary of the Interior,
January 7, 1862, asking most earnestly "that decisive measures be
not taken against the oppressed and betrayed people of the Creek and
Cherokee tribes, until everything is heard about their struggle in the
present crisis" [Department of the Interior, _Register of Letters
Received_, "Indians," no. 4]. The letter was referred to the
Indian Office and Mix replied to it, February 14, 1862 [Indian Office
_Letter Book_, no. 67, p. 357]. The concluding paragraph of
the letter is indicative of the government feeling, "... In reply
I transmit herewith for your information the Annual Report of this
Office, which will show ... what policy has governed the Office as to
this matter, and that it is in consonance with your wish...."]
[Footnote 634: Jones wrote frequently and at great length on the
subject of justice to the Cherokees. One of his most heartfelt appeals
was that of January 21, 1862 [Indian Office Consolidated Files,
_Cherokee_, J 556 of 1862].]
[Footnote 635: Cyrus Aldrich, representative from Minnesota and
chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs referred the
memorial to the Indian Office [_Letters Registered_, vol. 58,
_Southern Superintendency_, A. 484 of 1862].]