William Quesenbury seem to have been largely responsible for Steele's
monetary embarrassment [ibid., 28, 63-64, 75, 76, 77, 79-81, 101,
147]. Cotton speculation in Texas was alluring men with ready money
southward [ibid., 94, 104].]
[Footnote 708: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 6.]
conflict of interests.[709] So petty was Schofield and so much in a
mood for disparagement that he went the length of condemning the work
of Blunt and Herron[710] in checking Hindman's advance as but a series
of blunders and their success at Prairie Grove as but due to an
accident.[711] General Curtis, without, perhaps, having any particular
regard for the aggrieved parties himself, resented Schofield's
insinuations against their military capacity, all the more so, no
doubt, because he was not above making the same kind of criticisms
himself and was not impervious to them. In the sequel, Schofield
reorganized the divisions of his command, relieved Blunt altogether,
and personally resumed the direction of the Army of the Frontier.[712]
Blunt went back to his District of Kansas and made his headquarters at
Fort Leavenworth.
In some respects, the reorganization decided upon by Schofield proved
a consummation devoutly to be wished; for, within the reconstituted
First Division was placed an Indian Brigade, which was consigned to
the charge of a man the best fitted of all around to have it, Colonel
William A. Phillips.[713] And that was not all; inasmuch as the Indian
Brigade, consisting of the three regiments of Indian Home Guards, a
battalion of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, and a four-gun battery that had
been captured at the Battle of Old
[Footnote 709: It seems unnecessary and inappropriate to drag into the
present narrative the political squabbles that disgraced Missouri,
Kansas, Arkansas, and Colorado during the war. Lane was against
Schofield, Gamble against Curtis.]
[Footnote 710: Yet both Blunt and Herron were, at this very time, in
line for promotion, as was Schofield, to the rank of major-general
[_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, II, 95.]]
[Footnote 711:--Ibid., 6, 12, 95; _Confederate Military
History_, vol. x, 195.]
[Footnote 712:--Ibid., 22.]
[Footnote 713: Britton, _Civil War on the Border_ vol. ii,
18-19.]
Fort Wayne,[714] was almost immediately detached from the rest of
Schofield's First Division and assigned to discretionary "service in
the Indian Nation and on the western border of Arkansas."[715] It
continued so detached even after Schofield's command had been deprived
by Curtis of the two districts over which the brigade was to range,
the eighth and the ninth.[716] Thus, at the beginning of 1863, had the
Indian Territory in a sense come into its own. Both the Confederates
and the Federals had given it a certain measure of military autonomy
or, at all events, a certain opportunity to be considered in and for
itself.
Indian Territory as a separate military entity came altogether too
late into the reckonings of the North and the South. It was now a
devastated land, in large areas, desolate. General Curtis and many
another like him might well express regret that the red man had to be
offered up in the white man's slaughter.[717] It was unavailing regret
and would ever be. Just as with the aborigines who lay athwart the
path of empire and had to yield or be crushed so with the civilized
Indian of 1860. The contending forces of a fratricidal war had little
mercy for each other and none at all for him. Words of sympathy were
empty indeed. His fate was inevitable. He was between the upper and
the nether mill-stones and, for him, there was no escape.
Indian Territory was really in a terrible condition. Late in 1862, it
had been advertised even by southern men as lost to the Confederate
cause and had been
[Footnote 714: It is not very clear whether or not the constituents of
the Indian Brigade were all at once decided upon. They are listed as
they appear in Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. ii,
3. Schofield seems to have hesitated in the matter [_Official
Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 26].]
[Footnote 715:--Ibid., 33.]
[Footnote 716: On the subject of the reduction of Schofield's command,
see Ibid., 40.]
[Footnote 717: Curtis to Phillips, February 17, 1863, Ibid.,
113-114.]
practically abandoned to the jayhawker. Scouting parties of both
armies, as well as guerrillas, had preyed upon it like vultures.
Indians, outside of the ranks, were tragic figures in their utter
helplessness. They dared trust nobody. It was time the Home Guard was
being made to justify its name. Indeed, as Ellithorpe reported, "to
divert them to any other operations" than those within their own gates
"will tend to demoralize them to dissolution."[718]
The winter of 1862-1863 was a severe one. Its coming had been long
deferred; but, by the middle of January, the cold weather had set
in in real earnest. Sleet and snow and a constantly descending
thermometer made campaigning quite out of the question. Colonel
Phillips, no more than did his adversary, General Steele, gave any
thought to an immediate offensive. Like Steele his one idea was to
replenish resources and to secure an outfit for his men. They had been
provided with the half worn-out baggage train of Blunt's old division.
It was their all and would be so until their commander could
supplement it by contrivances and careful management. Incidentally,
Phillips expected to hold the line of the Arkansas River; but not to
attempt to cross it until spring should come. It behooved him to look
out for Marmaduke whose expeditions into Missouri[719] were cause for
anxiety, especially as their range might at any moment be extended.
The Indian regiments of Phillips's brigade were soon reported[720]
upon by him and declared to be in a sad state. The first regiment was
still, to all intents and purposes, a Creek force, notwithstanding
that its fortunes had been varied, its desertions, incomparable.
[Footnote 718: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 49.]
[Footnote 719: _Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 161, 162.]
[Footnote 720: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 56-58.]
The second regiment, after many vicissitudes, and after having gotten
rid of its unmanageable elements, notably, the Osages and the Quapaws,
had become a Cherokee and the third was largely so. That third
regiment was Phillips's own and was the only one that could claim the
distinction of being disciplined and even it was exposed occasionally
to the chronic weakness of all Indian soldiers, absence without leave.
The Indian, on his own business bent, was disposed to depart whenever
he pleased, often, too, at times most inopportune, sometimes, when he
had been given a special and particular task. He knew not the usages
of army life and really meant no offence; but, all the same, his utter
disregard of army discipline made for great disorder.
It was not the chief cause of disorder, however, for that was the
unreliability of the regimental officers. The custom, from the first,
had been to have the field officers white men, a saving grace; but the
company officers, with few exceptions, had been Indians and totally
incompetent. Strange as it may seem, drilling was almost an unknown
experience to the two regiments that had been mustered in for the
First Indian Expedition. To obviate some of the difficulties already
encountered, Phillips had seen to it that the third regiment had
profited by the mistakes of its forerunners. It had, therefore, been
supplied with white first lieutenants and white sergeants, secured
from among the non-commissioned men of other commands. The result had
fully justified the innovation. After long and careful observation,
Phillips's conclusion was that it was likely to be productive of
irretrievable disaster and consequently an unpardonable error of
judgment "to put men of poor ability in an Indian regiment." Primitive
man has an inordinate respect for a strong
character. He appreciates integrity, though he may not have it among
his own gifts of nature. "An Indian company improperly officered" will
inevitably become, to somebody's discomfiture, "a frightful mess."
If any one there was so foolish as to surmise that the independent
commands, northern and southern, would be given free scope to
solve the problems of Indian Territory, unhampered by contingent
circumstances, he was foreordained to grevious disappointment.
Indian Territory had still to subserve the interests of localities,
relatively more important. It would be so to the very end. In and for
herself, she would never be allowed to do anything and her commanders,
no matter how much they might wish it otherwise--and to their lasting
honor, be it said, many of them did--would always have to subordinate
her affairs to those of the sovereign states around her; for even
northern states were sovereign in practice where Indians were
concerned. General Steele was one of the men who endeavored nobly to
take a large view of his responsibilities to Indian Territory. Colonel
Phillips, his contemporary in the opposite camp, was another; but both
met with insuperable obstacles. The attainment of their objects was
impossible from the start. Both men were predestined to failure.
Foraging or an occasional scouting when the weather permitted was the
only order of the winter days for Federals and Confederates. With
the advent of spring, however, Phillips became impatient for
more aggressive action. He had been given a large programme, no
insignificant part of which was, the restoration of refugees to their
impoverished homes; but his first business would necessarily have to
be, the occupancy of the country. Not far was he allowed to venture
within
it during the winter; because his superior officers wished him to
protect, before anything else, western Arkansas. Schofield and, after
Schofield's withdrawal from the command of southwestern Missouri,
Curtis had insisted upon that, while Blunt, to whom Phillips, after a
time, was made immediately accountable, was guardedly of another way
of thinking and, although not very explicit, seemed to encourage
Phillips in planning an advance.
Phillips's inability to progress far in the matter of occupancy of
Indian Territory did not preclude his keeping a close tab on Indian
affairs therein, such a tab, in fact, as amounted to fomenting an
intrigue. It will be recalled that on the occasion of his making
the excursion into the Cherokee Nation, which had resulted in his
incendiary destruction of Fort Davis, he had gained intimations of
a rather wide-spread Indian willingness to desert the Confederate
service. He had sounded Creeks and Choctaws and had found them
surprisingly responsive to his machinations. They were nothing loath
to confess that they were thoroughly disgusted with the southern
alliance. It had netted them nothing but unutterable woe. Among
those that Phillips approached, although not personally, was Colonel
McIntosh, who communicated with Phillips through two intimate friends.
McIntosh was persuaded to attempt no immediate demonstration in favor
of the North; for that would be premature, foolhardy; but to bide the
time, which could not be far distant, when the Federal troops would be
in a position to support him.[721] The psychological moment was not
yet. Blunt called Phillips back for operations outside of Indian
[Footnote 721: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 61-62.]
Territory; but the seed of treason had been sown and sown in fertile
soil, in the heart of a McIntosh.[722]
In January, 1863, Phillips took up again the self-imposed task of
emissary.[723] The unionist Cherokees, inclusive of those in the
Indian Brigade, were contemplating holding a national council on
Cowskin Prairie, which was virtually within the Federal lines.
Secessionist Cherokees, headed by Stand Watie, were determined that
such a council should not meet if they could possibly prevent it and
prevent it they would if they could only get a footing north of the
Arkansas River. Their suspicion was, that the council, if assembled,
would declare the treaty with the Confederate States abrogated. To
circumvent Stand Watie, to conciliate some of the Cherokees by making
reparation for past outrages, and to sow discord among others,
Phillips despatched Lieutenant-colonel Lewis Downing on a scout
southward. He was just in time; for the Confederates were on the
brink of hazarding a crossing at two places, Webber's Falls and Fort
Gibson.[724] Upon the return of Downing, Phillips himself moved across
the border with the avowed intention of rendering military support,
if needed, to the Cherokee Council, which convened on the fourth of
February.[725] From Camp Ross, he continued to send out scouting
parties, secret agents,[726] and agents of distribution.
The Cherokee Council assembled without the preliminary formality of a
new election. War conditions
[Footnote 722: This remark would be especially applicable if the
Colonel McIntosh, mentioned by Phillips, was Chilly, the son of
William McIntosh of Indian Springs Treaty notoriety.]
[Footnote 723: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 100.]
[Footnote 724:--Ibid., 85.]
[Footnote 725:--Ibid., 96-97.]
[Footnote 726:--Ibid., 100, 108.]
had made regular pollings impossible. Consequently, the council that
convened in February, 1863 was, to all intents and purposes, the
selfsame body that, in October, 1861, had confirmed the alliance with
the Confederate States. It was Phillips's intention to stand by, with
military arm upraised, until the earlier action had been rescinded.
While he waited, word came that the harvest of defection among the
Creeks had begun; for "a long line of persons"[727] was toiling
through the snow, each wearing the white badge on his hat that
Phillips and McIntosh had agreed should be their sign of fellowship.
Then came an order for Phillips to draw back within supporting
distance of Fayetteville, which, it was believed, the Confederates
were again threatening.[728] Phillips obeyed, as perforce, he had to;
but he left a detachment behind to continue guarding the Cherokee
Council.[729]
The legislative work of the Cherokee Council, partisan body that it
was, with Lewis Downing as its presiding officer and Thomas Pegg as
acting Principal Chief, was reactionary, yet epochal. It comprised
several measures and three of transcendant importance, passed between
the eighteenth and the twenty-first:
1. An act revoking the alliance with the Confederate States and
re-asserting allegiance to the United States.
2. An act deposing all officers of any rank or character whatsoever,
inclusive of legislative, executive, judicial, who were serving in
capacities disloyal to the United States and to the Cherokee Nation.
[Footnote 727: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 101.]
[Footnote 728:--Ibid., 111-112.]
[Footnote 729:--Ibid., 115.]
3. An act emancipating slaves throughout the Cherokee country.[730]
His detention in Arkansas was not at all to Phillips's liking. It
tried his patience sorely; for he felt the crying need of Indian
Territory for just such services as his and, try as he would, he could
not visualize that of Arkansas. Eagerly he watched for a chance to
return to the Cherokee country. One offered for the fifth of March but
had to be given up. Again and yet again in letters[731] to Curtis
and Blunt he expostulated against delay but delay could not well be
avoided. The pressure from Arkansas for assistance was too great.
Blunt sympathized with Phillips more than he dared openly admit and
tacitly sanctioned his advance. Never at any time could there
have been the slightest doubt as to the singleness of the virile
Scotchman's purpose. In imagination he saw his adopted country
repossessed of Indian Territory and of all the overland approaches to
Texas and Mexico from whence, as he supposed, the Confederacy expected
to draw her grain and other supplies. Some regard for the Indian
himself he doubtless had; but he used it as a means to the greater
end. His sense of justice was truly British in its keenness.
[Footnote 730: Ross to Dole, April 2, 1863 [Indian Office General
Files, _Cherokee_, 1859-1865, R 87]; Commissioner of Indian
Affairs, _Report_, 1863, p. 23; Britton, _Civil War on the
Border_, vol. ii, 24-25; Moore, _Rebellion Record_, vol. vi,
50; Eaton, _John Ross and the Cherokee Indians_, 196.]
[Footnote 731: Britton [_Civil War on the Border_, vol. ii, 27]
conveys the idea that, while Phillips, truly enough, wished to enter
the Indian country at the earliest day practicable, he did not care to
go there before the Indian ponies could "live on the range." He knew
that the refugees at Neosho would insist upon following in his wake.
It would be heartless to expose them to starvation and to the ravages
of diseases like the small-pox. Nevertheless, the correspondence of
Phillips, scattered through the _Official Records_, vol. xxii,
part ii, 121-367, shows conclusively that the weeks of waiting were
weary ones.]
His Indian soldiers loved him. They believed in him. He was able to
accomplish wonders in training them. He looked after their welfare and
he did his best to make the government and its agents of the Indian
Office keep faith with the refugees. Quite strenuously, too, he
advocated further enlistments from among the Indians, especially from
among those yet in Indian Territory. If the United States did not take
care, the Confederates would successfully conscript where the Federals
might easily recruit. In this matter as in many another, he had
Blunt's unwavering support; for Blunt wanted the officers of the
embryo fourth and fifth regiments to secure their commands. Blunt's
military district was none too full of men.
March was then as now the planting season in the Arkansas Valley and,
as Phillips rightly argued, if the indigent Indians were not to be
completely pauperized, they ought to be given an opportunity to be
thrown once more upon their own resources, to be returned home in time
to put in crops. When the high waters subsided and the rivers became
fordable, he grew more insistent. There was grass in the valley of the
Arkansas and soon the Confederates would be seizing the stock that
it was supporting. He had held the line of the Arkansas by means of
scouts all winter, but scouting would not be adequate much longer. The
Confederates were beginning, in imitation of the Federals, to attach
indigents to their cause by means of relief distribution and the
"cropping season was wearing on."
At the end of March, some rather unimportant changes were made by
Curtis in the district limits of his department and coincidently
Phillips moved over the border. The first of April his camp was at
Park Hill. His great desire was to seize Fort Smith; for he
realized that not much recruiting could be done among the Choctaws
while that post remained in Confederate hands. Blunt advised caution.
It would not even do to attempt as yet any permanent occupation south
of the Arkansas. Dashes at the enemy might be made, of course,
but nothing more; for at any moment those higher up might order a
retrograde movement and anyhow no additional support could be counted
upon. Halleck was still calling for men to go to Grant's assistance
and accusing Curtis of keeping too many needlessly in the West. The
Vicksburg campaign was on.
The order that Blunt anticipated finally came and Curtis called for
Phillips to return. La Rue Harrison, foraging in Arkansas,[732] was
whining for assistance. Phillips temporized, having no intention
whatsoever of abandoning his appointed goal. His arguments were
unanswerable but Curtis like Halleck could never be made to appreciate
the plighted faith that lay back of Indian participation in the war
and the strategic importance of Indian Territory. The northern Indian
regiments, pleaded Phillips, were never intended for use in Arkansas.
Why should they go there? It was doubtful if they could ever be
induced to go there again. They had been recruited to recover the
Indian Territory and now that they were within it they were going to
stay until the object had been attained. Phillips solicited Blunt's
backing and got it, to the extent, indeed, that Blunt informed Curtis
that if he wanted Indian Territory given up he must order it himself
and take the consequences. It was not given up but Phillips suffered
great embarrassments in holding it. The only support Blunt could
render him was to send a negro regiment to Baxter Springs to protect
supply
[Footnote 732: _Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 166-168.]
trains. Guerrillas and bushwhackers were everywhere and Phillips's
command was half-starved. Smallpox[733] broke out and, as the men
became more and more emaciated, gained ground. Phillips continued to
make occasional dashes at the enemy and in a few engagements he was
more than reasonably successful. Webber's Falls was a case in point.
As May advanced, the political situation in Missouri seemed to call
loudly for a change in department commanders and President Lincoln,
quite on his own initiative apparently, selected Schofield to succeed
Curtis,[734] Curtis having identified himself with a faction opposed
to Governor Gamble. The selection was obnoxious to many and to none
more than to Herron and to Blunt, whose military exploits Schofield
had belittled. The former threatened resignation if Schofield were
appointed but the latter restrained himself and for a brief space all
went well, Schofield even manifesting some sympathy for Phillips at
Fort Gibson, or Fort Blunt, as the post, newly fortified, was now
called. He declared that the Arkansas River must be secured its
entire length; but the Vicksburg campaign was still demanding men and
Phillips had to struggle on, unaided. Indeed, he was finally told
that if he could not hold on by himself he must fall back and let
the Indian Territory take care of itself until Vicksburg should have
fallen.
[Footnote 733: Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. ii, 26.]
[Footnote 734: A change had been resolved upon in March, E.V. Sumner
being the man chosen; but he died on the way out [Livermore, _Story
of the Civil War_, part iii, book i, 256]. Sumner had had a wide
experience with frontier conditions, first, in the marches of the
dragoons [Pelzer, _Marches of the Dragoons in the Mississippi
Valley_] later, in New Mexico [Abel, _Official Correspondence of
James S. Calhoun_], and, still later, in ante-bellum Kansas. His
experience had been far from uniformly fortunate but he had learned a
few very necessary lessons, lessons that Schofield had yet to con.]
The inevitable clash between Schofield and Blunt was not long
deferred. It came over a trifling matter but was fraught with larger
meanings.[735] It was probably as much to get away from Schofield's
near presence as to see to things himself in Indian Territory that led
Blunt to go down in person to Fort Gibson. He arrived there on the
eleventh of July, taking Phillips entirely by surprise. Vicksburg had
fallen about a week before.
The difficulties besetting Colonel Phillips were more than matched by
those besetting General Steele. He, too, struggled on unaided, nay,
more, he was handicapped at every turn. Scarcely had he taken command
at Fort Smith when he was apprised of the fact that the chief armorer
there had been ordered to remove all the tools to Arkadelphia.[736]
Steele was hard put to it to obtain any supplies at all.[737] Many
that he did get the promise of were diverted from their course,[738]
just as were General Pike's. This was true even in the case of
shoes.[739] He tried to fit his regiments out one by one with the
things the men required in readiness for a spring campaign[740] but it
was up-hill work. And what was perfectly incomprehensible to him was,
that when his need was so great there was yet corn available for
private parties to speculate in and to realize enormous profits
on.[741] In April, the Indian regiments, assembling and reforming
in expectation of a call to action, made special demands upon his
granaries but they were