The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War Part 43

Months before they might have been secured for the North but not now.

For them the hour of wavering was past. Maxey's vigor was stimulating.

[Footnote 930: To Governor Colbert of the Chickasaw Nation [_Official Records_, vol. x.x.xiv, part i, 109-110], to the Council of the Choctaw Nation [Ibid., 110], to John Jumper of the Seminole Nation [Ibid., 111], to McIntosh, possibly D.N.

[Ibid., part ii, 997]. For Maxey's comments upon Phillips and his letters, see Maxey to Smith, February 26, 1864, Ibid., 994-997.]

[Footnote 931: Phillips to Curtis, February 24, 1864, Ibid., part i, 108-109.]

[Footnote 932: For the itinerary of the course, see Ibid., 111-112.]

The explanation of Phillips's whole proceeding during the month of February is to be found in his genuine friendship for the Indian, which eventually profited him much, it is true, but, from this time henceforth, was lifelong. He stood in somewhat of a contrast to Blunt, whom General Steele thought unprincipled[933] and who in Southern parlance was "an old land speculator,"[934] and to Curtis, who was soon to show himself, as far as the Indians were concerned, in his true colors. While Phillips was absent from Fort Gibson, Curtis arrived there. He was making a reconnoissance of his command and, as he pa.s.sed over one reservation after another, he doubtless coveted the Indian land for white settlement and justified to himself a scheme of forfeiture as a way of penalizing the red men for their defection.[935] Phillips was not encouraged to repeat his peace mission.

Blunt's journey to Washington had results, complimentary and gratifying to his vanity because publicly vindicatory. On the twenty-seventh of February he was restored to his old command or, to be exact, ordered "to resume command of so much of the District of the Frontier as is included within the boundaries of the Department of Kansas."[936] His headquarters were at Fort Smith and immediately began the controversy between him and Thayer, although scornfully unacknowledged by Thayer, as to the status of Fort Smith. Thayer refused to admit that there could be any issue[937] between them for the law in the case was clear. What Blunt and Curtis really wanted was to get hold of the

[Footnote 933: F. Steele to S. Breck, March 27, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. x.x.xiv, part ii, 751.]

[Footnote 934: T.M. Scott to Maxey, April 12, 1864, Ibid., part iii, 762.]

[Footnote 935: This matter is very much generalized here for the reason that it properly belongs in the volume on reconstruction that is yet to come.]

[Footnote 936: February 23, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. x.x.xiv, part ii, 408.]

[Footnote 937: John M. Thayer to Charles A. Dana, March 15, 1864, Ibid., 617.]

western counties of Arkansas[938] so as to round out the Department of Kansas. To them it was absurd that Fort Smith should be within their jurisdiction and its environs within Steele and Thayer's. The upshot of the quarrel was, the reorganization of the frontier departments on the seventeenth of April which gave Fort Smith and Indian Territory to the Department of Arkansas[939] and sent Blunt back to Leavenworth.

His removal from Fort Smith, especially as Curtis had intended, had no change in department limits been made, to transfer Blunt's headquarters to Fort Gibson,[940] was an immense relief to Phillips.

Blunt and Phillips had long since ceased to have harmonious views with respect to Indian Territory. During his short term of power, Blunt had managed so to deplete Phillips's forces that two of the three Indian regiments were practically all that now remained to him since one, the Second Indian Home Guards, had been permanently stationed at Mackey's Salt Works on the plea that its colonel, John Ritchie, was Phillips's ranking officer and it was not expedient that he and Phillips "should operate together."[941] Blunt had detached also a part of the Third Indian and had placed it at Scullyville as an outpost to Fort Smith.

There were to be no more advances southward for Phillips.[942] Instead of making them he was to occupy himself with the completion of the fortifications at Fort Gibson.[943]

[Footnote 938: Thayer to Grant, March 11, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. x.x.xiv, part ii, 566.]

[Footnote 939:--Ibid., part iii, 192, 196.]

[Footnote 940:--Ibid., part ii, 651. Blunt would have preferred Scullyville [Ibid., part iii, 13].]

[Footnote 941: Blunt to Curtis, March 30, 1864, Ibid., part ii, 791.]

[Footnote 942: Blunt to Phillips, April 3, 1864, Ibid., part iii, 32; Phillips to Curtis, April 5, 1864, Ibid., 52-53.]

[Footnote 943: Curtis had ordered the completion of the fortifications which might be taken to imply that he too was not favoring a forward policy.]

Among the southern Indians, Maxey's reconstruction policy was all this time having its effect. It was revitalizing the Indian alliance with the Confederacy, but army conditions were yet a long way from being satisfactory. In March Price relieved Holmes in command of the District of Arkansas.[944] A vigorous campaign was in prospect and Price asked for all the help the department commander could afford him. The District of Indian Territory had forces and of all the disposable Price asked the loan. Maxey, unlike his predecessors, was more than willing to cooperate but one difficulty, which he would fain have ignored himself--for he was not an Albert Pike--he was compelled to report. The Indians had to be free, absolutely free, to go or to stay.[945] The choice of cooperating was theirs but theirs also the power to refuse to cooperate, if they so desired, and no questions asked. The day had pa.s.sed when Arkansans or Texans could decide the matter arbitrarily. Watie was expected to prefer to continue the irregular warfare that he and Adair, his colonel of scouts, had so successfully been waging for a goodly time now. Formerly, they had waged it to Steele's great annoyance;[946] but Maxey felt no repugnance to the services of Quantrill, so, of course, had nothing to say in disparagement of the work of Watie. It was the kind of work, he frankly admitted he thought the Indians best adapted to. The Choctaws under Tandy Walker were found quite willing to cross the line and they did excellent service in the Camden campaign, which, both in the cannonade near Prairie d'Ane on the thirteenth of April and in the Battle of Poison Spring on the

[Footnote 944: _Official Records_, vol. x.x.xiv, part ii, 1034, 1036.]

[Footnote 945: Maxey to Smith, April 3, 1864, Ibid., part iii, 728-729.]

[Footnote 946: For Steele's opposition to Adair's predatory movements, see _Confederate Records_, chap. 2, nos. 267, 268.]

eighteenth of April, offered a thorough test of what Indians could do when well disciplined, well officered, and well considered. The Indian reinforcement of Marmaduke was ungrudgingly given and ungrudgingly commended.[947] The Camden campaign was short and, when about over, Maxey was released from duty with Price's army. His own district demanded attention[948] and the Indians recrossed the line.

Price's call for help had come before Maxey had taken more than the most preliminary of steps towards the reorganization of his forces and not much was he able to do until near the end of June. Two brigades had been formed without difficulty and Cooper had secured his division; but after that had come protracted delay. The nature of the delay made it a not altogether bad thing since the days that pa.s.sed were days of stirring events. In the case of Stand Watie's First Brigade no less than of Tandy Walker's Second were the events distinguished by measurable success. The Indians were generally in high good humor; for even small successes, when coupled with appreciation of effort expended, will produce that. One adventure of Watie's, most timely and a little out of the ordinary, had been very exhilarating. It was the seizure of a supply boat on the Arkansas at Pheasant Bluff, not far from the mouth of the Canadian up which the boat was towed until its commissary stores had been extracted. The boat was the Williams, bound for Fort Gibson.[949]

[Footnote 947: Williamson to Maxey, April 28, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. x.x.xiv, part i, 845.]

[Footnote 948: It had not been Smith's intention that he should go out of his own district, where his services were indispensable, until Price's need should be found to be really urgent [Boggs to Maxey, April 12, 1864, Ibid., part iii, 760-761].]

[Footnote 949: --Ibid., part i, 1011-1013; part iv, 686-687.]

It was under the inspiration of such recent victories that the southern Indians took up for consideration the matter of reenlistment, the expiration "of the present term of service" being near at hand.

Parts of the Second Brigade took action first and, on the twenty-third of June, the First Choctaw Regiment unanimously reenlisted for the war. Cooper was present at the meeting "by previous request."[950]

Resolutions[951] were drawn up and adopted that reflected the new enthusiasm. Other Choctaw regiments were to be prevailed upon to follow suit and the leading men of the tribe, inclusive of Chief Garland who was not present, were to be informed that the First Choctaw demanded of them, in their legislative and administrative capacities "such co-operation as will force all able-bodied free citizens of the Choctaw Nation, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, and fitted for military service, to at once join the army and aid in the common defense of the Choctaw Nation, and give such other cooperation to the Confederate military authorities as will effectually relieve our country from Federal rule and ruin."

The First Brigade was not behindhand except in point of time by a few days. All Cherokee military units were summoned to Watie's camp on Limestone Prairie.[952] The a.s.semblage began its work on the twenty-seventh of June, made it short and decisive and indicated it in a single resolution:

Whereas, the final issue of the present struggle between the North and South involves the destiny of the Indian Territory alike with that of the Confederate States: Therefore,

_Resolved_, That we, the Cherokee Troops, C.S. Army, do

[Footnote 950: _Official Records_, vol. x.x.xiv, part iv, 694.]

[Footnote 951: --Ibid., 695.]

[Footnote 952: Stand Watie to Cooper, June 27, 1864, Ibid., part i, 1013.]

unanimously re-enlist as soldiers for the war, be it long or short.[953]

No action was taken on the policy of conscription; but, in July, the Cherokee National Council met and, to it, Chief Watie proposed the enactment of a conscription law.[954]

As a corollary to reorganization, the three brigade plan was now put tentatively into operation. It was, in truth, "a fine recruiting order," and Commissioner Scott, when making his annual rounds in August, was able to report to Secretary Seddon,

It is proposed to organize them into three brigades, to be called the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek Brigades; the Cherokee Brigade, composed of Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Osages, has already been organized; the Creek Brigade, composed of Creeks and Seminoles, is about being so, and the Choctaws antic.i.p.ate no difficulty in being able to raise the number of men required to complete the organization of the Choctaw Brigade.[955]

Behind all this virility was General Maxey. Without him, it is safe to say, the war for the Indians would have ended in the preceding winter.

In military achievements, others might equal or excel him but in rulings[956] that endeared him to the Indians and in

[Footnote 953: _Official Records_, vol. xli, part ii, 1013.]

[Footnote 954: --Ibid., 1046-1047. The general council of the confederated tribes had recommended an increase in the armed force of Indian Territory and that it was felt could best be obtained, in these days of wavering faith, only by conscription. The general council was expected to meet again, July 20, at Chouteau's Trading House [Ibid., 1047]. In October, the Chickasaws resorted to conscription. For the text of the conscription act, see Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 1024-1025.]

[Footnote 955:--Ibid., vol. xli, part ii, 1078. For additional facts concerning the progress of reorganization, see Portlock to Marston, August 5, 1864, _Confederate Records_, chap. 2, no. 259, p. 37; Portlock to Captain E. Walworth, August 27, 1864, Ibid., pp. 42-43.]

[Footnote 956: The most significant of Maxey's rulings was that on official precedence. His position was that no race or color line should be drawn in determining (cont.)]

propaganda work he had no peer. At Fort Towson, his headquarters, he had set up a printing press, from which issued many and many a doc.u.ment, the purpose of each and every one the same. The following quotation from one of Maxey's letters ill.u.s.trates the purpose and, at the same time, exhibits the methods and the temper of the man behind it. The matter he was discussing when writing was the Camden campaign, in connection with which, he said,

... In the address of General Smith the soldiers of Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, and Louisiana are specially named. The soldiers from this Territory bore an humbler part in the campaign, and although they did not do a great deal, yet a fair share of the killed, wounded, captured, and captured property and cannon can be credited to them. I had a number of General Smith's address struck off for circulation here, and knowing the omission would be noticed and felt, I inserted after Louisiana, "and of the Indian Territory," which I hope will not meet General Smith's disapproval.

I would suggest that want of transportation in this Territory will cripple movements very much....