The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War Part 33

[Footnote 705: _Confederate Records_, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 36.

See also, Steele to Anderson, January 22, 1863 [ibid., 50-51], which besides detailing the movements of Steele's men furnishes, on the authority of "Mr. Thomas J. Parks of the Cherokee Nation," evidence of brutal murders and atrocities committed by Blunt's army "whilst on their march through the northwestern portion of this State in the direction of Kansas."]

[Footnote 706: Crosby's telegram, February first, to the Chief of Ordnance is sufficient attestation,

"Many of Cooper's men have inferior guns and many none at all. Can you supply?" [Ibid., 65-66].]

[Footnote 707: The detention and the misapplication of funds by William Quesenbury seem to have been largely responsible for Steele's monetary embarra.s.sment [ibid., 28, 63-64, 75, 76, 77, 79-81, 101, 147]. Cotton speculation in Texas was alluring men with ready money southward [ibid., 94, 104].]

[Footnote 708: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 6.]

conflict of interests.[709] So petty was Schofield and so much in a mood for disparagement that he went the length of condemning the work of Blunt and Herron[710] in checking Hindman's advance as but a series of blunders and their success at Prairie Grove as but due to an accident.[711] General Curtis, without, perhaps, having any particular regard for the aggrieved parties himself, resented Schofield's insinuations against their military capacity, all the more so, no doubt, because he was not above making the same kind of criticisms himself and was not impervious to them. In the sequel, Schofield reorganized the divisions of his command, relieved Blunt altogether, and personally resumed the direction of the Army of the Frontier.[712]

Blunt went back to his District of Kansas and made his headquarters at Fort Leavenworth.

In some respects, the reorganization decided upon by Schofield proved a consummation devoutly to be wished; for, within the reconst.i.tuted First Division was placed an Indian Brigade, which was consigned to the charge of a man the best fitted of all around to have it, Colonel William A. Phillips.[713] And that was not all; inasmuch as the Indian Brigade, consisting of the three regiments of Indian Home Guards, a battalion of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, and a four-gun battery that had been captured at the Battle of Old

[Footnote 709: It seems unnecessary and inappropriate to drag into the present narrative the political squabbles that disgraced Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, and Colorado during the war. Lane was against Schofield, Gamble against Curtis.]

[Footnote 710: Yet both Blunt and Herron were, at this very time, in line for promotion, as was Schofield, to the rank of major-general [_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, II, 95.]]

[Footnote 711:--Ibid., 6, 12, 95; _Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 195.]

[Footnote 712:--Ibid., 22.]

[Footnote 713: Britton, _Civil War on the Border_ vol. ii, 18-19.]

Fort Wayne,[714] was almost immediately detached from the rest of Schofield's First Division and a.s.signed to discretionary "service in the Indian Nation and on the western border of Arkansas."[715] It continued so detached even after Schofield's command had been deprived by Curtis of the two districts over which the brigade was to range, the eighth and the ninth.[716] Thus, at the beginning of 1863, had the Indian Territory in a sense come into its own. Both the Confederates and the Federals had given it a certain measure of military autonomy or, at all events, a certain opportunity to be considered in and for itself.

Indian Territory as a separate military ent.i.ty came altogether too late into the reckonings of the North and the South. It was now a devastated land, in large areas, desolate. General Curtis and many another like him might well express regret that the red man had to be offered up in the white man's slaughter.[717] It was unavailing regret and would ever be. Just as with the aborigines who lay athwart the path of empire and had to yield or be crushed so with the civilized Indian of 1860. The contending forces of a fratricidal war had little mercy for each other and none at all for him. Words of sympathy were empty indeed. His fate was inevitable. He was between the upper and the nether mill-stones and, for him, there was no escape.

Indian Territory was really in a terrible condition. Late in 1862, it had been advertised even by southern men as lost to the Confederate cause and had been

[Footnote 714: It is not very clear whether or not the const.i.tuents of the Indian Brigade were all at once decided upon. They are listed as they appear in Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. ii, 3. Schofield seems to have hesitated in the matter [_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 26].]

[Footnote 715:--Ibid., 33.]

[Footnote 716: On the subject of the reduction of Schofield's command, see Ibid., 40.]

[Footnote 717: Curtis to Phillips, February 17, 1863, Ibid., 113-114.]

practically abandoned to the jayhawker. Scouting parties of both armies, as well as guerrillas, had preyed upon it like vultures.

Indians, outside of the ranks, were tragic figures in their utter helplessness. They dared trust n.o.body. It was time the Home Guard was being made to justify its name. Indeed, as Ellithorpe reported, "to divert them to any other operations" than those within their own gates "will tend to demoralize them to dissolution."[718]

The winter of 1862-1863 was a severe one. Its coming had been long deferred; but, by the middle of January, the cold weather had set in in real earnest. Sleet and snow and a constantly descending thermometer made campaigning quite out of the question. Colonel Phillips, no more than did his adversary, General Steele, gave any thought to an immediate offensive. Like Steele his one idea was to replenish resources and to secure an outfit for his men. They had been provided with the half worn-out baggage train of Blunt's old division.

It was their all and would be so until their commander could supplement it by contrivances and careful management. Incidentally, Phillips expected to hold the line of the Arkansas River; but not to attempt to cross it until spring should come. It behooved him to look out for Marmaduke whose expeditions into Missouri[719] were cause for anxiety, especially as their range might at any moment be extended.

The Indian regiments of Phillips's brigade were soon reported[720]

upon by him and declared to be in a sad state. The first regiment was still, to all intents and purposes, a Creek force, notwithstanding that its fortunes had been varied, its desertions, incomparable.

[Footnote 718: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 49.]

[Footnote 719: _Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 161, 162.]

[Footnote 720: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 56-58.]

The second regiment, after many vicissitudes, and after having gotten rid of its unmanageable elements, notably, the Osages and the Quapaws, had become a Cherokee and the third was largely so. That third regiment was Phillips's own and was the only one that could claim the distinction of being disciplined and even it was exposed occasionally to the chronic weakness of all Indian soldiers, absence without leave.

The Indian, on his own business bent, was disposed to depart whenever he pleased, often, too, at times most inopportune, sometimes, when he had been given a special and particular task. He knew not the usages of army life and really meant no offence; but, all the same, his utter disregard of army discipline made for great disorder.

It was not the chief cause of disorder, however, for that was the unreliability of the regimental officers. The custom, from the first, had been to have the field officers white men, a saving grace; but the company officers, with few exceptions, had been Indians and totally incompetent. Strange as it may seem, drilling was almost an unknown experience to the two regiments that had been mustered in for the First Indian Expedition. To obviate some of the difficulties already encountered, Phillips had seen to it that the third regiment had profited by the mistakes of its forerunners. It had, therefore, been supplied with white first lieutenants and white sergeants, secured from among the non-commissioned men of other commands. The result had fully justified the innovation. After long and careful observation, Phillips's conclusion was that it was likely to be productive of irretrievable disaster and consequently an unpardonable error of judgment "to put men of poor ability in an Indian regiment." Primitive man has an inordinate respect for a strong

character. He appreciates integrity, though he may not have it among his own gifts of nature. "An Indian company improperly officered" will inevitably become, to somebody's discomfiture, "a frightful mess."

If any one there was so foolish as to surmise that the independent commands, northern and southern, would be given free scope to solve the problems of Indian Territory, unhampered by contingent circ.u.mstances, he was foreordained to grevious disappointment.

Indian Territory had still to subserve the interests of localities, relatively more important. It would be so to the very end. In and for herself, she would never be allowed to do anything and her commanders, no matter how much they might wish it otherwise--and to their lasting honor, be it said, many of them did--would always have to subordinate her affairs to those of the sovereign states around her; for even northern states were sovereign in practice where Indians were concerned. General Steele was one of the men who endeavored n.o.bly to take a large view of his responsibilities to Indian Territory. Colonel Phillips, his contemporary in the opposite camp, was another; but both met with insuperable obstacles. The attainment of their objects was impossible from the start. Both men were predestined to failure.

Foraging or an occasional scouting when the weather permitted was the only order of the winter days for Federals and Confederates. With the advent of spring, however, Phillips became impatient for more aggressive action. He had been given a large programme, no insignificant part of which was, the restoration of refugees to their impoverished homes; but his first business would necessarily have to be, the occupancy of the country. Not far was he allowed to venture within

it during the winter; because his superior officers wished him to protect, before anything else, western Arkansas. Schofield and, after Schofield's withdrawal from the command of southwestern Missouri, Curtis had insisted upon that, while Blunt, to whom Phillips, after a time, was made immediately accountable, was guardedly of another way of thinking and, although not very explicit, seemed to encourage Phillips in planning an advance.

Phillips's inability to progress far in the matter of occupancy of Indian Territory did not preclude his keeping a close tab on Indian affairs therein, such a tab, in fact, as amounted to fomenting an intrigue. It will be recalled that on the occasion of his making the excursion into the Cherokee Nation, which had resulted in his incendiary destruction of Fort Davis, he had gained intimations of a rather wide-spread Indian willingness to desert the Confederate service. He had sounded Creeks and Choctaws and had found them surprisingly responsive to his machinations. They were nothing loath to confess that they were thoroughly disgusted with the southern alliance. It had netted them nothing but unutterable woe. Among those that Phillips approached, although not personally, was Colonel McIntosh, who communicated with Phillips through two intimate friends.

McIntosh was persuaded to attempt no immediate demonstration in favor of the North; for that would be premature, foolhardy; but to bide the time, which could not be far distant, when the Federal troops would be in a position to support him.[721] The psychological moment was not yet. Blunt called Phillips back for operations outside of Indian

[Footnote 721: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 61-62.]

Territory; but the seed of treason had been sown and sown in fertile soil, in the heart of a McIntosh.[722]

In January, 1863, Phillips took up again the self-imposed task of emissary.[723] The unionist Cherokees, inclusive of those in the Indian Brigade, were contemplating holding a national council on Cowskin Prairie, which was virtually within the Federal lines.

Secessionist Cherokees, headed by Stand Watie, were determined that such a council should not meet if they could possibly prevent it and prevent it they would if they could only get a footing north of the Arkansas River. Their suspicion was, that the council, if a.s.sembled, would declare the treaty with the Confederate States abrogated. To circ.u.mvent Stand Watie, to conciliate some of the Cherokees by making reparation for past outrages, and to sow discord among others, Phillips despatched Lieutenant-colonel Lewis Downing on a scout southward. He was just in time; for the Confederates were on the brink of hazarding a crossing at two places, Webber's Falls and Fort Gibson.[724] Upon the return of Downing, Phillips himself moved across the border with the avowed intention of rendering military support, if needed, to the Cherokee Council, which convened on the fourth of February.[725] From Camp Ross, he continued to send out scouting parties, secret agents,[726] and agents of distribution.

The Cherokee Council a.s.sembled without the preliminary formality of a new election. War conditions

[Footnote 722: This remark would be especially applicable if the Colonel McIntosh, mentioned by Phillips, was Chilly, the son of William McIntosh of Indian Springs Treaty notoriety.]

[Footnote 723: _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, 100.]

[Footnote 724:--Ibid., 85.]

[Footnote 725:--Ibid., 96-97.]

[Footnote 726:--Ibid., 100, 108.]

had made regular pollings impossible. Consequently, the council that convened in February, 1863 was, to all intents and purposes, the selfsame body that, in October, 1861, had confirmed the alliance with the Confederate States. It was Phillips's intention to stand by, with military arm upraised, until the earlier action had been rescinded.

While he waited, word came that the harvest of defection among the Creeks had begun; for "a long line of persons"[727] was toiling through the snow, each wearing the white badge on his hat that Phillips and McIntosh had agreed should be their sign of fellowship.

Then came an order for Phillips to draw back within supporting distance of Fayetteville, which, it was believed, the Confederates were again threatening.[728] Phillips obeyed, as perforce, he had to; but he left a detachment behind to continue guarding the Cherokee Council.[729]

The legislative work of the Cherokee Council, partisan body that it was, with Lewis Downing as its presiding officer and Thomas Pegg as acting Princ.i.p.al Chief, was reactionary, yet epochal. It comprised several measures and three of transcendant importance, pa.s.sed between the eighteenth and the twenty-first:

1. An act revoking the alliance with the Confederate States and re-a.s.serting allegiance to the United States.