Civil War

Series I Volume XIII Page 1 of 955 - Missouri - Arkansas Campaign
boldly claimed in print by an officer of Brooks' battalion. That is false, too. They were taken by a charge right in front upon them by the Indians, Welch's squadron of Texans, belonging to the First Choctaw and Chickasaw regiment, and about two companies of Sims' regiment, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Quayle. The rest of that regiment were left at the fence we charged from. Brooks' command came up from the left, ten or fifteen minutes after the battery was taken, and when asked to aid in taking the other battery in front of us, the commanding officer said he would "be damned if he was going to take his men into any such damned trap;" the ground had not been reconnoitered, and so he made off with his men. As to their losing men there, there was not a gun fired in the direction they came from, and there was not a dead body left on the ground they came over. Ask Dr. [E. L.] Massie, my medical director. The second day I had no command. Van Dorn did not see fit to give me the command of the troops I brought him the night before. He ran away, ahead of his army, at 10 o'clock in the morning. He says so himself. He left near half his army behind, without notice of his retreat. I left a point within 150 yards of the field, where he had been at 12 o'clock, and it was still an hour after that before I finally made my retreat. As to the actions themselves, General Van Dorn's report is, as another officer has said, "true until you get to the forks of the road, and all false afterward." I only allude to this that you may understand the position I have occupied since. There has been a regular deluge of lies poured out about me in Arkansas and Texas; and the men of the regiments of Darnell and Dawson, who owe me nothing but favors and kindnesses, have sown them broadcast over these two States, to such an extent that I should be very obtuse not to know the immense disadvantage under which I labor, in endeavoring to effect anything. The poison is in the minds of the men of my own command, and I should be sincerely rejoiced to have the opportunity of retiring to private life. When I returned from Elkhorn, I had a regiment of Texas troops, which had not long before reached North Fork. I had no artillery, and none of my supplies had left Fort Smith. Western Arkansas was in consternation and abandoned, and an immediate advance of the enemy on Fort Smith was looked for. It seemed certain; and it was quite as certain that the rabble of Price and Van Dorn (they were all a rabble but two or three regiments) would not stand an instant. The Creek regiment had disbanded and half of Drew's Cherokee regiment; and I feared our defeat would discourage them all. I hoped to receive the regiments that Adams and Gallagher had raised for me, and was looking for Woodruff's artillery. I could get no supplies at Gibson; and at the only good position south of the Canadian there was no good water. Besides, the roads from Fort Smith to Washita and Texas would be open behind me there. If Ho-po-eith-le-yo-ho-la came down, his aim would be the country he lived in, west of the North Fork. I came here because it was the first point south of the Canadian, on the road to Fort Smith, where there is always running water. It is 30 miles from Texas, on the road that diverges 11 miles from here, and runs to three points-- Sherman, Bonham, and Preston. Here I could get supplies. We had no money, but I had Indian moneys and moneys of my own, and I used them all. I directed the quartermaster to issue small notes, and we soon had abundant credit. Here I hoped to organize a force of 5,000 or 6,000 white men, with thirty pieces of artillery, and then I meant, leaving strong works here, to march north- 956 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV. ward, and perhaps take position near Evansville, with my right flank resting on Boston Mountain. But my cannon ammunition was all taken; my two regiments of infantry were taken; Darnell's regiment was such a nuisance that I gladly sent it off to lie ad libitum, and found my force too weak for any forward movement. I still had two Texas regiments, and I made them and Dawson's work on the field-works, which was hard to effect, but I did effect it. You know my present force. It would be nothing in the field, but it is a good deal as a nucleus to rally troops around, so long as it remains near Texas; get 150 miles away, and not one of them will come. I inclose you a printed paper containing my views, as explained by me to the Indians' colonels. It satisfied them all. Colonel Watie wrote me that he fully understood and appreciated it. Lieutenant Colonel William P. Ross came here enraged at "the abandonment" of the Cherokee country, and without a word from me confessed that it was the wisest thing that could nave been done, and afforded more security even to the Cherokees than a position farther north. Major Boudinot was equally satisfied, and in a few weeks I had 2,500 Indians more in the field. Of all the arms purchased for me with moneys charged against me in the Treasury, I have only received 211, which Colonel Dawson had bought, and which I retained to arm part of the new Choctaw regiment. I have expended $20,000. Three hundred and eleven guns, purchased in North Carolina, General Van Dorn got. Major Pearce expended $2,700 at Fort Smith, and turned over the guns to Major Clarke, who issued them out. A large number purchased by Judge Quillin, General Roane seized-some 900, I believe; and I heard, some two weeks since, that 2,000 Enfield rifles, which the Secretary of War promised me, in December, out of the first arms that should be received, had arrived at Little Rock, and you had taken them. I suppose from your letter that such is not the case. I confess I thought it pretty hard to lose them also, after all my trouble; and that to deprive me of everything and then order me to move, was like cutting off a man's feet and then telling him to walk. I suppose your Texas brigades got the guns purchased for me. I am not much surprised to hear your account of their conduct. Two things are constantly rung in my ears-leave to go home and money-until I am worn out. You have a fine company and a good battery in Woodruff's I hated to lose it, but you are welcome to it, needing it as badly as you do. Dawson's regiment is worth very little; I was glad it went. I hope you will make it do something; I could not. I have sent Colonel Douglas H. Cooper, of the First Choctaw and Chickasaw Regiment, the ranking colonel here, to take command of all the troops north of the Canadian. Colonel Sampson Folsom's new regiment of Choctaws goes with him, and is on the way. Captains Seanland's and Witt's companies of Texans also go there. The former is off; the latter debating about bounty and pay. If they give me any trouble I will drive them across Red River, if I have to open on them with West's guns. They provoke me beyond endurance. Stevens' regiment, late Taylor's, is getting ready. Three companies move to-morrow. I send them to Martin Vann's, north of the Arkansas, and 9 or 10 miles north of Fort Gibson, beyond the Verdigris, near the main Kansas road. I have no objection to making my headquarters at Frozen Rock, near Fort Gibson. It is the place I selected at first. The grand objection to it was the abandonment of Western Arkansas by our troops, and that with a small force there our rear could be gained either from above or below, and we be cut off from Red River, whence our supplies must CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.---CONFEDERATE. 957 come, and from the friendly Choctaw country. It would be a long retreat and the first 30 miles through a prairie. Our transportation is so scant that the remainder of the force will not be able to move within less than twelve or fourteen days. All our wagon-tires are dropping off. On the 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th the thermometer stood, in my tent, at 1 p. m., 104, 105, 108, and 112, respectively. Permit me to say that I do not think it would be advisable for me to be placed in command of Northwestern Arkansas. To any commander here the Indian country must be the principal object, and to take care of it is as much as I can do, if not as much as any man can do. Attached to part of Arkansas, that would be the principal object, as it was when McCulloch was in command. He was put in command of the Indian country alone; he never had a chance to bring any troops into it. He was wanted all the time beyond its limits, and I found everything was going to the devil. I therefore urged the President, in August, to send an officer of the army here, as brigadier, who would be content to take care of this country alone, glory or no glory. The forts near Red River at that time were, and long had been, held by Texans not under his command, part of them under nobodies and as to all matters in the southern and western Indian country he knew nothing whatever. The response to my recommendation was my own appointment, which I did not anticipate, and did not wish; and I am altogether too corpulent to ride much on horseback, and, besides, am subject to neuralgia in the back, which, seizing me suddenly, utterly disables me for days at a time. I only consented to take the d--d command because I had made the treaties, felt personally responsible for the security of the country here, and knew it was supposed I could manage better with the Indians than any one else. I am sure I wish somebody else would take it. Since I came to this post it has been demanded that I should march north, march to Fort Smith, send troops to Fort Smith, go down and take command of Arkansas, and send troops to Arkansas. If I or any. body else were in command of Northwestern Arkansas, with the Indian country appended like a bob on the tail of a kite, I should have to be all the time in Arkansas, or there would be such a row as has never been heard. That you may see how utterly impossible it is for any one at a distance to order about the few white troops in this country without doing mischief; I will only mention one or two things now occurring. First. The Creek Indians, some 1,600 in number, are in our service. When I made the treaty with them, they numbered 13,500 people; now they number 7,500. They are all the time alarmed lest Ho-po-eith-le-yoho-la should come down west of the Verdigris, toward North Fork, and they be all driven off or murdered. I met George Stidham two weeks ago, and he told me that now and as yet they were as true as any of the Indians; but if the Northern troops came soon, they would kill him and the other half-breeds, and submit. They found out he talked of moving his negroes to Texas, and they notified him that if he did they would follow him and kill him. They said that no troops were put in their country to protect them. I immediately ordered a Choctaw regiment up there, and have since ordered Stevens' regiment there, to give assurance that they shall not be left unaided to the tender mercies of Ho-po-eith-le-yo-ho-la. The whole country about Doaksville is swarming with Missourians and other white men run out of Texas by the conscription 958 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV. act. I have just ordered two Choctaw companies down to pick them up. (I am just this moment interrupted by a messenger with letters from Chilly McIntosh, containing requisitions for 100 guns, ammunition hospital stores, stationery, &c. I inclose a copy of Chilly's letter, and of one from his quartermaster; and you may judge from them how completely all these Indians rely upon and look to me.) Second. I have been laboring for a year to effect a permanent peace with the Comanches and Caiawas, and at the same time to convince the border people of Texas that I can do it. Last fall I made a treaty with the Comanches, and sent messages to the Caiawas, to compel them to take their choice between peace and war. They agreed to do what they never had done before - live in peace with us. All this spring there has been apprehension among the Reserve Indians that the Caiawas were coming down to attack them; for it is known that they had received arms and presents from the North. At last they and the Comanches have determined to come in, and the Caiawas have selected Elk Creek, in the Wichita Mountains, to settle on. They are all to be at the agency on the 4th instant. I would have gone there three days ago, but for your orders. There will be 2,000 or 3,000 of them, and peace with them is a saving of the cost of two regiments on the frontier of Texas. They expect to meet me, and care nothing about Agent Leeper, who they have found out is a little captain. Very probably if I do not meet them they will go off, and you will have a thousand tales of depredations on Western Texas; part true, more false. If nothing required my presence elsewhere, I should, of course, take two or three companies and go there, and yet no one at a distance could anticipate this necessity. I give these as instances. It is the multiplicity of matters always pressing on the commander here that makes me say that it is impossible for any officer at a distance to determine what ought to be done with a small force in this country. If I had one large enough to leave garrisons behind me, it would be different, but to take any command worth taking I must take all. I had not sent any troops to Colonel Watie's assistance, because I waited for him to let me know when he needed re-enforcement. He keeps me constantly advised, as do Jumper, with his Seminoles, and the Mclntoshs, with their Creeks, of all that passes in the northern part of the country. They are all men of sense, and know what my plans are. The whole Indian country is quiet and peaceful, and you can come here alone and unarmed, and travel from Kansas to Red River, and from Fort Smith to the Wichita Mountains, in perfect safety. I inclose you a copy of a letter sent to Colonel Watie by me, enjoin. mg upon him to maintain the defensive. I do not know that upon that point I can add anything to what I have already said. I hope you will believe that I am not actuated by any small ambition in wishing to be in a condition to exercise my own discretion in regard to all operations in the Indian country. Senator [Robert W.] Johnson was unwilling for me to incur the odium of commanding Indians, and I could probably have had a better position elsewhere, but I told him that I thought the most odious of all things in a soldier was to seek to exchange a post to which he had been assigned for another, for greater ease or a larger chance for glory; that the President wished me to be here, and I should not seek to be sent elsewhere. I have incurred the odium, and who thanks me for it? I inclose you a copy of a letter of the 8th May from General Robert E. Lee. You will see by it that I was supposed, at least, to be in command of Arkansas. I would rather you would be, for you are younger CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE. 959 and more active, and more peremptory than I am. I care nothing for command and nothing for rank. God knows all I do care for is to save this Indian country to the Confederacy. As for arms, 1 have not yet been able to arm all the Indians. My efforts to do so have been frustrated. I shall soon have an additional supply of cannon powder I have secured it in Texas. Send to Shreveport and get 3,000 pounds of a quantity on its way to me. Do not take any more; so much you are welcome to. Have you caps enough? I have some on the way from Texas. I had 800,000 at Fort Smith early in April. My adjutant-general saw them, secured them, and thought they were started to me in a wagon. God knows what became of them. I arranged with the authorities at Richmond to procure my moneys direct from the Treasury. I do not think I shall have to ask you to divide with me. I have messengers enough on the way, I think, to get what I need. As to supplies, my credit is excellent in Texas. I can get any quantity of flour, bacon, corn, oats, and barley in that State. I think I can even get 300 or 400 sacks of coffee, and I am arranging for 10,000 suits of clothing and shoes from Mexico. I can buy four times as much beef as I want here or anywhere in the Indian country at 6 1/2 cents, butchered. Corn is costing me $1.50, bacon 25 cents, and flour $6.30 a hundred. Hay I can have made for myself. I can hire the mowers and the laborers, and it will not cost $5 a ton. I neither need nor want to have anything to do with that nest of speculators at Fort Smith. 1 know enough about their hay contracts and beef contracts. I have an honest quartermaster and an honest commissary, and both competent, and I would not remain in command an hour if I had to depend for supplies on an officer who sent my commissary $5,000 only out of $350,000 sent to him for the Indian commands and McCulloch's forces together. The Indians are wasteful, and it is very hard to enforce regularity among them in the matter of supplies; but still I believe this is the most economical department in the Confederacy, and you may find the secret of the constant abuse of myself in the fact that I have set my face against contracts intended as swindles, and that by act of Congress I have to audit all the accounts created by the acting quartermasters and commissaries of the Indian commands before the commands were regularly mustered into the service. Why, only last summer, when George Stidham offered to furnish hay in the Creek country at $6, and Jobe, equally as good a man, at $5 or $5.50 a ton, a contract was let at $12, and 5 and 6 tons were pretended to be loaded on a common ox wagon, and part of the hay cut right in the Indian camp, too. Majors Quesenbury and Lanigan have commissions as majors, and that of the former is older than that of Major Pearce. I especially beg that you will direct Major Pearce to refrain from making any contracts to supply the troops of my command with anything; from meddling with my transportation, of which I have not half enough; from undertaking the settlements of accounts in this country, and especially from attempting to get into his hands moneys in the hands of my officers, estimated for special purposes, pledged in advance, and to withhold which from the Indians would ruin our influence with them. I should be sorry to have to do it, but I had determined to forbid my officers sending any moneys to Major Pearce, if it even cost me my position, or more beside. If I should not remain under your command, I should still as readily aid you with all might in carrying out your views, and co-operate with you as efficiently as I could. When General McCulloch left Fort Smith, I immediately ordered 960 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV. Colonels Watie and Drew to march toward Fayetteville, and report to him. Of course, if I could have done so, when Little Rock was menaced, I would have hastened to where my children were. I agree with you to some extent as to mounted men. A force of them can be of more use here than anywhere else; but they are awfully expensive. The Indians are all mounted, and this is justified by the consideration that even if they never fired a gun for us it would be good policy, and the cheapest policy, to keep them in our pay and on our side. If we did not, they would soon be against us; and we cannot whip 5-600 Indians. Of white shot-gun cavalry, I have as much as I want. The Indians alone can hold the country, unless a large force enters it. If such a force does so, they will intend, in addition, to march into Texas. To resist an organized army of even 10,000 men, infantry would be indispensable, and this was well understood by the President and Secretary when I received authority to raise two regiments of infantry, and the positive promise of 2,000 Enfield rifles to arm them with. I did not care about having any white mounted troops at all, and when they were offered me, in February, I asked only for authority to receive a battalion. I have a poor opinion of undisciplined mobs, each with six legs, instead of two, to tempt him to run away; and if I had not hoped to discipline the two regiments I have, so as to make them cavalry, to move and charge en masse, I would have sent them over Red River long ago, for part of them have nearly crazed me. Furlough, bounty, horse-shoeing --- the changes are rung on these three words all the time. Yesterday the officers of one company ordered to march toward the Arkansas at 12 o'clock came to me at 6 p. m. about bounty money, and at last said the boys would be very much dissatisfied. I told them to go back and tell them that if they were in the least dissatisfied to pack up and start this morning for Texas; and that if they were not off, one way or the other, this morning, I would bring up two of West's guns and shell them out of their camps. They marched in half an hour toward Fort Gibson. The truth is, that if the enemy do not come in large force they will not come at all. They know pretty nearly how many Indians are in arms. The country is very large, and to send an army through it would do about as much good as cutting a path through a lake with a knife. The improvements of the Indians, with few exceptions, are worth nothing. The cattle would be driven out of the way, the Indian forces would melt away before them, and hang on their flanks and rear. To conquer the country they must occupy it; and it would not pay to keep an army here. If they left small bodies in garrison, these would be destroyed as soon as the army went back; and they know that if they come far enough into the country they have to fight Texans in it all the time. The chief object in keeping a couple of regiments of white troops here is, therefore, not to prevent invasion, but to encourage and aid the Indians. That this is done is proven by the fact that so many of them are in arms. The chief complaint now, from the- upper Cherokee country, is that bodies of white men are running about there, crossing the line and firing a few shots, and then running back into the Indian country, provoking retaliation. When I proposed in making the treaties that the Indians should furnish troops, they invariably stipulated for two things: One, that they should not be taken out of their own country; the other, that they should not be drilled like white men, but be always allowed to fight in their own way. Of course, I agreed to both. You cannot use them in large bodies, nor play the general with them in the field. None of them, except the Choctaws and Chickasaws, would con- CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE. 961 sent to have any white officers, and they only so far as to the colonel. 1 have found that it does not answer to put them and white troops close together. You cannot use the same hospital for both. It will not do to have a white company in an Indian regiment. In fact, the organization by regiments is all nonsense. They ought to go by towns, in bands of different numbers, under their chiefs and captains; and I have sent the Secretary of War a draught of a bill covering that and other points. I believe I will be able to hold this country. But I must be able to reach out my arm and bring men from Texas, in a few days notice, if the enemy enter it in force. I want field works, but not too near him, or too far from Texas. My intention has been to place works here first, and then at Frozen Rock, and on the south side of the Canadian, at Rock Creek, a very strong point. The Texans would not have lifted a spade or touched a wheelbarrow anywhere north of this point. It was a hard matter to get them to do it here; but they have done more work than any one would have believed possible. The Choctaws are about, I think, to furnish me 100 hands, and I shall get from 50 to 100 from Texas. At Frozen Rock I can hire from the Creeks and Cherokees and Seminoles. I am not writing at this length because this is an agreeable or easy command, and therefore desired by me; on the contrary, I would gladly give it into other hands. Neither my habits nor tastes incline me to a military life; and I think I could have served the country much more effectually in some civil capacity, and this particular command is for many reasons especially disagreeable, embarrassing, and laborious. If I had Indian troops alone I should not have any trouble. They pester me very little, and what I say is law and gospel, even among the Reserve Indians and wild tribes. One white regiment makes more fuss, grumbles more, hatches out more lies, and is more trouble in one day than all the Indian troops and people in a year. With the exception of five or six companies, I sincerely wish they were all at home. I inclose a copy of a singular letter received a day or two since by me from Colonel Charles A. Carroll. Of course, I have not replied to it. I was about to send it to the Secretary of War, but, after receiving your letter, I transmit it to you, finding it hard to believe that you would have directed a colonel to urge upon me the necessity of a forward movement; or that orders have gone from yourself to a junior colonel in my department, placing him in command of a large part of it, over three of his seniors. As I have placed Colonel Cooper in command of them all, and he ranks them all, that matter Is, of course, settled. You will see by my orders that I have laid my hands on the wandering companies of which your letter of the 23d speaks. I shall show as little respect as possible to their commissaries and their accounts. Purchasing agents will not be permitted to traverse the Indian country, raising the price of supplies upon us. They are as great an evil and plague of Egypt as contractors are, the two together making everything cost twice what it ought to. Yesterday an officer wanted my department quartermaster to pay him $10 a head on some mules he had purchased, as purchasing agent. I told the quartermaster to pay him, and then tell the officer I should send him before a court-martial. Plenty of horses and mules were purchased last year by purchasing agents at Fort Smith at $100 or so a piece, and turned over to Major Clarke at $175 or so. As to debts due in this country, a special act of Congress provides 61 R R-VOL XIII 962 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. (CHAP. XXV. for payment by the brigade quartermaster of my command of all debts incurred by all acting commissaries and quartermasters of all Indian troops up to the time when they were regularly mustered into the service, which, as to many of them, is not yet the case. By the act, all these accounts are to be audited and approved by me, Major Pearce will be in some danger of loss if he pays any of them without my approval of them. Dr. Edward L. Massie is the senior surgeon by commission in this department, and was regularly appointed medical director by me, with the consent and approbation of the Surgeon-General, in December last. He is not merely brigade surgeon, and there is no such officer that I know of. I do not think that Medical Director [J. M. J Keller should send him orders direct, without sending them through me. I find this passage in Napier's History of the War in the Peninsula: The Duke of Dalmatia would not suffer Drouet to stir; and Joseph, whose jealousy had been excited by the marshal's power in Andalusia, threatened to deprive him of his command. The inflexible duke replied that the king had already virtually done so, by sending orders direct to Drouet; that he was ready to resign, but he would not commit a gross military error. I frankly submit to you whether orders direct to Colonel Clarkson to take a certain command, orders to my medical director that take him from headquarters, and orders from an assistant commissary of subsistence and acting quartermaster to my quartermaster and commissary to report to him, send him their money, and obey his instructions, might not fairly be regarded as virtually depriving me of my command. I take the liberty of inclosing to you copies of two pamphlets printed here, for distribution to officers without charge. I will send you others as I print them. Having purchased a press, I print my own blanks. Five large boxes of stationery and blanks, part procured on requisitions in Richmond and part purchased by me, with which were military books, papers, &c., of my own, all sent from that city in December, have never reached here, being needed, I suppose, somewhere else. I have the honor to be, general, very respectfully, yours, ALBERT PIKE, Brigadier-General, Comdg. Department of Indian Territory. P. S.--- I will thank you to inform me whether there was any truth in the report, by the way of Texas, that you had taken the Enfield rifles that reached Little Rock on their way to me. As I said before, I judge from your letter that the whole report was false. HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF INDIAN TERRITORY, July 4, 1862. Major R. C. NEWTON, Asst. Adjut. General and Chief of Staff; General Hindman's Division: MAJOR: I am directed by the brigadier-general commanding to lay before Major-General Hindman the following extract from a letter, dated the 1st instant, received by him from Robert M. Jones, one of the most prominent citizens of the Choctaw Nation, and one of the delegates who made the treaty with the Confederate States, and afterward almost entirely fitted out a battalion of Choctaws, toenable it to enter their service. It is as follows: General, perhaps yon are aware that Colonel Dawson's regiment, when leaving for Little Rock, pressed five of my wagons; but one, after traveling a day or two, broke CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE. 963 down, and was left. The others were taken as far as Doaksville. Having them in charge some six days, then turned them off without giving them any discharge to show their time of service; but they were eight days out before they returned to the plantation; that is, four of them. Please inform me if I am to be compensated for this; by whom, &c. These wagons were in use hauling corn for the troops at this post, which Mr. Jones was furnishing on credit. Colonel Dawson had been allowed to furlough one half his effective men until the 25th of June, to return home and reap the wheat crop. He applied to the general commanding for permission to scud the regimental wagons to convey them home, and was answered that such permission could not be legally given. He sent them, nevertheless, and when unexpectedly ordered to march to Little Rock they had not returned, and the general refused to let him have others in their place, as there were none that could be spared. To supply his needs, caused by his so sending his wagons away with his furloughed men, he, or some officer of the command, seized those of Mr. Jones. The brigadier-general commanding directs me to say that he hopes the regulation prohibiting the impressment of property will be more strictly enforced in this case, for the reason that the offense was committed in the Indian country and the property of an ally was seized. If it is passed over in silence, great discontent will justly be the consequence. If he had known it in time, and could have seized the offender, he would have treated the act as pillaging and marauding, and tried the party by a military commission. And he also directs me to ask that steps may be immediately taken to compensate Mr. Jones, and that information be given that gentleman of any satisfactory action in the premises. His post office is at Doaksville. I am, very respectfully, yours, G. A. SCHWARZMAN, Captain and Assistant Adjutant - General FORT SMITH, ARK., July 5, 1862. DEAR GENERAL: I am very much dissatisfied with the way affairs are being conducted out West, and I desire to exclude Colonel Carroll from this general complaint. He is active as his health, which is bad, will permit, and doing all that a man can do with the means at hand and to be had. To-day I saw Mr. F. E. Williams, of Scullyville. He has just come in from Pike's headquarters. I asked him if Pike had left, and his reply was that Pike did not intend to leave; that he had ordered Colonel Cooper to take his regiment to Gibson, and that the major of the regiment stepped out and said that their time would be out in a month ; that the treaty did not require them to leave their nation, and that he would not go, and the regiment coincided with the major in his views, and acted accordingly. Cooper went on to Gibson alone, and the only force he has is two companies that he ordered from the vicinity of Scullyville that had been on furlough. For the last twenty-four hours men have been coming in from Clarkson's headquarters, 30 miles north of Tahlequah; horses broken down; without arms, and many minus their hats, and report that Clarkson and some 100 men, and the trains of both Clarkson and Stand Watie's commands, have been taken by the Federals - taken by surprise, and we not firing a gun, the enemy being right in camp before they had any intimation of their approach. In this train, which must have consisted of 964 MO., ARK., KANS., AND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV. some 50 wagons, were some 50 to 100 kegs of powder that Clarkson had taken from Fort Smith. Had the loss been Clarkson, without that of the train and powder, I think that the Confederacy would have been the gainer. To think of his having such an amount of ammunition with him when his command did not exceed 400 men. It appears to have been the policy of every person out here to take all they can get, whether necessary or not. The Federals have paid two visits to Fayetteville, and have done a great deal of damage, both to property and people have pretty effectually, for the present, either broke up or put a stop to raising troops there. Frank [A.] Rector is now north of the river, en route to Fayetteville, with some 400 men mounted, and not well armed. There are some 350 to 500 infantry here and in the neighborhood, but almost entirely without arms. We have enough to arm some 250, I suppose, being repaired and put into serviceable condition. We are exceedingly destitute of caps and powder. The latter we certainly will have if the Federals ever give us time to complete arrangements here, which are still far from completion, for making. I telegraphed you for authority for Stand Watie to use his discretion and follow the enemy out of the nation, if he found it necessary. This is certainly advisable, and I think it could not be conferred on a better man or one that will use it to better advantage. When the Federals first came to Fayetteville they found some 8,000 pounds or more lead. As soon as they left, the citizens sent it out in the country, and hid it, and I sent up after it and got part of it away. The next day the Federals were there after it. There is an incredible amount of work to do here. All the unsettled business of the quartermaster's department for the last twelve months is coming in on me. I am tired to death every night. I have no time to be out of my quartermaster's office, either to go to the stables and wagon yard or visit my work-shops; but I have efficient men in charge of them, that keep them operating successfully. The subsistence department 1 have been compelled to mostly turn over to Mr. Cline, whom I wrote you about. He is an efficient commissary, being well posted, and I will take it as a favor if you will assign him to duty as assistant commissary. He is to do the duty at any rate, and should, I think, have the rank and pay. General Pike's commissary (Lanigan) reports no funds on hand, but gives me no news of the condition of his department. I have not had a word from the quartermaster or ordnance officer, though I sent them copies of your order directing them to report fully to me. The, whole country is full of accounts, due bills, forage receipts, &c. I have written you officially for authority to take these up. I cannot do so as they now stand unless by order. Their being informal should not subject the innocent and ignorant to injury. There is a matter which Major [Elias] Rector, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, informs me he has laid before the Indian Bureau that should be attended to, and, as the communication is cut off, I lay it before you. He says that General Pike turned over to Major Dorn, agent for the Osages, $17,000 in gold; that Dorn has not been at his agency for two years, and that, when he was at it, it was in Kansas; and more, that Dorn has not given any bonds, and that he (Rector) told Pike and Dorn, before the money was paid to Dorn, that he would oppose it, and report it, which he has done, to the Department at Richmond. This is what he says: "Act if you deem it advisable." To me it looks like something is wrong. You can call on Rector for a copy of his letter to the Indian Bureau. I tell you, general, this dog-on Indian business is enough to break up CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-- CONFEDERATE. 965 any government in the world. I wish that we only had the guns, ammunition, and camp equipage they are keeping idle that we might use it to drive those infamous Federals from our border. Here are plenty of men, and brave ones, that are ready and willing to aid in the defense of their country, and only ask for means to do it with, while we know that some 3,000 or 4,000 stand of fine arms, and plenty of ammunition, are uselessly had and destroyed by these no-account Indian commands. Stand Watie's is the only one worth a cent, and they are mostly white men. I have written you a long letter, as I would talk to you, hoping to put you ill possession of the facts in regard to the condition of this part of the district. I am doing my best to make my departments efficient, and hope you will grant me an assistant. All well. Let me hear from you any Eastern news. Your true friend, N. B. PEARCE. CANTONMENT DAVIS, July 7, 1862. Major PEARCE: MAJOR: 1 arrived here yesterday at noon, and, as soon as the requirements of the command now here are ascertained, may forward requisitions to you. All quiet here at present. The enemy are not known to have been lower down than Grand Sabine. General Pike will probably arrive soon. Respectfully, DOUGLAS H. COOPER, Colonel, Commanding. P. S.-We are greatly in need of ammunition, especially percussion caps. Please forward as many as you can without delay. They will be covered by proper receipts. There will be, within a few days, say, 5,000 men here, mostly Indian troops. FORT SMITH, ARK., July 8, 1862. Major General T. C. HINDMAN, Commanding District: SIR: I have the honor to inclose certain correspondence from General Albert Pike and his staff officers. I did not come here to be upbraided and railed at by such men for simply obeying your orders. I send you copies of the letters addressed by me to Majors Lanigan and Quesenbury and to the ordnance officer. In your Orders. No. 17, herewith in-closed, you required all officers in the Indian country and certain counties of Arkansas, of the several staff departments over which I was placed, to report to me. I inclosed with my letters copies of your order placing me on duty. I now inclose you the reply of two of them. You positively and pointedly required me to have the funds in the hands of all disbursing officers turned over to me immediately. The order says, "All public funds of either department within the limits specified, &c., will be turned over to him immediately." No exemption of any officer is made. And, again, the order says, "No other officer or person within said limits will, after this date, be authorized to contract any debt for either of said depart- 966 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV. ments." That does not except General Pike's staff. The very reverse was intended, as you repeatedly mentioned to me when speaking on this subject. They were the very officers from whom I was expected to receive the funds and extra means of transportation, as it was reported that General Pike had a large surplus of the latter; and on that I wrote my letters, requiring them to obey your order, and turn over to me accordingly. No report of property, condition of departments or funds have been made to me, except Major Lanigan wrote that he had no funds. Your order requires all officers, agents, &c., to report to me without delay, and obey my instructions. I have made a trial to obey your orders. Your order me to make adequate provision for all Confederate troops in the limits specified Indian country, &C General Pike orders Major Lanigan to say "that all sup. plies for his department must be provided by his orders, and that he will not permit any purchases or contracts to be made for the troops under his command unless by his order or with his approval. Whose order is to be obeyed? Major Quesenbury says he is ordered to attend to affairs of the quartermaster department in that command, to make whatever purchases are necessary, &c., "and cannot but resist your (my) interference in the hay contract in the Indian country." Your ordered me to make these contracts; they say they will resist; yet your order says that no other officer than myself is permitted to make contracts, or even purchases, and that to enable me to effectually carry out your order I am empowered to appoint purchasing agents, &c. It is clear that your order has been set at defiance, and that I have been made a target for this man Quesenbury to spout his filth at. I, therefore, as an act of justice to myself; demand his arrest and trial for disobedience of orders and for ungentlemanly conduct in his official correspondence, &c. I have, general, simply and faithfully attempted to carry out your orders; have not in any way arrogated to myself authority, as charged by him, nor have I any desire to do so. I cannot believe that you will permit such conduct to pass unnoticed, but have it punished as it deserves. If I am to be insulted and treated in this style for faithfully and earnestly carrying out your orders to me, and the offenders left unpunished, I cannot longer hold my position. You know me. All I ask is justice. You assigned me my position here; you conversed freely with me, telling me what you wanted done. I have endeavored to carry out your oral as well as written instructions. You will remember that one great point with you was to have me get possession of the funds that General Pike's staff officers were squandering, as had been represented to you, as I was informed by you. Your letter to General Pike of the 23d ultimo was never seen by me until to-day, and affords Quesenbury a handle to deal me a false blow, as he predicates his villainous insinuations on the knowledge he says I had of a statement in your letters that he must have known that I had never seen or heard tell of. The peculiar phraseology and evident taunts and insults contained in his letter will be plain enough to you without my pointing them out. In regard to General Pike's letter and the acts of Congress, that is a fight between you and him. I know no law of Congress when I receive your order. Generals may discuss such points, not staff officers of my grade. In conclusion, I have to request, general, that I be sustained in the attempt I am making to carry out your orders, and that full and definite instructions be furnished me, and that General Pike be informed that CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.---CONFEDERATE. 967 my actions are by your orders, and that those orders must be obeyed as long as they are in force. I have no desire to get into any controversy, and will simply write General Pike that I am only obeying your orders, and, if he is not satisfied, that you, and not myself; are the person to whom he must direct his correspondence on such matters. Examine your orders to me, letters to General Pike's staff, and their reply, and do me justice, is all I ask. I am, general, with great respect, your obedient servant, N. B. PEARCE, Major, &c [inclosures.] HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OP INDIAN TERRITORY, Port McCulloch, July 1, 1862. Major N. B. PEARCE, Acting Commissary of Subsistence, Fort Smith: MAJOR: I inclose you, for your information, a copy of an act of Congress,* which seems to have escaped your observation. I am engaged, as they are presented, in examining the class of accounts provided for by that act; and, as I pass upon them, if I approve them, the brigade quartermaster receives orders from me to pay them. These orders he will undoubtedly obey. I am, very respectfully, yours, ALBERT PIKE, Brigadier-General, Comdg. Department of Indian Territory. [Indorsement] I presume General Pike's letter is occasioned by the marked notice inclosed. N. B. PEARCE, Major, &O [sub-inclosure]] FORT SMITH, June 25, 1862. SPECIAL NOTICE.-In order to facilitate settling up the outstanding debts of the quartermaster's, commissary, and ordnance departments in Western Arkansas and the Indian Territory, I request that all persons having accounts against the Government present the same at my office, at Fort Smith, when they will be audited, and as soon as funds are obtained, on estimates made on the information thus obtained, the accounts will be paid off. N. B. PEARCE, Major and Acting Quartermaster. SPECIAL ORDERS HDQRS. TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DISTRICT, No. 17. Little Rock, Ark., June 17, 1862. * * * * * III. Major N. B. Pearce is assigned to duty as commissary, acting quartermaster, and acting ordnance officer at Fort Smith. All officers, agents, and contractors in or for either of these departments in the Indian Territory, and in the counties of Benton, Washington, Crawford, Not found. 968 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV. Sebastian, Franklin, Johnson, Pope, Madison, and Carroll, in the State of Arkansas, will report to him without delay, and obey his instructions. All public funds of either department, within the limits specified, and all property thereof not actually employed in the field, and allowed by the regulations governing the same, will be turned over to him immediately. IV. Major Pearce is charged with the duty of making adequate provision in each of the departments over which he is placed for all Confederate troops which now are, or may hereafter be, within the limits specified in Paragraph 1 of this order. For this purpose he is authorized to make contracts, make purchases, appoint purchasing agents, establish depots, and take all other steps that may be necessary, subject to approval of the major-general commanding. No other officer or person within said limits will, after this date, be authorized to contract any debt for either of said departments. Major Pearce will report directly to the proper chiefs of departments at these headquarters. V. Until otherwise ordered, Major Pearce will be post commandant at Forts Smith and Van Buren. Martial law is hereby declared over said cities and the country within 5 miles of the same. VI. Major Pearce is vested with power to impress all articles necessary for either of the departments over which he is placed when reasonable prices are refused therefor. By command of Major-General Hindman: R. C. NEWTON, Assistant Adjutant- General. FORT SMITH, ARK., June 24, 1862. Major THOMAS LANIGAN Acting Commissary of Subsistence, C. S. Army: SIR: Inclosed I send you a copy of General Hindman's order to me. You will take the necessary steps at once to comply with the provisions of the order in relation to funds. You will also report the condition of the department in detail, stating all the information necessary to enable me to fully understand all about the department, giving a statement of outstanding debts, copies of all contracts, the amount of stores on hand, the prospect for procuring supplies, and everything necessary to a full understanding of the necessities of the department. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, N. B. PEARCE, Major and Commissary of Subsistence. P. S.-You will furnish copies of this order to all commissaries of General Pike's command. FORT SMITH, ARK., June 24, 1862. Major WILLIAM QUESENBURY, Assistant Quartermaster, C. S. Army: SIR: Inclosed I send you a copy of General Hindman's order to me. You will at once comply with the requirements. The funds in your possession you will send, by safe hands, to me at this post. The extra means of transportation and camp and garrison equipage will be sent here at once. You will also furnish me with a detailed account of the condition of your department, outstanding debts, &c.; copies of all con- CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.---CONFEDERATE. 969 tracts which have not been completed; in fact, all the information necessary to enable me fully to understand the operations, necessities, and condition of your department. I am, with respect, your obedient servant, N. B. PEARCE, Major and Assistant Quartermaster. FORT SMITH, ARK., June 24, 1862. ORDNANCE OFFICER, GENERAL PIKE'S COMMAND: SIR: Inclosed I send you a copy of General Hindman's order to me. You will at once give me, in detail, a full statement of the condition of your department, giving amount of ammunition on hand, and stores of all kinds; the facilities of repairing arms, &c. The funds in your possession you will send to me by some safe conveyance. You will please make your report full, so as to enable me to fully understand the operations, necessities, &c., of the department. I am, with respect, your obedient servant N. B. PEARCE, Major and Acting Ordnance Officer. HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF INDIAN TERRITORY, Port McCulloch, Cherokee Nation, July 2, 1862. Major N. B. FEAROE, Commissary of Subsistence, C. S. Army, Port Smith, Ark.: MAJOR: I have the honor to hand you herewith a copy of a letter from General Hindman to General Pike of the 23d [24th] ultimo, and also of General Orders, No. -,* from headquarters of this department, of the 30th. I am instructed by the commanding general to say that all supplies for this department must be provided by his order, and that he will not permit any purchases or contracts to be made for the troops under his command unless by his order or with his approval. I am, major, very respectfully, your obedient servant, THOS. LANIGAN, Major and Commissary of Subsistence. OFFICE OF QUARTERMASTER'S DEPT. OF INDIAN TER., Port McCulloch, Cherokee Nation, July 4, 1862. Major N. B. Pearce, Commissary of Subsistence and Acting Quartermaster: MAJOR: Your communication, inclosing General Hindman's Special Orders, No. 17, was received on the 30th ultimo. At the time of the reception of the communication, I could not conceive that the funds in my possession could be turned over to you without infracting positive regulations and the act of Congress. If you were only an acting quartermaster, you could not receive funds, to say nothing of ordering me to yield what I had in possession. Besides, if you were a bonded quartermaster, your commission could not possibly give you precedence over me, simply because my commission would necessarily bear priority of date. But supposing these views incorrect, the 970 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV. declarations of Major-General Hindman, in a letter to General Pike, of June 23, show pointedly that you were not warranted in your assumption of power. Inclosed I respectfully submit a copy of General Hindman's letter * for your perusal. Obedience also dictates another course than the one you thought proper to prescribe for me. General Pike has ordered me to attend to the quartermaster's affairs of this department myself; to make whatever purchases are necessary, and to superintend all business and operations in my province. I cannot, therefore, but resist your interference in the matter of hay contracts in the Indian country. Inclosed I submit an order of General Pike on the points in question. I do not desire any exemption from the usual custom in regard to contracts, but must affirm that I do not believe in the policy of letting them out, provided certain ones that might be named are examples of the benefit that may be expected from them by our Government. I am at a loss to conceive how it was that, with the understanding expressed in the letter of General Hindman respecting the restriction of "the operations of wandering commissaries in the Cherokee Nation" you could have taken the position you assumed; how you could have done so with the full knowledge that General Pike controlled affairs in the Department of Indian Territory how, with long experience in military matters, you could have arrogated to yourself the position of a superior when you knew that you had no ground to sustain you. If General Pike had been dissatisfied with my official conduct on account of extravagance, imbecility, or for any other reason, it was his place to manifest it; and it would have been at least courteous to let him have an expression of choice in the appointment of the officer who should act as quartermaster of his department. Respectfully, your obedient servant, WM. QUESENBURY, Major and Quartermaster, Department of Indian Territory. LITTLE ROCK, July 17, 1862. Brigadier-General PIKE, Port McCulloch (via Port Smith): Send your best battery forthwith to Fort Smith, to report to Colonel C. A. Carroll, with 50 rounds of ammunition. Send with it a company of squadron of cavalry. This to be done immediately. I shall go there and take command at the earliest moment possible. The enemy is reported again on the White River. T. C. HINDMAN, Major-General, Commanding. GENERAL ORDERS, HDQRS. DEPT. OF INDIAN TERRITORY, No. ---. Port McCulloch, July 17, 1862. I. The general commanding the Department of Indian Territory, left with 1,300 mounted men and the Indian troops to defend it against Federal invasion, cannot permit those patriotic citizens to return to their homes who, being over thirty-five years of age, reluctantly yield to the imperative demands of their private interests, and forego the opportunity so ardently desired and now at last presented, of meeting an abhorred enemy in the field, without an appropriate testimonial of his regard, and of his appreciation of their eminent and illustrious service *See p.946. CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.---CONFEDERATE. 971 IL He has been profoundly afflicted by their unfavorable opinion of himself; admiring at the same time the chaste and elegant language in which it has been expressed. And his life will hereafter be embittered by the reflection that he failed to secure the good opinion and applauses of a body of men so just and discriminating in their censures, whose opinions are entitled to so much weight, and who, by patriotically hurrying to their homes at the moment when a bleeding country besought them for their services, have deserved so well of that country, covered their own names with immortal glory, and added new dignity to human nature. III. He deeply regrets that the gentlemen in question were, by his sole fault, forced into the service of an ungrateful country, which ought to be able to take care of herself; fight her own battles, and secure her independence without compelling any of her citizens to assist her in doing so. For what is liberty worth, if; to secure it, dangers have to be incurred, and hardships and privations undergone? IV. He assures them that it was with the deepest sorrow he became convinced that he could not furlough all of them in April, until the end of the war, and permit them to remain at home until that time, still continuing to receive their pay, and forty cents a day for use and risk of each horse. V. He particularly apologizes to every gentleman for not having been able heretofore to furlough men and grant leaves of absence to officers for more than fifteen days out of ten, and to indulge their burning ardor for active service, and their eager desire to be at home at one and the same time; and he is taking active steps which he hopes will enable him to effect all this in the future. VI. The commanding general is utterly unable to find words in which to express his intense admiration of these lofty and heroic souls, who, leaving a little handful of their countrymen, unfortunately not thirty-five years of age, to aid our Indian allies in checking an overwhelming torrent of invasion, are returning exultant to their homes in Texas, furnished with those honorable certificates of discharge which their children and their children's children will in after years exhibit with a just and laudable pride, as in other countries men exhibit the patents of nobility of their ancestors; nor can he find language in which to express his conviction of the supreme injustice of those laws, ordinarily known among fools as the laws of honor, decency, and justice, which have not permitted him to take the moneys belonging to oar Indian allies to satisfy the demands of those patriots who are now retiring to the shades of private life, after a long term of arduous service, chiefly passed by them in cursing the officers over them, and yelling clamorously for furloughs, sick leave, pay, active service, horse shoeing, corn, and bacon. VII. He condoles with them on the unexampled hardships that they have undergone, and which, such has been their patriotic devotion, they have borne, unmurmuring, with unexampled, unheard-of, and incredible constancy, patience, and cheerfulness. VIII. He is deeply afflicted at the incredible privations which the men have had to endure, in the cause of a beloved country, in the way of food. Their sufferings in that respect have brought many tears to his eyes; and their heroic patience under these terrible privations totally eclipses the boasted constancy of the men of the Revolution, who starved and stood barefoot in the snows of winter at Valley Forge, and went into action with only a rag tied round their loins, to keep the belts of their cartridge-boxes from eating into their flesh. 972 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV. IX. He is in hopes that a long life of ease and rest, after the establishment of a peace, will reward them for the immense labor they have undergone, in riding to the North Fork and back, in making several trips to their homes in Texas, at the expense of the Government, and in being cruelly compelled to half work for half a day something less than one day in twenty. Sic itur ad astra. It is by so heroic labors, and by hardships so incredible, nobly, patiently borne, that men ascend to the stars, and their glory becomes eternal. X. Above all, he assures the men of his profound penitence and contrition for not being able to lend them, and use in purchasing provisions and forage for them, and in paying sick soldiers discharged, all his own moneys, and to keep the same moneys on band at the same time, to use in some other way for their benefit. XI. He apologizes to them for not being able to create a world out of nothing, and to transport money to the Choctaw Nation, out of a treasury guarded by Mr. Memminger; upon a simple request transmitted by telegraph. He equally apologizes for having permitted superior officers and a horde of vagabonds to take and appropriate to themselves the arms and supplies, for the want of which the white men of his command are unarmed, lean and haggard with hunger and destitution; their horses skeletons, and themselves naked, barefoot, and destitute of everything. XII. He apologizes to them for being in command of the Indian country; for the necessity of doing anything to secure that country to the Confederacy; for the outrage committed upon them by Providence, in making any Indian country at all; for his severity and harshness in punishing them without sentence of court-martial, for the most innocent and even laudable actions; for inclosing himself with a chain of sentinels, and allowing no soldier to have access to him; for listening to no complaints, giving them no information, and refusing to prepare papers for them, and relieve them and their officers from duty; and especially for his own idleness, while they have reared so many monuments of their industry, until their toils and hardships have brought upon them a premature old age. XIII. He is greatly grieved that they have been compelled to remain so long in the service, and regrets that each of them could not have been fortunately blessed with some one of the diseases so prevalent at Fort McCulloch, and for which many less deserving citizens have been discharged; and he has been profoundly impressed with a sense of the unjust partiality of Providence, in bestowing on so many others, and not on them, the welcome boons of inguinal hernia, pulmonalis, hepatitis chronicus, gastritis chronicus, and general debility, by which each of the fortunate recipients of these blessings in disguise was unfit for duty precisely forty days. XIV. He regrets that there is nothing in the Regulations, or the Articles of War, that enables all the free citizens of a country to be in the army and at home at the same time, to have money paid them when there is none, to relieve them from eating beef at all and give them bacon every day in the week, and to enable them to toil and fight for their independence by proxy. Re condoles with them for these unheard-of cruelties, admires their cheerful constancy and patience under them, and is profoundly penetrated with a sense of their unprecedented gratitude. XV. He regrets the unheard-of hardships to which the men have been subjected in performing picket duty and standing guard, and the ruinous consequences to their health and constitution of the immense labor CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE.. 973 done by them on the field-works, which, in their present condition, will always remain as the 8trongest evidence of what a patriotic army can do and endure when it has independence in view, a home to fight for, and an extra ration of coffee in prospect. <

Series I Volume XIII Page 1 of 955 - Missouri - Arkansas Campaign

boldly claimed in print by an officer of Brooks' battalion. That is false, too. They were taken by a charge right in front upon them by the Indians, Welch's squadron of Texans, belonging to the First Choctaw and Chickasaw regiment, and about two companies of Sims' regiment, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Quayle. The rest of that regiment were left at the fence we charged from. Brooks' command came up from the left, ten or fifteen minutes after the battery was taken, and when asked to aid in taking the other battery in front of us, the commanding officer said he would "be damned if he was going to take his men into any such damned trap;" the ground had not been reconnoitered, and so he made off with his men. As to their losing men there, there was not a gun fired in the direction they came from, and there was not a dead body left on the ground they came over. Ask Dr. [E. L.] Massie, my medical director.

The second day I had no command. Van Dorn did not see fit to give me the command of the troops I brought him the night before. He ran away, ahead of his army, at 10 o'clock in the morning. He says so himself. He left near half his army behind, without notice of his retreat. I left a point within 150 yards of the field, where he had been at 12 o'clock, and it was still an hour after that before I finally made my retreat. As to the actions themselves, General Van Dorn's report is, as another officer has said, "true until you get to the forks of the road, and all false afterward."

I only allude to this that you may understand the position I have occupied since. There has been a regular deluge of lies poured out about me in Arkansas and Texas; and the men of the regiments of Darnell and Dawson, who owe me nothing but favors and kindnesses, have sown them broadcast over these two States, to such an extent that I should be very obtuse not to know the immense disadvantage under which I labor, in endeavoring to effect anything. The poison is in the minds of the men of my own command, and I should be sincerely rejoiced to have the opportunity of retiring to private life.

When I returned from Elkhorn, I had a regiment of Texas troops, which had not long before reached North Fork. I had no artillery, and none of my supplies had left Fort Smith. Western Arkansas was in consternation and abandoned, and an immediate advance of the enemy on Fort Smith was looked for. It seemed certain; and it was quite as certain that the rabble of Price and Van Dorn (they were all a rabble but two or three regiments) would not stand an instant. The Creek regiment had disbanded and half of Drew's Cherokee regiment; and I feared our defeat would discourage them all.

I hoped to receive the regiments that Adams and Gallagher had raised for me, and was looking for Woodruff's artillery. I could get no supplies at Gibson; and at the only good position south of the Canadian there was no good water. Besides, the roads from Fort Smith to Washita and Texas would be open behind me there. If Ho-po-eith-le-yo-ho-la came down, his aim would be the country he lived in, west of the North Fork. I came here because it was the first point south of the Canadian, on the road to Fort Smith, where there is always running water. It is 30 miles from Texas, on the road that diverges 11 miles from here, and runs to three points-- Sherman, Bonham, and Preston. Here I could get supplies. We had no money, but I had Indian moneys and moneys of my own, and I used them all. I directed the quartermaster to issue small notes, and we soon had abundant credit. Here I hoped to organize a force of 5,000 or 6,000 white men, with thirty pieces of artillery, and then I meant, leaving strong works here, to march north-

956 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV.

ward, and perhaps take position near Evansville, with my right flank resting on Boston Mountain. But my cannon ammunition was all taken; my two regiments of infantry were taken; Darnell's regiment was such a nuisance that I gladly sent it off to lie ad libitum, and found my force too weak for any forward movement. I still had two Texas regiments, and I made them and Dawson's work on the field-works, which was hard to effect, but I did effect it.

You know my present force. It would be nothing in the field, but it is a good deal as a nucleus to rally troops around, so long as it remains near Texas; get 150 miles away, and not one of them will come.

I inclose you a printed paper containing my views, as explained by me to the Indians' colonels. It satisfied them all. Colonel Watie wrote me that he fully understood and appreciated it. Lieutenant Colonel William P. Ross came here enraged at "the abandonment" of the Cherokee country, and without a word from me confessed that it was the wisest thing that could nave been done, and afforded more security even to the Cherokees than a position farther north. Major Boudinot was equally satisfied, and in a few weeks I had 2,500 Indians more in the field.

Of all the arms purchased for me with moneys charged against me in the Treasury, I have only received 211, which Colonel Dawson had bought, and which I retained to arm part of the new Choctaw regiment. I have expended $20,000. Three hundred and eleven guns, purchased in North Carolina, General Van Dorn got. Major Pearce expended $2,700 at Fort Smith, and turned over the guns to Major Clarke, who issued them out. A large number purchased by Judge Quillin, General Roane seized-some 900, I believe; and I heard, some two weeks since, that 2,000 Enfield rifles, which the Secretary of War promised me, in December, out of the first arms that should be received, had arrived at Little Rock, and you had taken them. I suppose from your letter that such is not the case. I confess I thought it pretty hard to lose them also, after all my trouble; and that to deprive me of everything and then order me to move, was like cutting off a man's feet and then telling him to walk.

I suppose your Texas brigades got the guns purchased for me. I am not much surprised to hear your account of their conduct. Two things are constantly rung in my ears-leave to go home and money-until I am worn out. You have a fine company and a good battery in Woodruff's I hated to lose it, but you are welcome to it, needing it as badly as you do. Dawson's regiment is worth very little; I was glad it went. I hope you will make it do something; I could not.

I have sent Colonel Douglas H. Cooper, of the First Choctaw and Chickasaw Regiment, the ranking colonel here, to take command of all the troops north of the Canadian. Colonel Sampson Folsom's new regiment of Choctaws goes with him, and is on the way. Captains Seanland's and Witt's companies of Texans also go there. The former is off; the latter debating about bounty and pay. If they give me any trouble I will drive them across Red River, if I have to open on them with West's guns. They provoke me beyond endurance. Stevens' regiment, late Taylor's, is getting ready. Three companies move to-morrow. I send them to Martin Vann's, north of the Arkansas, and 9 or 10 miles north of Fort Gibson, beyond the Verdigris, near the main Kansas road.

I have no objection to making my headquarters at Frozen Rock, near Fort Gibson. It is the place I selected at first. The grand objection to it was the abandonment of Western Arkansas by our troops, and that with a small force there our rear could be gained either from above or below, and we be cut off from Red River, whence our supplies must

CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.---CONFEDERATE. 957

come, and from the friendly Choctaw country. It would be a long retreat and the first 30 miles through a prairie. Our transportation is so scant that the remainder of the force will not be able to move within less than twelve or fourteen days. All our wagon-tires are dropping off. On the 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th the thermometer stood, in my tent, at 1 p. m., 104, 105, 108, and 112, respectively.

Permit me to say that I do not think it would be advisable for me to be placed in command of Northwestern Arkansas. To any commander here the Indian country must be the principal object, and to take care of it is as much as I can do, if not as much as any man can do. Attached to part of Arkansas, that would be the principal object, as it was when McCulloch was in command. He was put in command of the Indian country alone; he never had a chance to bring any troops into it. He was wanted all the time beyond its limits, and I found everything was going to the devil.

I therefore urged the President, in August, to send an officer of the army here, as brigadier, who would be content to take care of this country alone, glory or no glory. The forts near Red River at that time were, and long had been, held by Texans not under his command, part of them under nobodies and as to all matters in the southern and western Indian country he knew nothing whatever.

The response to my recommendation was my own appointment, which I did not anticipate, and did not wish; and I am altogether too corpulent to ride much on horseback, and, besides, am subject to neuralgia in the back, which, seizing me suddenly, utterly disables me for days at a time. I only consented to take the d--d command because I had made the treaties, felt personally responsible for the security of the country here, and knew it was supposed I could manage better with the Indians than any one else. I am sure I wish somebody else would take it.

Since I came to this post it has been demanded that I should march north, march to Fort Smith, send troops to Fort Smith, go down and take command of Arkansas, and send troops to Arkansas. If I or any. body else were in command of Northwestern Arkansas, with the Indian country appended like a bob on the tail of a kite, I should have to be all the time in Arkansas, or there would be such a row as has never been heard.

That you may see how utterly impossible it is for any one at a distance to order about the few white troops in this country without doing mischief; I will only mention one or two things now occurring.

First. The Creek Indians, some 1,600 in number, are in our service. When I made the treaty with them, they numbered 13,500 people; now they number 7,500. They are all the time alarmed lest Ho-po-eith-le-yoho-la should come down west of the Verdigris, toward North Fork, and they be all driven off or murdered. I met George Stidham two weeks ago, and he told me that now and as yet they were as true as any of the Indians; but if the Northern troops came soon, they would kill him and the other half-breeds, and submit. They found out he talked of moving his negroes to Texas, and they notified him that if he did they would follow him and kill him. They said that no troops were put in their country to protect them. I immediately ordered a Choctaw regiment up there, and have since ordered Stevens' regiment there, to give assurance that they shall not be left unaided to the tender mercies of Ho-po-eith-le-yo-ho-la. The whole country about Doaksville is swarming with Missourians and other white men run out of Texas by the conscription

958 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV.

act. I have just ordered two Choctaw companies down to pick them up. (I am just this moment interrupted by a messenger with letters from Chilly McIntosh, containing requisitions for 100 guns, ammunition hospital stores, stationery, &c. I inclose a copy of Chilly's letter, and of one from his quartermaster; and you may judge from them how completely all these Indians rely upon and look to me.)

Second. I have been laboring for a year to effect a permanent peace with the Comanches and Caiawas, and at the same time to convince the border people of Texas that I can do it. Last fall I made a treaty with the Comanches, and sent messages to the Caiawas, to compel them to take their choice between peace and war. They agreed to do what they never had done before - live in peace with us. All this spring there has been apprehension among the Reserve Indians that the Caiawas were coming down to attack them; for it is known that they had received arms and presents from the North. At last they and the Comanches have determined to come in, and the Caiawas have selected Elk Creek, in the Wichita Mountains, to settle on. They are all to be at the agency on the 4th instant. I would have gone there three days ago, but for your orders. There will be 2,000 or 3,000 of them, and peace with them is a saving of the cost of two regiments on the frontier of Texas. They expect to meet me, and care nothing about Agent Leeper, who they have found out is a little captain. Very probably if I do not meet them they will go off, and you will have a thousand tales of depredations on Western Texas; part true, more false. If nothing required my presence elsewhere, I should, of course, take two or three companies and go there, and yet no one at a distance could anticipate this necessity. I give these as instances.

It is the multiplicity of matters always pressing on the commander here that makes me say that it is impossible for any officer at a distance to determine what ought to be done with a small force in this country. If I had one large enough to leave garrisons behind me, it would be different, but to take any command worth taking I must take all. I had not sent any troops to Colonel Watie's assistance, because I waited for him to let me know when he needed re-enforcement. He keeps me constantly advised, as do Jumper, with his Seminoles, and the Mclntoshs, with their Creeks, of all that passes in the northern part of the country. They are all men of sense, and know what my plans are. The whole Indian country is quiet and peaceful, and you can come here alone and unarmed, and travel from Kansas to Red River, and from Fort Smith to the Wichita Mountains, in perfect safety.

I inclose you a copy of a letter sent to Colonel Watie by me, enjoin. mg upon him to maintain the defensive. I do not know that upon that point I can add anything to what I have already said. I hope you will believe that I am not actuated by any small ambition in wishing to be in a condition to exercise my own discretion in regard to all operations in the Indian country. Senator [Robert W.] Johnson was unwilling for me to incur the odium of commanding Indians, and I could probably have had a better position elsewhere, but I told him that I thought the most odious of all things in a soldier was to seek to exchange a post to which he had been assigned for another, for greater ease or a larger chance for glory; that the President wished me to be here, and I should not seek to be sent elsewhere. I have incurred the odium, and who thanks me for it?

I inclose you a copy of a letter of the 8th May from General Robert E. Lee. You will see by it that I was supposed, at least, to be in command of Arkansas. I would rather you would be, for you are younger

CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE. 959

and more active, and more peremptory than I am. I care nothing for command and nothing for rank. God knows all I do care for is to save this Indian country to the Confederacy.

As for arms, 1 have not yet been able to arm all the Indians. My efforts to do so have been frustrated. I shall soon have an additional supply of cannon powder I have secured it in Texas. Send to Shreveport and get 3,000 pounds of a quantity on its way to me. Do not take any more; so much you are welcome to. Have you caps enough? I have some on the way from Texas. I had 800,000 at Fort Smith early in April. My adjutant-general saw them, secured them, and thought they were started to me in a wagon. God knows what became of them. I arranged with the authorities at Richmond to procure my moneys direct from the Treasury. I do not think I shall have to ask you to divide with me. I have messengers enough on the way, I think, to get what I need. As to supplies, my credit is excellent in Texas. I can get any quantity of flour, bacon, corn, oats, and barley in that State. I think I can even get 300 or 400 sacks of coffee, and I am arranging for 10,000 suits of clothing and shoes from Mexico. I can buy four times as much beef as I want here or anywhere in the Indian country at 6 1/2 cents, butchered. Corn is costing me $1.50, bacon 25 cents, and flour $6.30 a hundred. Hay I can have made for myself. I can hire the mowers and the laborers, and it will not cost $5 a ton. I neither need nor want to have anything to do with that nest of speculators at Fort Smith. 1 know enough about their hay contracts and beef contracts. I have an honest quartermaster and an honest commissary, and both competent, and I would not remain in command an hour if I had to depend for supplies on an officer who sent my commissary $5,000 only out of $350,000 sent to him for the Indian commands and McCulloch's forces together.

The Indians are wasteful, and it is very hard to enforce regularity among them in the matter of supplies; but still I believe this is the most economical department in the Confederacy, and you may find the secret of the constant abuse of myself in the fact that I have set my face against contracts intended as swindles, and that by act of Congress I have to audit all the accounts created by the acting quartermasters and commissaries of the Indian commands before the commands were regularly mustered into the service. Why, only last summer, when George Stidham offered to furnish hay in the Creek country at $6, and Jobe, equally as good a man, at $5 or $5.50 a ton, a contract was let at $12, and 5 and 6 tons were pretended to be loaded on a common ox wagon, and part of the hay cut right in the Indian camp, too.

Majors Quesenbury and Lanigan have commissions as majors, and that of the former is older than that of Major Pearce. I especially beg that you will direct Major Pearce to refrain from making any contracts to supply the troops of my command with anything; from meddling with my transportation, of which I have not half enough; from undertaking the settlements of accounts in this country, and especially from attempting to get into his hands moneys in the hands of my officers, estimated for special purposes, pledged in advance, and to withhold which from the Indians would ruin our influence with them. I should be sorry to have to do it, but I had determined to forbid my officers sending any moneys to Major Pearce, if it even cost me my position, or more beside.

If I should not remain under your command, I should still as readily aid you with all might in carrying out your views, and co-operate with you as efficiently as I could.

When General McCulloch left Fort Smith, I immediately ordered

960 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV.

Colonels Watie and Drew to march toward Fayetteville, and report to him. Of course, if I could have done so, when Little Rock was menaced, I would have hastened to where my children were.

I agree with you to some extent as to mounted men. A force of them can be of more use here than anywhere else; but they are awfully expensive. The Indians are all mounted, and this is justified by the consideration that even if they never fired a gun for us it would be good policy, and the cheapest policy, to keep them in our pay and on our side. If we did not, they would soon be against us; and we cannot whip 5-600 Indians. Of white shot-gun cavalry, I have as much as I want. The Indians alone can hold the country, unless a large force enters it. If such a force does so, they will intend, in addition, to march into Texas. To resist an organized army of even 10,000 men, infantry would be indispensable, and this was well understood by the President and Secretary when I received authority to raise two regiments of infantry, and the positive promise of 2,000 Enfield rifles to arm them with. I did not care about having any white mounted troops at all, and when they were offered me, in February, I asked only for authority to receive a battalion. I have a poor opinion of undisciplined mobs, each with six legs, instead of two, to tempt him to run away; and if I had not hoped to discipline the two regiments I have, so as to make them cavalry, to move and charge en masse, I would have sent them over Red River long ago, for part of them have nearly crazed me. Furlough, bounty, horse-shoeing --- the changes are rung on these three words all the time. Yesterday the officers of one company ordered to march toward the Arkansas at 12 o'clock came to me at 6 p. m. about bounty money, and at last said the boys would be very much dissatisfied. I told them to go back and tell them that if they were in the least dissatisfied to pack up and start this morning for Texas; and that if they were not off, one way or the other, this morning, I would bring up two of West's guns and shell them out of their camps. They marched in half an hour toward Fort Gibson. The truth is, that if the enemy do not come in large force they will not come at all. They know pretty nearly how many Indians are in arms. The country is very large, and to send an army through it would do about as much good as cutting a path through a lake with a knife.

The improvements of the Indians, with few exceptions, are worth nothing. The cattle would be driven out of the way, the Indian forces would melt away before them, and hang on their flanks and rear. To conquer the country they must occupy it; and it would not pay to keep an army here. If they left small bodies in garrison, these would be destroyed as soon as the army went back; and they know that if they come far enough into the country they have to fight Texans in it all the time.

The chief object in keeping a couple of regiments of white troops here is, therefore, not to prevent invasion, but to encourage and aid the Indians. That this is done is proven by the fact that so many of them are in arms. The chief complaint now, from the- upper Cherokee country, is that bodies of white men are running about there, crossing the line and firing a few shots, and then running back into the Indian country, provoking retaliation. When I proposed in making the treaties that the Indians should furnish troops, they invariably stipulated for two things: One, that they should not be taken out of their own country; the other, that they should not be drilled like white men, but be always allowed to fight in their own way. Of course, I agreed to both. You cannot use them in large bodies, nor play the general with them in the field. None of them, except the Choctaws and Chickasaws, would con-

CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE. 961

sent to have any white officers, and they only so far as to the colonel. 1 have found that it does not answer to put them and white troops close together. You cannot use the same hospital for both. It will not do to have a white company in an Indian regiment. In fact, the organization by regiments is all nonsense. They ought to go by towns, in bands of different numbers, under their chiefs and captains; and I have sent the Secretary of War a draught of a bill covering that and other points.

I believe I will be able to hold this country. But I must be able to reach out my arm and bring men from Texas, in a few days notice, if the enemy enter it in force. I want field works, but not too near him, or too far from Texas. My intention has been to place works here first, and then at Frozen Rock, and on the south side of the Canadian, at Rock Creek, a very strong point. The Texans would not have lifted a spade or touched a wheelbarrow anywhere north of this point. It was a hard matter to get them to do it here; but they have done more work than any one would have believed possible. The Choctaws are about, I think, to furnish me 100 hands, and I shall get from 50 to 100 from Texas. At Frozen Rock I can hire from the Creeks and Cherokees and Seminoles.

I am not writing at this length because this is an agreeable or easy command, and therefore desired by me; on the contrary, I would gladly give it into other hands. Neither my habits nor tastes incline me to a military life; and I think I could have served the country much more effectually in some civil capacity, and this particular command is for many reasons especially disagreeable, embarrassing, and laborious. If I had Indian troops alone I should not have any trouble. They pester me very little, and what I say is law and gospel, even among the Reserve Indians and wild tribes. One white regiment makes more fuss, grumbles more, hatches out more lies, and is more trouble in one day than all the Indian troops and people in a year. With the exception of five or six companies, I sincerely wish they were all at home. I inclose a copy of a singular letter received a day or two since by me from Colonel Charles A. Carroll. Of course, I have not replied to it. I was about to send it to the Secretary of War, but, after receiving your letter, I transmit it to you, finding it hard to believe that you would have directed a colonel to urge upon me the necessity of a forward movement; or that orders have gone from yourself to a junior colonel in my department, placing him in command of a large part of it, over three of his seniors. As I have placed Colonel Cooper in command of them all, and he ranks them all, that matter Is, of course, settled.

You will see by my orders that I have laid my hands on the wandering companies of which your letter of the 23d speaks. I shall show as little respect as possible to their commissaries and their accounts.

Purchasing agents will not be permitted to traverse the Indian country, raising the price of supplies upon us. They are as great an evil and plague of Egypt as contractors are, the two together making everything cost twice what it ought to. Yesterday an officer wanted my department quartermaster to pay him $10 a head on some mules he had purchased, as purchasing agent. I told the quartermaster to pay him, and then tell the officer I should send him before a court-martial. Plenty of horses and mules were purchased last year by purchasing agents at Fort Smith at $100 or so a piece, and turned over to Major Clarke at $175 or so.

As to debts due in this country, a special act of Congress provides

61 R R-VOL XIII

962 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. (CHAP. XXV.

for payment by the brigade quartermaster of my command of all debts incurred by all acting commissaries and quartermasters of all Indian troops up to the time when they were regularly mustered into the service, which, as to many of them, is not yet the case. By the act, all these accounts are to be audited and approved by me, Major Pearce will be in some danger of loss if he pays any of them without my approval of them.

Dr. Edward L. Massie is the senior surgeon by commission in this department, and was regularly appointed medical director by me, with the consent and approbation of the Surgeon-General, in December last. He is not merely brigade surgeon, and there is no such officer that I know of. I do not think that Medical Director [J. M. J Keller should send him orders direct, without sending them through me.

I find this passage in Napier's History of the War in the Peninsula:

The Duke of Dalmatia would not suffer Drouet to stir; and Joseph, whose jealousy had been excited by the marshal's power in Andalusia, threatened to deprive him of his command. The inflexible duke replied that the king had already virtually done so, by sending orders direct to Drouet; that he was ready to resign, but he would not commit a gross military error.

I frankly submit to you whether orders direct to Colonel Clarkson to take a certain command, orders to my medical director that take him from headquarters, and orders from an assistant commissary of subsistence and acting quartermaster to my quartermaster and commissary to report to him, send him their money, and obey his instructions, might not fairly be regarded as virtually depriving me of my command.

I take the liberty of inclosing to you copies of two pamphlets printed here, for distribution to officers without charge. I will send you others as I print them. Having purchased a press, I print my own blanks. Five large boxes of stationery and blanks, part procured on requisitions in Richmond and part purchased by me, with which were military books, papers, &c., of my own, all sent from that city in December, have never reached here, being needed, I suppose, somewhere else.

I have the honor to be, general, very respectfully, yours,

ALBERT PIKE,

Brigadier-General, Comdg. Department of Indian Territory.

P. S.--- I will thank you to inform me whether there was any truth in the report, by the way of Texas, that you had taken the Enfield rifles that reached Little Rock on their way to me. As I said before, I judge from your letter that the whole report was false.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF INDIAN TERRITORY,
July 4, 1862.

Major R. C. NEWTON,

Asst. Adjut. General and Chief of Staff; General Hindman's Division:

MAJOR: I am directed by the brigadier-general commanding to lay before Major-General Hindman the following extract from a letter, dated the 1st instant, received by him from Robert M. Jones, one of the most prominent citizens of the Choctaw Nation, and one of the delegates who made the treaty with the Confederate States, and afterward almost entirely fitted out a battalion of Choctaws, toenable it to enter their service. It is as follows:

General, perhaps yon are aware that Colonel Dawson's regiment, when leaving for Little Rock, pressed five of my wagons; but one, after traveling a day or two, broke

CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE. 963

down, and was left. The others were taken as far as Doaksville. Having them in charge some six days, then turned them off without giving them any discharge to show their time of service; but they were eight days out before they returned to the plantation; that is, four of them. Please inform me if I am to be compensated for this; by whom, &c.

These wagons were in use hauling corn for the troops at this post, which Mr. Jones was furnishing on credit. Colonel Dawson had been allowed to furlough one half his effective men until the 25th of June, to return home and reap the wheat crop. He applied to the general commanding for permission to scud the regimental wagons to convey them home, and was answered that such permission could not be legally given. He sent them, nevertheless, and when unexpectedly ordered to march to Little Rock they had not returned, and the general refused to let him have others in their place, as there were none that could be spared. To supply his needs, caused by his so sending his wagons away with his furloughed men, he, or some officer of the command, seized those of Mr. Jones. The brigadier-general commanding directs me to say that he hopes the regulation prohibiting the impressment of property will be more strictly enforced in this case, for the reason that the offense was committed in the Indian country and the property of an ally was seized. If it is passed over in silence, great discontent will justly be the consequence. If he had known it in time, and could have seized the offender, he would have treated the act as pillaging and marauding, and tried the party by a military commission. And he also directs me to ask that steps may be immediately taken to compensate Mr. Jones, and that information be given that gentleman of any satisfactory action in the premises. His post office is at Doaksville.

I am, very respectfully, yours,

G. A. SCHWARZMAN,

Captain and Assistant Adjutant - General

FORT SMITH, ARK., July 5, 1862.

DEAR GENERAL: I am very much dissatisfied with the way affairs are being conducted out West, and I desire to exclude Colonel Carroll from this general complaint. He is active as his health, which is bad, will permit, and doing all that a man can do with the means at hand and to be had.

To-day I saw Mr. F. E. Williams, of Scullyville. He has just come in from Pike's headquarters. I asked him if Pike had left, and his reply was that Pike did not intend to leave; that he had ordered Colonel Cooper to take his regiment to Gibson, and that the major of the regiment stepped out and said that their time would be out in a month ; that the treaty did not require them to leave their nation, and that he would not go, and the regiment coincided with the major in his views, and acted accordingly. Cooper went on to Gibson alone, and the only force he has is two companies that he ordered from the vicinity of Scullyville that had been on furlough.

For the last twenty-four hours men have been coming in from Clarkson's headquarters, 30 miles north of Tahlequah; horses broken down; without arms, and many minus their hats, and report that Clarkson and some 100 men, and the trains of both Clarkson and Stand Watie's commands, have been taken by the Federals - taken by surprise, and we not firing a gun, the enemy being right in camp before they had any intimation of their approach. In this train, which must have consisted of

964 MO., ARK., KANS., AND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV.

some 50 wagons, were some 50 to 100 kegs of powder that Clarkson had taken from Fort Smith. Had the loss been Clarkson, without that of the train and powder, I think that the Confederacy would have been the gainer. To think of his having such an amount of ammunition with him when his command did not exceed 400 men. It appears to have been the policy of every person out here to take all they can get, whether necessary or not. The Federals have paid two visits to Fayetteville, and have done a great deal of damage, both to property and people have pretty effectually, for the present, either broke up or put a stop to raising troops there. Frank [A.] Rector is now north of the river, en route to Fayetteville, with some 400 men mounted, and not well armed. There are some 350 to 500 infantry here and in the neighborhood, but almost entirely without arms. We have enough to arm some 250, I suppose, being repaired and put into serviceable condition. We are exceedingly destitute of caps and powder. The latter we certainly will have if the Federals ever give us time to complete arrangements here, which are still far from completion, for making.

I telegraphed you for authority for Stand Watie to use his discretion and follow the enemy out of the nation, if he found it necessary. This is certainly advisable, and I think it could not be conferred on a better man or one that will use it to better advantage. When the Federals first came to Fayetteville they found some 8,000 pounds or more lead. As soon as they left, the citizens sent it out in the country, and hid it, and I sent up after it and got part of it away. The next day the Federals were there after it.

There is an incredible amount of work to do here. All the unsettled business of the quartermaster's department for the last twelve months is coming in on me. I am tired to death every night. I have no time to be out of my quartermaster's office, either to go to the stables and wagon yard or visit my work-shops; but I have efficient men in charge of them, that keep them operating successfully. The subsistence department 1 have been compelled to mostly turn over to Mr. Cline, whom I wrote you about. He is an efficient commissary, being well posted, and I will take it as a favor if you will assign him to duty as assistant commissary. He is to do the duty at any rate, and should, I think, have the rank and pay. General Pike's commissary (Lanigan) reports no funds on hand, but gives me no news of the condition of his department.

I have not had a word from the quartermaster or ordnance officer, though I sent them copies of your order directing them to report fully to me. The, whole country is full of accounts, due bills, forage receipts, &c. I have written you officially for authority to take these up. I cannot do so as they now stand unless by order. Their being informal should not subject the innocent and ignorant to injury.

There is a matter which Major [Elias] Rector, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, informs me he has laid before the Indian Bureau that should be attended to, and, as the communication is cut off, I lay it before you. He says that General Pike turned over to Major Dorn, agent for the Osages, $17,000 in gold; that Dorn has not been at his agency for two years, and that, when he was at it, it was in Kansas; and more, that Dorn has not given any bonds, and that he (Rector) told Pike and Dorn, before the money was paid to Dorn, that he would oppose it, and report it, which he has done, to the Department at Richmond. This is what he says: "Act if you deem it advisable." To me it looks like something is wrong. You can call on Rector for a copy of his letter to the Indian Bureau.

I tell you, general, this dog-on Indian business is enough to break up

CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-- CONFEDERATE. 965

any government in the world. I wish that we only had the guns, ammunition, and camp equipage they are keeping idle that we might use it to drive those infamous Federals from our border. Here are plenty of men, and brave ones, that are ready and willing to aid in the defense of their country, and only ask for means to do it with, while we know that some 3,000 or 4,000 stand of fine arms, and plenty of ammunition, are uselessly had and destroyed by these no-account Indian commands. Stand Watie's is the only one worth a cent, and they are mostly white men.

I have written you a long letter, as I would talk to you, hoping to put you ill possession of the facts in regard to the condition of this part of the district. I am doing my best to make my departments efficient, and hope you will grant me an assistant. All well. Let me hear from you any Eastern news.

Your true friend,

N. B. PEARCE.

CANTONMENT DAVIS, July 7, 1862.

Major PEARCE:

MAJOR: 1 arrived here yesterday at noon, and, as soon as the requirements of the command now here are ascertained, may forward requisitions to you. All quiet here at present. The enemy are not known to have been lower down than Grand Sabine. General Pike will probably arrive soon.

Respectfully, DOUGLAS H. COOPER,

Colonel, Commanding.

P. S.-We are greatly in need of ammunition, especially percussion caps. Please forward as many as you can without delay. They will be covered by proper receipts. There will be, within a few days, say, 5,000 men here, mostly Indian troops.

FORT SMITH, ARK.,

July 8, 1862.

Major General T. C. HINDMAN,

Commanding District:

SIR: I have the honor to inclose certain correspondence from General Albert Pike and his staff officers. I did not come here to be upbraided and railed at by such men for simply obeying your orders. I send you copies of the letters addressed by me to Majors Lanigan and Quesenbury and to the ordnance officer. In your Orders. No. 17, herewith in-closed, you required all officers in the Indian country and certain counties of Arkansas, of the several staff departments over which I was placed, to report to me.

I inclosed with my letters copies of your order placing me on duty. I now inclose you the reply of two of them. You positively and pointedly required me to have the funds in the hands of all disbursing officers turned over to me immediately. The order says, "All public funds of either department within the limits specified, &c., will be turned over to him immediately." No exemption of any officer is made. And, again, the order says, "No other officer or person within said limits will, after this date, be authorized to contract any debt for either of said depart-

966 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV.

ments." That does not except General Pike's staff. The very reverse was intended, as you repeatedly mentioned to me when speaking on this subject. They were the very officers from whom I was expected to receive the funds and extra means of transportation, as it was reported that General Pike had a large surplus of the latter; and on that I wrote my letters, requiring them to obey your order, and turn over to me accordingly.

No report of property, condition of departments or funds have been made to me, except Major Lanigan wrote that he had no funds. Your order requires all officers, agents, &c., to report to me without delay, and obey my instructions.

I have made a trial to obey your orders. Your order me to make adequate provision for all Confederate troops in the limits specified Indian country, &C General Pike orders Major Lanigan to say "that all sup. plies for his department must be provided by his orders, and that he will not permit any purchases or contracts to be made for the troops under his command unless by his order or with his approval. Whose order is to be obeyed?

Major Quesenbury says he is ordered to attend to affairs of the quartermaster department in that command, to make whatever purchases are necessary, &c., "and cannot but resist your (my) interference in the hay contract in the Indian country." Your ordered me to make these contracts; they say they will resist; yet your order says that no other officer than myself is permitted to make contracts, or even purchases, and that to enable me to effectually carry out your order I am empowered to appoint purchasing agents, &c. It is clear that your order has been set at defiance, and that I have been made a target for this man Quesenbury to spout his filth at. I, therefore, as an act of justice to myself; demand his arrest and trial for disobedience of orders and for ungentlemanly conduct in his official correspondence, &c. I have, general, simply and faithfully attempted to carry out your orders; have not in any way arrogated to myself authority, as charged by him, nor have I any desire to do so. I cannot believe that you will permit such conduct to pass unnoticed, but have it punished as it deserves. If I am to be insulted and treated in this style for faithfully and earnestly carrying out your orders to me, and the offenders left unpunished, I cannot longer hold my position. You know me. All I ask is justice. You assigned me my position here; you conversed freely with me, telling me what you wanted done. I have endeavored to carry out your oral as well as written instructions. You will remember that one great point with you was to have me get possession of the funds that General Pike's staff officers were squandering, as had been represented to you, as I was informed by you. Your letter to General Pike of the 23d ultimo was never seen by me until to-day, and affords Quesenbury a handle to deal me a false blow, as he predicates his villainous insinuations on the knowledge he says I had of a statement in your letters that he must have known that I had never seen or heard tell of. The peculiar phraseology and evident taunts and insults contained in his letter will be plain enough to you without my pointing them out.

In regard to General Pike's letter and the acts of Congress, that is a fight between you and him. I know no law of Congress when I receive your order. Generals may discuss such points, not staff officers of my grade.

In conclusion, I have to request, general, that I be sustained in the attempt I am making to carry out your orders, and that full and definite instructions be furnished me, and that General Pike be informed that

CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.---CONFEDERATE. 967

my actions are by your orders, and that those orders must be obeyed as long as they are in force. I have no desire to get into any controversy, and will simply write General Pike that I am only obeying your orders, and, if he is not satisfied, that you, and not myself; are the person to whom he must direct his correspondence on such matters. Examine your orders to me, letters to General Pike's staff, and their reply, and do me justice, is all I ask.

I am, general, with great respect, your obedient servant,

N. B. PEARCE,

Major, &c

[inclosures.]

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OP INDIAN TERRITORY,
Port McCulloch, July 1, 1862.

Major N. B. PEARCE,

Acting Commissary of Subsistence, Fort Smith:

MAJOR: I inclose you, for your information, a copy of an act of Congress,* which seems to have escaped your observation. I am engaged, as they are presented, in examining the class of accounts provided for by that act; and, as I pass upon them, if I approve them, the brigade quartermaster receives orders from me to pay them. These orders he will undoubtedly obey.

I am, very respectfully, yours,

ALBERT PIKE,

Brigadier-General, Comdg. Department of Indian Territory.

[Indorsement]

I presume General Pike's letter is occasioned by the marked notice inclosed.

N. B. PEARCE,

Major, &O

[sub-inclosure]]

FORT SMITH, June 25, 1862.

SPECIAL NOTICE.-In order to facilitate settling up the outstanding debts of the quartermaster's, commissary, and ordnance departments in Western Arkansas and the Indian Territory, I request that all persons having accounts against the Government present the same at my office, at Fort Smith, when they will be audited, and as soon as funds are obtained, on estimates made on the information thus obtained, the accounts will be paid off.

N. B. PEARCE,

Major and Acting Quartermaster.

SPECIAL ORDERS
HDQRS. TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DISTRICT,

No. 17.
Little Rock, Ark., June 17, 1862.

* * * * *

III. Major N. B. Pearce is assigned to duty as commissary, acting quartermaster, and acting ordnance officer at Fort Smith. All officers, agents, and contractors in or for either of these departments in the Indian Territory, and in the counties of Benton, Washington, Crawford,

Not found.

968 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV.

Sebastian, Franklin, Johnson, Pope, Madison, and Carroll, in the State of Arkansas, will report to him without delay, and obey his instructions. All public funds of either department, within the limits specified, and all property thereof not actually employed in the field, and allowed by the regulations governing the same, will be turned over to him immediately.

IV. Major Pearce is charged with the duty of making adequate provision in each of the departments over which he is placed for all Confederate troops which now are, or may hereafter be, within the limits specified in Paragraph 1 of this order. For this purpose he is authorized to make contracts, make purchases, appoint purchasing agents, establish depots, and take all other steps that may be necessary, subject to approval of the major-general commanding. No other officer or person within said limits will, after this date, be authorized to contract any debt for either of said departments. Major Pearce will report directly to the proper chiefs of departments at these headquarters.

V. Until otherwise ordered, Major Pearce will be post commandant at Forts Smith and Van Buren. Martial law is hereby declared over said cities and the country within 5 miles of the same.

VI. Major Pearce is vested with power to impress all articles necessary for either of the departments over which he is placed when reasonable prices are refused therefor.

By command of Major-General Hindman:

R. C. NEWTON,

Assistant Adjutant- General.

FORT SMITH, ARK., June 24, 1862.

Major THOMAS LANIGAN

Acting Commissary of Subsistence, C. S. Army:

SIR: Inclosed I send you a copy of General Hindman's order to me. You will take the necessary steps at once to comply with the provisions of the order in relation to funds. You will also report the condition of the department in detail, stating all the information necessary to enable me to fully understand all about the department, giving a statement of outstanding debts, copies of all contracts, the amount of stores on hand, the prospect for procuring supplies, and everything necessary to a full understanding of the necessities of the department.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

N. B. PEARCE,

Major and Commissary of Subsistence.

P. S.-You will furnish copies of this order to all commissaries of General Pike's command.

FORT SMITH, ARK., June 24, 1862.

Major WILLIAM QUESENBURY,

Assistant Quartermaster, C. S. Army:

SIR: Inclosed I send you a copy of General Hindman's order to me. You will at once comply with the requirements. The funds in your possession you will send, by safe hands, to me at this post. The extra means of transportation and camp and garrison equipage will be sent here at once. You will also furnish me with a detailed account of the condition of your department, outstanding debts, &c.; copies of all con-

CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.---CONFEDERATE. 969

tracts which have not been completed; in fact, all the information necessary to enable me fully to understand the operations, necessities, and condition of your department.

I am, with respect, your obedient servant,

N. B. PEARCE,

Major and Assistant Quartermaster.

FORT SMITH, ARK., June 24, 1862.

ORDNANCE OFFICER, GENERAL PIKE'S COMMAND:

SIR: Inclosed I send you a copy of General Hindman's order to me. You will at once give me, in detail, a full statement of the condition of your department, giving amount of ammunition on hand, and stores of all kinds; the facilities of repairing arms, &c. The funds in your possession you will send to me by some safe conveyance. You will please make your report full, so as to enable me to fully understand the operations, necessities, &c., of the department.

I am, with respect, your obedient servant

N. B. PEARCE,

Major and Acting Ordnance Officer.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF INDIAN TERRITORY,
Port McCulloch, Cherokee Nation, July 2, 1862. Major N. B. FEAROE,

Commissary of Subsistence, C. S. Army, Port Smith, Ark.:

MAJOR: I have the honor to hand you herewith a copy of a letter from General Hindman to General Pike of the 23d [24th] ultimo, and also of General Orders, No. -,* from headquarters of this department, of the 30th. I am instructed by the commanding general to say that all supplies for this department must be provided by his order, and that he will not permit any purchases or contracts to be made for the troops under his command unless by his order or with his approval.

I am, major, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

THOS. LANIGAN,

Major and Commissary of Subsistence.

OFFICE OF QUARTERMASTER'S DEPT. OF INDIAN TER.,

Port McCulloch, Cherokee Nation, July 4, 1862.

Major N. B. Pearce,

Commissary of Subsistence and Acting Quartermaster:

MAJOR: Your communication, inclosing General Hindman's Special Orders, No. 17, was received on the 30th ultimo.

At the time of the reception of the communication, I could not conceive that the funds in my possession could be turned over to you without infracting positive regulations and the act of Congress. If you were only an acting quartermaster, you could not receive funds, to say nothing of ordering me to yield what I had in possession. Besides, if you were a bonded quartermaster, your commission could not possibly give you precedence over me, simply because my commission would necessarily bear priority of date. But supposing these views incorrect, the

970 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV.

declarations of Major-General Hindman, in a letter to General Pike, of June 23, show pointedly that you were not warranted in your assumption of power. Inclosed I respectfully submit a copy of General Hindman's letter * for your perusal.

Obedience also dictates another course than the one you thought proper to prescribe for me. General Pike has ordered me to attend to the quartermaster's affairs of this department myself; to make whatever purchases are necessary, and to superintend all business and operations in my province. I cannot, therefore, but resist your interference in the matter of hay contracts in the Indian country. Inclosed I submit an order of General Pike on the points in question.

I do not desire any exemption from the usual custom in regard to contracts, but must affirm that I do not believe in the policy of letting them out, provided certain ones that might be named are examples of the benefit that may be expected from them by our Government.

I am at a loss to conceive how it was that, with the understanding expressed in the letter of General Hindman respecting the restriction of "the operations of wandering commissaries in the Cherokee Nation" you could have taken the position you assumed; how you could have done so with the full knowledge that General Pike controlled affairs in the Department of Indian Territory how, with long experience in military matters, you could have arrogated to yourself the position of a superior when you knew that you had no ground to sustain you. If General Pike had been dissatisfied with my official conduct on account of extravagance, imbecility, or for any other reason, it was his place to manifest it; and it would have been at least courteous to let him have an expression of choice in the appointment of the officer who should act as quartermaster of his department.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

WM. QUESENBURY,

Major and Quartermaster, Department of Indian Territory.

LITTLE ROCK, July 17, 1862.

Brigadier-General PIKE,

Port McCulloch (via Port Smith):

Send your best battery forthwith to Fort Smith, to report to Colonel C. A. Carroll, with 50 rounds of ammunition. Send with it a company of squadron of cavalry. This to be done immediately. I shall go there and take command at the earliest moment possible. The enemy is reported again on the White River.

T. C. HINDMAN,

Major-General, Commanding.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPT. OF INDIAN TERRITORY,

No. ---.
Port McCulloch, July 17, 1862.

I. The general commanding the Department of Indian Territory, left with 1,300 mounted men and the Indian troops to defend it against Federal invasion, cannot permit those patriotic citizens to return to their homes who, being over thirty-five years of age, reluctantly yield to the imperative demands of their private interests, and forego the opportunity so ardently desired and now at last presented, of meeting an abhorred enemy in the field, without an appropriate testimonial of his regard, and of his appreciation of their eminent and illustrious service

*See p.946.

CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.---CONFEDERATE. 971

IL He has been profoundly afflicted by their unfavorable opinion of himself; admiring at the same time the chaste and elegant language in which it has been expressed. And his life will hereafter be embittered by the reflection that he failed to secure the good opinion and applauses of a body of men so just and discriminating in their censures, whose opinions are entitled to so much weight, and who, by patriotically hurrying to their homes at the moment when a bleeding country besought them for their services, have deserved so well of that country, covered their own names with immortal glory, and added new dignity to human nature.

III. He deeply regrets that the gentlemen in question were, by his sole fault, forced into the service of an ungrateful country, which ought to be able to take care of herself; fight her own battles, and secure her independence without compelling any of her citizens to assist her in doing so. For what is liberty worth, if; to secure it, dangers have to be incurred, and hardships and privations undergone?

IV. He assures them that it was with the deepest sorrow he became convinced that he could not furlough all of them in April, until the end of the war, and permit them to remain at home until that time, still continuing to receive their pay, and forty cents a day for use and risk of each horse.

V. He particularly apologizes to every gentleman for not having been able heretofore to furlough men and grant leaves of absence to officers for more than fifteen days out of ten, and to indulge their burning ardor for active service, and their eager desire to be at home at one and the same time; and he is taking active steps which he hopes will enable him to effect all this in the future.

VI. The commanding general is utterly unable to find words in which to express his intense admiration of these lofty and heroic souls, who, leaving a little handful of their countrymen, unfortunately not thirty-five years of age, to aid our Indian allies in checking an overwhelming torrent of invasion, are returning exultant to their homes in Texas, furnished with those honorable certificates of discharge which their children and their children's children will in after years exhibit with a just and laudable pride, as in other countries men exhibit the patents of nobility of their ancestors; nor can he find language in which to express his conviction of the supreme injustice of those laws, ordinarily known among fools as the laws of honor, decency, and justice, which have not permitted him to take the moneys belonging to oar Indian allies to satisfy the demands of those patriots who are now retiring to the shades of private life, after a long term of arduous service, chiefly passed by them in cursing the officers over them, and yelling clamorously for furloughs, sick leave, pay, active service, horse shoeing, corn, and bacon.

VII. He condoles with them on the unexampled hardships that they have undergone, and which, such has been their patriotic devotion, they have borne, unmurmuring, with unexampled, unheard-of, and incredible constancy, patience, and cheerfulness.

VIII. He is deeply afflicted at the incredible privations which the men have had to endure, in the cause of a beloved country, in the way of food. Their sufferings in that respect have brought many tears to his eyes; and their heroic patience under these terrible privations totally eclipses the boasted constancy of the men of the Revolution, who starved and stood barefoot in the snows of winter at Valley Forge, and went into action with only a rag tied round their loins, to keep the belts of their cartridge-boxes from eating into their flesh.

972 MO., ARK., KANS., IND. T., AND DEPT. N. W. [CHAP. XXV.

IX. He is in hopes that a long life of ease and rest, after the establishment of a peace, will reward them for the immense labor they have undergone, in riding to the North Fork and back, in making several trips to their homes in Texas, at the expense of the Government, and in being cruelly compelled to half work for half a day something less than one day in twenty. Sic itur ad astra. It is by so heroic labors, and by hardships so incredible, nobly, patiently borne, that men ascend to the stars, and their glory becomes eternal.

X. Above all, he assures the men of his profound penitence and contrition for not being able to lend them, and use in purchasing provisions and forage for them, and in paying sick soldiers discharged, all his own moneys, and to keep the same moneys on band at the same time, to use in some other way for their benefit.

XI. He apologizes to them for not being able to create a world out of nothing, and to transport money to the Choctaw Nation, out of a treasury guarded by Mr. Memminger; upon a simple request transmitted by telegraph. He equally apologizes for having permitted superior officers and a horde of vagabonds to take and appropriate to themselves the arms and supplies, for the want of which the white men of his command are unarmed, lean and haggard with hunger and destitution; their horses skeletons, and themselves naked, barefoot, and destitute of everything.

XII. He apologizes to them for being in command of the Indian country; for the necessity of doing anything to secure that country to the Confederacy; for the outrage committed upon them by Providence, in making any Indian country at all; for his severity and harshness in punishing them without sentence of court-martial, for the most innocent and even laudable actions; for inclosing himself with a chain of sentinels, and allowing no soldier to have access to him; for listening to no complaints, giving them no information, and refusing to prepare papers for them, and relieve them and their officers from duty; and especially for his own idleness, while they have reared so many monuments of their industry, until their toils and hardships have brought upon them a premature old age.

XIII. He is greatly grieved that they have been compelled to remain so long in the service, and regrets that each of them could not have been fortunately blessed with some one of the diseases so prevalent at Fort McCulloch, and for which many less deserving citizens have been discharged; and he has been profoundly impressed with a sense of the unjust partiality of Providence, in bestowing on so many others, and not on them, the welcome boons of inguinal hernia, pulmonalis, hepatitis chronicus, gastritis chronicus, and general debility, by which each of the fortunate recipients of these blessings in disguise was unfit for duty precisely forty days.

XIV. He regrets that there is nothing in the Regulations, or the Articles of War, that enables all the free citizens of a country to be in the army and at home at the same time, to have money paid them when there is none, to relieve them from eating beef at all and give them bacon every day in the week, and to enable them to toil and fight for their independence by proxy. Re condoles with them for these unheard-of cruelties, admires their cheerful constancy and patience under them, and is profoundly penetrated with a sense of their unprecedented gratitude.

XV. He regrets the unheard-of hardships to which the men have been subjected in performing picket duty and standing guard, and the ruinous consequences to their health and constitution of the immense labor

CHAP. XXV.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE.. 973

done by them on the field-works, which, in their present condition, will always remain as the 8trongest evidence of what a patriotic army can do and endure when it has independence in view, a home to fight for, and an extra ration of coffee in prospect. <

"The first general order issued by the Father of his Country after the Declaration of Independence indicates the spirit in which our institutions were founded and should ever be defended."