roll, commanding the post at Fort Smith, wrote me that he was directed by General Hindman to urge on me the necessity of an immediate forward movement. A Colonel Clarkson, commanding some 300 men, was also, without notice to me, put by General Hindman in command of the northern part of my department, over three colonels of Indian regiments, all of whom ranked him, if he was a colonel at all. A thousand lances, obtained by me at Memphis, were seized at Little Rock and used to arm General Hindman's infantry, while some 1,600 guns, purchased for me by agents moneys received from the Treasury and which had been seized by General Roane, were in the hands of other troops; 800,000 caps that had been at Fort Smith two months before have never made their appearance here to this day.

In the mean time the Cherokee country was invaded by some 2,000 or 2, 500 marauders, and as these were accompanied by Indians of Hopoeithleyohola's band, I anticipated that the Creek country would also be entered by a route farther westward, and the country on the Deep and North Forks of the Canadian River occupied. While I was hastening the Texas regiments, reorganized on June 28, in their preparations for marching northward, endeavoring to obtain from Texas cannon powder and caps and sending supplies to the Indian troops, under Colonel Cooper, on the Arkansas River, I received the order to proceed to Fort Smith. I had never been advised from Richmond that this territory was in General Beauregard's department; had never received an order from that general or reported to him. I had learned that General Magruder was to take command of the Trans-Mississippi District, and was assigned to it at the time when General Beauregard sent General Hindman out, and Captain Schwarzman, my assistant adjutant-general, informed me that the Secretary of War had told him in May that no one was to interfere with my control over the Indian Territory. At any rate I did not think it right that I should be ordered to leave my command and go out of my department to organize troops elsewhere. On receiving such an order (which might be followed by one to go to Little Rock) I felt at liberty to resign; a step which my own self-respect would have impelled me to take long before if I had not felt it my duty to remain in the Indian country as long as I could. One of the earliest acts of General Hindman had been to send Major N. B. Pearce to Fort Smith for the purpose, among other things, of supplying this command with forage and subsistence, and that officer, an acting assistant quartermaster only has, sent his orders to the officers of my staff. By Special Orders, Numbers 17, all the moneys in the hands of my quartermaster and commissary were ordered to be sent to Major Pearce, and all contracts were to be made by him; and he had sent handbills over the Indian country requiring all persons in it having claims against the Government to present them to him at Fort Smith to be audited, and that the money to pay them might after a time be procured. An act of Congress authorized of the claims, and I sent him a copy of it, which produced only in insolent letter in reply. He sent my letter to General Hindman, but have learned nothing from that officer in regard to that special matter of claims, and Major Pearce's notice still stands to create general alarm and dissatisfaction among all the Indians to whom the Government is indebted for supplies. If I had received officially a copy of Special Orders, Numbers 17, * I should have resigned immediately. It was the reinstatement of an old system of abuse, against which I had long struggled, and the fruits of which to

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* Of June 17, see p. 835.

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