The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War Part 19

To this decision of the council he at the time a.s.sented, and said that he would arrange with the commanders of brigades the order of march.

Subsequently he issued an order putting the command on half rations, declaring that he would not fall back, and refused utterly, upon my application, to take any steps for the safety or salvation of his command. I could but conclude that the man was either insane, premeditated treachery to his troops, or perhaps that his grossly intemperate habits long continued had produced idiocy or monomania.

In either case the command was imperiled, and a military necessity demanded that something be done, and that without delay. I took the only step I believed available to save your troops. I arrested this man, have drawn charges against him, and now hold him subject to your orders.

On the morning of the 19th I commenced a retrograde march and have fallen back with my main force to this point.

You will see by General Orders, No. 1, herewith forwarded, that I have stationed the First and Second Regiments Indian Home Guards as a corps of observation along the Grand and Verdigris Rivers; also to guard the fords of the Arkansas. Yesterday evening a courier reached me at Prior Creek with dispatches saying that a commissary train was at Hudson's Crossing, 75 miles north of us, waiting for an additional force as an escort. Information also reaches me this morning that Colonel Watie, with a force of 1,200 men, pa.s.sed up the east side of Grand River yesterday for the purpose of cutting off this train. I have sent out strong reconnoitering parties to the east of the river, and if the information proves reliable will take such further measures as I deem best for its security.

I design simply to hold the country we are now in, and will make no important moves except such as I may deem necessary for the preservation of this command until I receive specific

instructions from you. I send Major Burnett with a small escort to make his way through to you. He will give you more at length the position of this command, their condition, &c.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, F. Salomon, _Colonel Ninth Wis. Vols_., _Comdg. Indian Expedition_.

Salomon's insubordination brought the Indian Expedition in its original form to an abrupt end, much to the disgust and righteous indignation of the Indian service. The arrest of Colonel Weer threw the whole camp into confusion,[372] and it was some hours before anything like order could be restored. A retrograde movement of the white troops had evidently been earlier resolved upon and was at once undertaken. Of such troops, Salomon a.s.sumed personal command and ordered them to begin a march northward at two o'clock on the morning of the nineteenth.[373] At the same time, he established the troops, he was so brutally abandoning, as a corps of observation on or near the Verdigris and Grand Rivers. They were thus expected to cover his retreat, while he, unhampered, proceeded to Hudson's Crossing.[374]

With the departure of Salomon and subordinate commanders in sympathy with his retrograde movement, Robert W. Furnas, colonel of the First Indian, became the ranking officer in the field. Consequently it was his duty to direct the movements of the troops that remained. The troops were those of the three Indian regiments, the third of which had not yet been formally recognized and accepted by the government.

Not all of these troops were in camp when the arrest of Weer took place. One of the last official acts of Weer as

[Footnote 372: Carruth and Martin to Blunt, July 19, 1862.]

[Footnote 373: Blocki, by order of Salomon, July 18, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 477.]

[Footnote 374: Carruth and Martin to Coffin, August 2, 1862.]

commander of the Indian Expedition had been to order the First Indian to proceed to the Verdigris River and to take position "in the vicinity of Vann's Ford." Only a detachment of about two hundred men had as yet gone there, however, and they were there in charge of Lieutenant A.C. Ellithorpe. A like detachment of the Third Indian, under John A. Foreman, major, had been posted at Fort Gibson.[375]

Salomon's _p.r.o.nunciamento_ and his order, placing the Indian regiments as a corps of observation on the Verdigris and Grand Rivers, were not communicated to the regimental commanders of the Indian Home Guard until July 22;[376] but they had already met, had conferred among themselves, and had decided that it would be bad policy to take the Indians out of the Territory.[377] They, therefore agreed to consolidate the three regiments into a brigade, Furnas in command, and to establish camp and headquarters on the Verdigris, about twelve miles directly west of the old camp on the Grand.[378]

The brigading took place as agreed upon and Furnas, brigade commander, retained his colonelcy of the First Indian, while Lieutenant-colonel David B. Corwin took command of the Second and Colonel William A. Phillips of the Third. Colonel Ritchie had, prior to recent happenings, been detached from his command in order to conduct a party of prisoners to Fort Leavenworth, also to arrange for the mustering in of Indian recruits.[379] But two days' rations were on hand, so jerked beef was accepted as the chief article of diet until other supplies could be obtained.[380] There was likely to be plenty of

[Footnote 375: Furnas to Blunt, July 25, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 512.]

[Footnote 376:--Ibid., 512.]

[Footnote 377: Britton, _Civil War on the border_, vol. i, 309.]

[Footnote 378: _Official Records_, vol. xii, 512; Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, 163.]

[Footnote 379: Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862, 163-164.]

[Footnote 380: Carruth and Martin to Coffin, July 25, 1862, Ibid., 160.]

that; for, as Weer had once reported, cattle were a drug on the market in the Cherokee country, the prairies "covered with thousands of them."[381] The encampment on the Verdigris was made forthwith; but it was a failure from the start.

The Indians of the First Regiment showed signs of serious demoralization and became unmanageable, while a large number of the Second deserted.[382] It was thought that deprivation in the midst of plenty, the lack of good water and of the restraining influence of white troops had had much to do with the upheaval, although there had been much less plundering since they left than when they were present.

With much of truth back of possible hatred and malice, the special agents reported that such protection as the white men had recently given Indian Territory "would ruin any country on earth."[383]

With the hope that the morale of the men would be restored were they to be more widely distributed and their physical conditions improved, Colonel Furnas concluded to break camp on the Verdigris and return to the Grand. He accordingly marched the Third Indian to Pryor Creek[384]

but had scarcely done so when orders came from Salomon, under cover of his usurped authority as commander of the Indian Expedition, for him to cross the Grand and advance northeastward to Horse Creek and vicinity, there to pitch his tents. The new camp was christened Camp Wattles. It extended from Horse to Wolf Creek and const.i.tuted a point from which the component parts of the Indian Brigade did

[Footnote 381: Weer to Moonlight, July 12, 1862.]

[Footnote 382: Furnas to Blunt, July 25, 1862.]

[Footnote 383: Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862, 160-161.]

[Footnote 384: Named in honor of Nathaniel Pryor of the Lewis and Clark expedition and of general frontier fame, and, therefore, incorrectly called Prior Creek in Furnas's report.]

extensive scouting for another brief period. In reality, Furnas was endeavoring to hold the whole of the Indian country north of the Arkansas and south of the border.[385]

Meanwhile, Salomon had established himself in the neighborhood of Hudson's Crossing, at what he called, Camp Quapaw. The camp was on Quapaw land. His idea was, and he so communicated to Blunt, that he had selected "the most commanding point in this (the trans-Missouri) country not only from a military view as a key to the valleys of Spring River, Shoal Creek, Neosho, and Grand River, but also as the only point in this country now where an army could be sustained with a limited supply of forage and subsistence, offering ample grazing[386]

and good water."[387] No regular investigation into his conduct touching the retrograde movement, such as justice to Weer would seem to have demanded, was made.[388] He submitted the facts to Blunt and Blunt, at first alarmed[389] lest a complete abandonment of Indian Territory would result, acquiesced[390] when, he found that the Indian regiments were holding their own there.[391] Salomon, indeed, so far strengthened Furnas's hand as to supply him with ten days rations and a section of Allen's battery.

[Footnote 385: For accounts of the movements of the Indian Expedition after the occurrence of Salomon's retrograde movement, see the _Daily Conservative_, August 16, 21, 26, 1862.]

[Footnote 386: On the subject of grazing, see Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. i, 308.]

[Footnote 387: Salomon to Blunt, July 29, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 521.]

[Footnote 388: H.S. Lane called Stanton's attention to the matter, however, Ibid., 485.]

[Footnote 389: Blunt to Salomon, August 3, 1862, Ibid., 531-532.]

[Footnote 390: He acquiesced as, perforce, he had to do but he was very far from approving.]

[Footnote 391: In November, Dole reported to Smith that Salomon's retrograde movement had caused about fifteen hundred or two thousand additional refugees to flee into Kansas. Dole urged that the Indian Expedition should be reenforced and strengthened [Indian Office _Report Book_, no. 12, 503-504].]

VI. GENERAL PIKE IN CONTROVERSY WITH GENERAL HINDMAN

The retrograde movement of Colonel Salomon and the white auxiliary of the Indian Expedition was peculiarly unfortunate and ill-timed since, owing to circ.u.mstances now to be related in detail, the Confederates had really no forces at hand at all adequate to repel invasion. On the thirty-first of May, as earlier narrated in this work, General Hindman had written to General Pike instructing him to move his entire infantry force of whites and Woodruff's single six-gun battery to Little Rock without delay. In doing this, he admitted that, while it was regrettable that Pike's force in Indian Territory should be reduced, it was imperative that Arkansas should be protected, her danger being imminent. He further ordered, that Pike should supply the command to be sent forward with subsistence for thirty days, should have the ammunition transported in wagons, and should issue orders that not a single cartridge be used on the journey.[392]

To one of Pike's proud spirit, such orders could be nothing short of galling. He had collected his force and everything he possessed appertaining to it at the cost of much patience, much labor, much expense. Untiring vigilance had alone made possible the formation of his brigade and an unselfish willingness to advance his own funds had alone furnished it with quartermaster and commissary stores. McCulloch and Van

[Footnote 392: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 934.]

Dorn[393] each in turn had diverted his supplies from their destined course, yet he had borne with it all, uncomplainingly. He had even broken faith with the Indian nations at Van Dorn's instance; for, contrary to the express terms of the treaties that he had negotiated, he had taken the red men across the border, without their express consent, to fight in the Pea Ridge campaign. And with what result?

Base ingrat.i.tude on the part of Van Dorn, who, in his official report of the three day engagement, ignored the help rendered[394] and left Pike to bear the stigma[395] of Indian atrocities alone.

With the thought of that ingrat.i.tude still rankling in his breast, Pike noted additional features of Hindman's first instructions to him, which were, that he should advance his Indian force to the northern border of Indian Territory and hold it there to resist invasion from Kansas. He was expected to do this unsupported

[Footnote 393: Van Dorn would seem to have been a gross offender in this respect. Similar charges were made against him by other men and on other occasions [_Official Records_, vol. liii, supplement, 825].]

[Footnote 394: It was matter of common report that Van Dorn despised Pike's Indians [Ibid., vol. xiii, 814-816]. The entire Arkansas delegation in Congress, with the exception of A.H. Garland, testified to Van Dorn's aversion for the Indians [Ibid., 815].]

[Footnote 395: How great was that stigma can be best understood from the following: "The horde of Indians scampered off to the mountains from whence they had come, having murdered and scalped many of the Union wounded. General Pike, their leader, led a feeble band to the heights of Big Mountain, near Elk Horn, where he was of no use to the battle of the succeeding day, and whence he fled, between roads, through the woods, disliked by the Confederates and detested by the Union men; to be known in history as a son of New Hamps.h.i.+re--a poet who sang of flowers and the beauties of the sunset skies, the joys of love and the hopes of the soul--and yet one who, in the middle of the 19th century, led a merciless, scalping, murdering, uncontrollable horde of half-tame savages in the defense of slavery--themselves slave-holders--against that Union his own native State was then supporting, and against the flag of liberty. He scarcely struck a blow in open fight.... His service was servile and corrupt; his flight was abject, and his reward disgrace."--_War Papers and Personal Recollections of the Missouri Commandery_, 232.]