The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War Part 2

At the time of the issuance of the order, he seems to have offered no objections to taking his Indians out of their own territory. Disaster had not yet overtaken them or him and he had not yet met with the injustice that was afterwards his regular lot. If his were regarded as more or less of a puppet command, he was not yet aware of it and, oblivious of all scorn felt for Indian soldiers, kept his eye single on the a.s.sistance he was to render in the accomplishment of Van Dorn's object. It was anything but easy, however, for him to move with dispatch. He had difficulty in getting such of his brigade as was Indian and as had collected at Cantonment Davis, a Choctaw and Chickasaw battalion and the First Creek Regiment, to stir. They had not been paid their money and had not been furnished with arms and clothing as promised. Pike had the necessary funds with him, but time would be needed in which to distribute them, and the order had been for him to move promptly. It was something much more easily said than done. Nevertheless, he did what he could, paid outright the Choctaws and Chickasaws, a performance that occupied

[Footnote 51: _Official Records_, vol. liii, supplement, vol.

viii, 462.]

three precious days, and agreed to pay McIntosh's Creek regiment at the Illinois River. To keep that promise he tarried at Park Hill one day, expecting there to be overtaken by additional Choctaws and Chickasaws who had been left behind at Fort Gibson. When they did not appear, he went forward towards Evansville and upward to Cincinnati, a small town on the Arkansas side of the Cherokee line. There his Indian force was augmented by Stand Watie's regiment[52] of Cherokees and at Smith's Mill by John

[Footnote 52: Watie's regiment of Cherokees was scarcely in either marching or fighting trim. The following letter from John Ross to Pike, which is number nine in the John Ross _Papers_ in the Indian Office, is elucidative. It is a copy used in the action against John Ross at the close of the war. The italics indicate underscorings that were probably not in the original.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, PARK HILL, Feb'y 25th, 1862.

To BRIG. GEN'L.A. PIKE, Com'dy Indian Department.

Sir: I have deemed it my duty to address you on the present occasion--You have doubtless ere this received my communication enclosing the action of the National Council with regard to the final ratification of our Treaty--Col. Drew's Regiment promptly took up the line of march on the receipt of your order from Fort Smith towards Fayetteville. _I accompanied the Troops some 12 miles East of this and I am happy to a.s.sure you in the most confident manner that in my opinion this Regiment will not fail to do their whole duty, whenever the Conflict with the common Enemy shall take place_. There are so many conflicting reports as to your whereabouts and consequently much interest is felt by the People to know where the Head Qrs. of your military operations will be established during the present emergencies--_I had intended going up to see the Troops of our Regiment; also to visit the Head Qrs of the Army at Cane Hill in view of affording every aid in any manner within the reach of my power to repel the Enemy_. But I am sorry to say I have been dissuaded from going at present in consequence of some unwarrantable conduct on the part of many _base, reckless and unprincipled persons belonging to Watie's Regiment who are under no subordination or restraint of their leaders in domineering over and trampling upon the rights of peaceable and unoffending citizens_. I have at all times in the most unequivocal manner a.s.sured the People that you will not only promptly discountenance, but will take steps to put a stop to such proceedings for the protection of their persons and property and to _redress their wrongs_--This is not the time for _crimination_ and _recrimination_; at a proper time _I have certain specific complaints to report for your investigation_. Pardon me for again reiterating that (cont.)]

Drew's.[53] The Cherokees had been in much confusion all winter. Civil war within their nation impended.[54] None the less, Pike, a.s.suming that all would be well when the call for action came, had ordered all the Cherokee and Creek regiments to hurry to the help of McCulloch.[55] He had done this upon the first intimation of the Federal advance. The Cherokees had proceeded only so far, the Creeks not at all, and the main body of the Choctaws and Chickasaws, into whose minds some unscrupulous merchants had instilled mercenary motives and the elements of discord generally, were lingering far in the background. Pike's white force was, moreover, ridiculously small, some Texas cavalry, dignified by him as collectively a squadron, Captain O.G. Welch in command. There had as yet not been even a pretense of giving him the three regiments of white men earlier asked for. Toward the close of the afternoon of March 6, Pike "came up with the rear of McCulloch's division,"[56] which proved to be the very division he was to follow, but he was one day late for the fray.

The Battle of Pea Ridge, in its preliminary stages, was already being fought. It was a three day fight, counting the skirmish at Bentonville on the sixth between General Franz Sigel's detachment and General Sterling Price's advance guard as the work of the first day.[57] The real battle comprised the engagement at

[Footnote 52: (cont.) the ma.s.s of the People _are all right in Sentiment for the support of the Treaty of Alliance with the Confederate States_. I shall be happy to hear from you--I have the honor to be your ob't Serv't

John Ross, Prin'l Chief, Cherokee Nation.]

[Footnote 53: Pike's Report, March 14, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. viii, 286-292.]

[Footnote 54: James McIntosh to S. Cooper, January 4, 1862, Ibid., 732; D.H. Cooper to Pike, February 10, 1862, Ibid., vol. xiii, 896.]

[Footnote 55:--Ibid., 819.]

[Footnote 56:--Ibid., vol. viii, 287.]

[Footnote 57:--Ibid., 208-215, 304-306.]

Leetown on the seventh and that at Elkhorn Tavern[58] on the eighth.

At Leetown, Pike's Cherokee contingent[59] played what he, in somewhat quixotic fashion, perhaps, chose to regard as a very important part.

The Indians, then as always, were chiefly pony-mounted, "entirely undisciplined," as the term discipline is usually understood, and "armed very indifferently with common rifles and ordinary shot-guns."[60] The ponies, in the end, proved fleet of foot, as was to have been expected, and, at one stage of the game, had to be tethered in the rear while their masters fought from the vantage-ground of trees.[61] The Indian's most effective work was done, throughout, under cover of the woods. Indians, as Pike well knew, could never be induced to face sh.e.l.ls in the open. It was he who advised their climbing the trees and he did it without discounting, in the slightest, their innate bravery.[62] There came a time, too, when he gave countenance to another of their

[Footnote 58: The Elkhorn Tavern engagement is sometimes referred to, and most appropriately, as the Sugar Creek [Phisterer, _Statistical Record_, 95]. Colonel Eugene A. Carr of the Third Illinois Cavalry, commanding the Fourth Division of Curtis's army, described the tavern itself as "situated on the west side of the Springfield and Fayetteville road, at the head of a gorge known as Cross Timber Hollow (the head of Sugar Creek) ..." [_Official Records_, vol. viii, 258]. "Sugar Creek Hollow," wrote Curtis, "extends for miles, a gorge, with rough precipitate sides ..." [Ibid., 589]. It was there the closing scenes of the great battle were enacted.]

[Footnote 59: The practice, indulged in by both the Federals and the Confederates, of greatly overestimating the size of the enemy force was resorted to even in connection with the Indians. Pike gave the number of his whole command as about a thousand men, Indians and whites together [_Official Records_, vol. viii, 288; xiii, 820]

notwithstanding that he had led Van Dorn to expect that he would have a force of "about 8,000 or 9,000 men and three batteries of artillery"

[Ibid., vol. viii, 749]. General Curtis surmised that Pike contributed five regiments [Ibid., 196] and Wiley Britton, who had excellent opportunity of knowing better because he had access to the records of both sides, put the figures at "three regiments of Indians and two regiments of Texas cavalry" [_Civil War on the Border_, vol. i, 245].]

[Footnote 60: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 819.]

[Footnote 61:--Ibid., vol. viii, 288.]

[Footnote 62:--Ibid.]

peculiarities. He allowed Colonel Drew's men to fight in a way that was "their own fashion,"[63] with bow and arrow and with tomahawk.[64]

This, as was only meet it should, called down upon him and them the opprobrium of friends and foes alike.[65] The Indian war-whoop was indulged in, of itself enough to terrify. It was hideous.

The service that the Cherokees rendered at different times during the two days action was not, however, to be despised, even though not sufficiently conspicuous to be deemed worthy of comment by Van Dorn.[66] At Leetown, with the aid of a few Texans, they managed to get possession of a battery and to hold it against repeated endeavors of the Federals to regain. The death of McCulloch and of McIntosh made Pike the ranking officer in his part of the field. It fell to him to rally

[Footnote 63: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 289.]

[Footnote 64:--Ibid., 195.]

[Footnote 65: The northern press took up the matter and the New York _Tribune_ was particularly virulent against Pike. In its issue of March 27, 1862, it published the following in bitter sarcasm:

"The Albert Pike who led the Aboriginal Corps of Tomahawkers and Scalpers at the battle of Pea Ridge, formerly kept school in Fairhaven, Ma.s.s., where he was indicted for playing the part of Squeers, and cruelly beating and starving a boy in his family. He escaped by some hocus-pocus law, and emigrated to the West, where the violence of his nature has been admirably enhanced. As his name indicates, he is a ferocious fish, and has fought duels enough to qualify himself to be a leader of savages. We suppose that upon the recent occasion, he got himself up in good style, war-paint, nose-ring, and all. This new Pontiac is also a poet, and wrote 'Hymns to the G.o.ds' in _Blackwood_; but he has left Jupiter, Juno, and the rest, and betaken himself to the culture of the Great Spirit, or rather of two great spirits, whisky being the second."]

[Footnote 66: Van Dorn did not make his detailed official report of this battle until the news had leaked out that the Indians had mangled the bodies of the dead and committed other atrocities. He was probably then desirous of being as silent as he dared be concerning Indian partic.i.p.ation, since he, in virtue of his being chief in command, was the person mainly responsible for it. In October of the preceding year, McCulloch had favored using the Indians against Kansas [_Official Records_, vol. iii, 719, 721]. Cooper objected strongly to their being kept "at home" [Ibid., 614] and one of the leading chiefs insisted that they did not intend to use the scalping knife [Ibid., 625].]

McCulloch's broken army and with it to join Van Dorn. On the eighth, Colonel Watie's men under orders from Van Dorn took position on the high ridges where they could watch the movements of the enemy and give timely notice of any attempt to turn the Confederate left flank.

Colonel Drew's regiment, meanwhile, not having received the word pa.s.sed along the line to move forward, remained in the woods near Leetown, the last in the field. Subsequently, finding themselves deserted, they drew back towards Camp Stephens, where they were soon joined by "General Cooper, with his regiment and battalion of Choctaws and Chickasaws, and" by "Colonel McIntosh with 200 men of his regiment of Creeks."[67] The delinquent wayfarers were both fortunate and unfortunate in thus tardily arriving upon the scene. They had missed the fight but they had also missed the temptation to revert to the savagery that was soon to bring fearful ignominy upon their neighbors.

To the very last of the Pea Ridge engagement, Stand Watie's men were active. They covered the retreat of the main army, to a certain extent. They were mostly half-breeds and, so far as can be definitely ascertained, were entirely guiltless of the atrocities charged against the others.

General Pike gave the permission to fight "in their own fashion"

specifically to the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles, who were, for the most part, full-blooded Indians; but he later confessed that, in his treaty negotiations with the tribes, they had generally stipulated that they should, if they fought at all, be allowed to fight as they knew how.[68] Yet they probably did not mean, thereby, to commit atrocities and the Cherokee National Council lost no time, after the Indian shortcomings

[Footnote 67: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 292.]

[Footnote 68:--Ibid., vol. xiii, 819.]

at the Battle of Pea Ridge had become known, in putting itself on record as standing opposed to the sort of thing that had occurred,

_Resolved_, That in the opinion of the National Council, the war now existing between the said United States and the Confederate States and their Indian allies should be conducted on the most humane principles which govern the usages of war among civilized nations, and that it be and is earnestly recommended to the troops of this nation in the service of the Confederate States to avoid any acts toward captured or fallen foes that would be incompatible with such usages.[69]

The atrocities committed by the Indians became almost immediately a matter for correspondence between the opposing commanders. The Federals charged mutilation of dead bodies on the battle-field and the tomahawking and scalping of prisoners. The Confederates recriminated as against persons "alleged to be Germans." The case involving the Indians was reported to the joint committee of Congress on the _Conduct of the Present War_;[70] but at least one piece of evidence was not, at that time, forthcoming, a piece that, in a certain sense, might be taken to exonerate the whites. It came to the knowledge of General Blunt during the summer and was the Indians' own confession. It bore only indirectly upon the actual atrocities but showed that the red men were quite equal to making their own plans in fighting and were not to be relied upon to do things decently and in order. Drew's men, when they deserted the Confederates after the skirmish of July third at Locust Grove, confided to the Federals the intelligence "that the killing of the white rebels by the Indians in"

the Pea Ridge "fight was determined

[Footnote 69: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 826.]

[Footnote 70: By vote of the committee, General Curtis had been instructed to furnish information on the subject of the employment of Indians by the Confederates [_Journal_, 92].]

upon before they went into battle."[71] Presumptively, if the Cherokees could plot to kill their own allies, they could be found despicable enough and cruel enough to mutilate the dead,[72] were the chance given them and that without any direction, instruction, or encouragement from white men being needed.

The Confederate defeat at Pea Ridge was decisive and, as far as Van Dorn's idea of relieving Missouri was concerned, fatally conclusive.

As early as the twenty-first of February, Beauregard had expressed a wish to have him east of the Mississippi[73] and March had not yet expired before Van Dorn was writing in such a way as to elicit the consummation of the wish. The Federals were in occupation of the northern part of Arkansas; but Van Dorn was very confident they would not be able to subsist there long or "do much harm in the west."

In his opinion, therefore, it was inc.u.mbent upon the Confederates, instead of dividing their strength between the east and the west, to concentrate on the saving of the Mississippi.[74] To all appearances, it was there that the situation was most critical. In due time, came the order for Van Dorn to repair eastward and to take with him all the troops that might be found available.

The completeness of Curtis's victory, the loss to the Southerners, by death or capture, of some of their best-loved and ablest commanders, McCulloch, McIntosh, Hebert, and the nature of the country through which the Federals pursued their fleeing forces, to say nothing of the miscellaneous and badly-trained character of

[Footnote 71: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 486.]

[Footnote 72: The same charge was made against the Indians who fought at Wilson's Creek [Leavenworth _Daily Conservative_, August 24, 1861].]

[Footnote 73: Roman, _Military Operations of General Beauregard_, vol. i, 240.]