The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War Part 21

[Footnote 413: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 967.]

[Footnote 414:--Ibid., 946.]

[Footnote 415:--Ibid., 968, 968-969, 969.]

[Footnote 416:--Ibid., 841-844.]

[Footnote 417: George W. Randolph.]

His indignation must have been immense; but whether righteously so or not, it was for others higher up to decide. That Pike had some sort of a case against the men in Arkansas there can be no question. The tale he told Secretary Randolph was a revelation such as would have put ordinary men, if involved at all, to deepest shame. Hindman, perforce, was the victim of acc.u.mulated resentment; for he, personally, had done only a small part of that of which Pike complained. In the main, Pike's report simply furnished particulars in matters, such as the despoiling him of his hard-won supplies, of which mention has already been made; and his chief accusation was little more than hinted at, the gist of it being suggested in some of his concluding sentences:

... I struggled for a good while before I got rid of the curse of dependence for subsistence, transportation, and forage on officers at Fort Smith. I cannot even get from that place the supplies I provide myself and hardly my own private stores. My department quartermaster and commissary are fully competent to purchase what we need, and I mean they shall do it. I have set my face against all rascality and swindling and keep contractors in wholesome fear, and have made it publicly known by advertis.e.m.e.nt that I prefer to purchase of the farmer and producer and do not want any contractors interposed between me and them. My own officers will continue to purchase subsistence, transportation, forage, and whatever else I need until I am ordered to the contrary by you, and when that order comes it will be answered by my resignation.

Mr. White's[418] contract will not be acted under here. I have beef enough on hand and engaged, and do not want any from him. I have had to buy bacon at 20 to 26 cents, and he ought to be made to pay every cent of the difference between that price and fifteen cents. I also strenuously object to receiving mules or anything else purchased at Fort Smith.

[Footnote 418: "George E. White, formerly a partner, I believe, of Senator Oldham of Texas..."--_Official Records_, vol. xiii, 842.]

I could get up a mule factory now with the skeletons I have, and there are a few miles from here 600 or 800 sent up by Major Clark[419] in even a worse plight.

I know nothing about Major Pearce as a quartermaster nor of any right Major-General Hindman has to make him one. He is an a.s.sistant commissary of subsistence, with the rank of major, and Major Quesenbury, my brigade or department quartermaster, is major by an older commission....

While I am here there will be no fine contracts for mules, hay, keeping of mules, beef on the hoof at long figures, or anything of the kind. Fort Smith is very indignant at this, and out of this grief grows the anxious desire of many patriots to see me resign the command of this country or be removed....[420]

Subsequent communications[421] from Pike to Randolph reported the continued despoiling of his command and the persistent infringement of Pearce upon his authority, in consequence of which, the Indians were suffering from lack of forage, medicines, clothing, and food.[422]

Pearce, in his turn, reported[423] to Hindman Pike's obstinacy and intractability and he even cast insinuations against his honesty. Pike was openly defying the man who claimed to be his superior officer, Hindman. He was resisting his authority at every turn and had already boldly declared,[424] with special reference to Clarkson, of course, that

No officer of the Missouri State Guard, whatever his rank, unless he has a command adequate to his rank, can ever exercise or a.s.sume any military authority in the Indian country, and much less a.s.sume command of any Confederate troops or

[Footnote 419: George W. Clark, _Official Records_, vol. xiii.]

[Footnote 420: For an equally vigorous statement on this score, see Pike to Randolph, June 30, 1862 [Ibid., 849].]

[Footnote 421:--Ibid., 846-847, 848-849, 850-851, 852.]

[Footnote 422: Chilly McIntosh to Pike, June 9, 1862, Ibid., 853; Pike to Chilly McIntosh, July 6, 1862, Ibid., 853-854.]

[Footnote 423: July 5, 1862 [Ibid., 963-965]; July 8, 1862 [Ibid., 965-967].]

[Footnote 424:--Ibid., 844-845.]

compare rank with any officer in the Confederate service. The commissioned colonels of Indian regiments rank precisely as if they commanded regiments of white men, and will be respected and obeyed accordingly.

With the same confidence in the justness of his own cause, he called[425] Pearce's attention to an act of Congress which seemed "to have escaped his observation," and which Pike considered conclusively proved that the whole course of action of his enemies was absolutely illegal.

In some of his contentions, General Pike was most certainly on strong ground and never on stronger than when he argued that the Indians were organized, in a military way, for their own protection and for the defence of their own country. Since first they entered the Confederate service, many had been the times that that truth had been brought home to the authorities and not by Pike[426] alone but by several of his subordinates and most often by Colonel Cooper.[427] The Indians had many causes of dissatisfaction and sometimes they murmured pretty loudly. Not even Pike's arrangements satisfied them all and his inexplicable conduct in establis.h.i.+ng his headquarters at Fort McCulloch was exasperating beyond measure to the Cherokees.[428] Why, if he were really sincere in saying that his supreme duty was the defence of Indian Territory, did he not place himself where he could do something, where, for instance, he could take precautions against invasions from

[Footnote 425: Pike to Pearce, July 1, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 967.]

[Footnote 426: One of the best statements of the case by Pike is to be found in a letter from him to Stand Watie, June 27, 1862 [Ibid., 952].]

[Footnote 427: For some of Cooper's statements, ill.u.s.trative of his position, see his letter to Pike, February 10, 1862 [Ibid., 896] and that to Van Dorn, May 6, 1862 [ibid., 824].]

[Footnote 428: It was at the express wish of Stand Watie and Drew that Hindman placed Clarkson in the Cherokee country [Carroll to Pike, June 27, 1862, ibid., 952].]

Kansas? And why, when the unionist Indian Expedition was threatening Fort Gibson, Tahlequah, and Cherokee integrity generally, did he not hasten northward to resist it? Chief Ross, greatly aggrieved because of Pike's delinquency in this respect, addressed[429] himself to Hindman and he did so in the fatal days of June.

In addressing General Hindman as Pike's superior officer, John Ross did something more than make representations as to the claims, which his nation in virtue of treaty guaranties had upon the South. He urged the advisability of allowing the Indians to fight strictly on the defensive and of placing them under the command of someone who would "enjoy their confidence." These two things he would like to have done if the protective force, which the Confederacy had promised, were not forthcoming. The present was an opportune time for the preferring of such a request. At least it was opportune from the standpoint of Pike's enemies and traducers.[430] It fitted into Hindman's scheme of things exactly; for he had quite lost patience, granting he had ever had any, with the Arkansas poet. It was not, however, within his province to remove him; but it was within his power so to tantalize him that he could render his position as brigade and department commander, intolerable. That he proceeded to do. Pike's quick sensibilities were not proof against such treatment and he soon lost his temper.

His provocations were very great. As was perfectly

[Footnote 429: Ross to Hindman, June 25, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 950-951. A little while before, Ross had complained, in a similar manner, to President Davis [Ibid., 824-825].]

[Footnote 430: Pike had his traducers. The Texans and Arkansans circulated infamous stories about him. See his reference to the same in a letter to Hindman, July 3, 1862 [Ibid., 955].]

natural, the Confederate defeat at Locust Grove counted heavily against him.[431] On the seventh of July, Hindman began a new attack upon him by making requisition for his ten Parrott guns.[432] They were needed in Arkansas. On the eighth of July came another attack in the shape of peremptory orders, two sets of them, the very tone of which was both accusatory and condemnatory. What was apparently the first[433] set of orders reached Pike by wire on the eleventh of July and commanded him to hurry to Fort Smith, travelling night and day, there to take command of all troops in the Indian Territory and in Carroll's district.[434] Almost no organization, charged Hindman, was in evidence among the Confederate forces in the upper Indian country and a collision between the two Cherokee regiments was impending. Had he been better informed he might have said that there was only one of them now in existence.

The second[435] set of orders, dated July 8, was of a tenor much the same, just as insulting, just as peremptory. The only difference of note was the subst.i.tution of the upper Indian country for Fort Smith as a point for headquarters. In the sequel, however, the second set proved superfluous; for the first so aroused Pike's ire that, immediately upon its receipt, he prepared his resignation and sent it to Hindman for transmission to Richmond.[436]

Hindman's position throughout this affair was not

[Footnote 431: July 3.]

[Footnote 432: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 854.]

[Footnote 433: First, probably only in the sense that it was the first to be received.]

[Footnote 434: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 857.]

[Footnote 435:--Ibid., 856-857.]

[Footnote 436: Pike to Hindman, July 15, 1862 [Ibid., 858]; Pike to Secretary of War, July 20, 1862 [Ibid., 856].]

dest.i.tute of justification.[437] One has only to read his general reports to appreciate how heavy was the responsibility that rested upon him. It was no wonder that he resorted to questionable expedients to accomplish his purposes, no wonder that he inst.i.tuted martial law[438] in a seemingly refractory country, no wonder that he took desperate measures to force Pike to activity. Pike's leisurely way of attending to business was in itself an annoyance and his leisurely way of moving over the country was a positive offence. He had been ordered to proceed with dispatch to Fort Gibson. The expiration of a month and a half found him still at Fort McCulloch. He really did not move from thence until, having sent in his resignation, he made preparations for handing over his command to Colonel Cooper. That he intended to do at some point on the Canadian and thither he wended his way.[439] By the twenty-first of July, "he had succeeded in getting as far as Boggy Depot, a distance of 25 miles;[440] but then he had not left Fort McCulloch until that very morning.[441]

Pike's definite break with Hindman was, perhaps, more truly a consummation of Hindman's wishes than of Pike's own. On the third of July, as if regretting his previous show of temper, he wrote to Hindman a long letter,[442] conciliatory in tone throughout. He discussed the issues between them in a calm and temperate spirit,

[Footnote 437: In September, Hindman declared he had never had any knowledge of the order creating Pike's department [_Official Records_, vol. xiii, 978].]

[Footnote 438: He inst.i.tuted martial law, June 30, 1862 and, although he believed he had precedent in Pike's own procedure, Pike criticized him severely. See Pike to J.S. Murrow, Seminole Agent, October 25, 1862, Ibid., 900-902. Hindman had authorized Pearce, June 17, 1862, to exercise martial law in the cities of Fort Smith and Van Buren and their environs [Ibid., 835].]

[Footnote 439: Pike to Hindman, July 15, 1862.]

[Footnote 440: Hindman's Report [_Official Records_, vol. xiii, 40].]

[Footnote 441: Pike to the Secretary of War, July 20, 1862 [Ibid., 859].]

[Footnote 442:--Ibid., 954-962.]

changing nothing as regarded the facts but showing a willingness to let bygones be bygones. Considering how great had been his chagrin, his indignation, and his poignant sense of ingrat.i.tude and wrong, he rose to heights really n.o.ble. He seemed desirous, even anxious, that the great cause in which they were both so vitally interested should be uppermost in both their minds always and that their differences, which, after all, were, comparatively speaking, so very petty, should be forgotten forever. It was in the spirit of genuine helpfulness that he wrote and also in the spirit of great magnanimity. Pike was a man who studied the art of war zealously, who knew the rules of European warfare, and a man, who, even in war times, could read Napier's _Peninsular War_ and succ.u.mb to its charm. He was a cla.s.sicist and a student very much more than a man of action. Could those around him, far meaner souls many of them than he, have only known and remembered that and, remembering it, have made due allowances for his vagaries, all might have been well. His generous letter of the third of July failed utterly of its mission; but not so much, perhaps, because of Hindman's inability to appreciate it or unwillingness to meet its writer half-way, as because of the very seriousness of Hindman's own military situation, which made all compromises impossible. The things he felt it inc.u.mbent upon him to do must be done his way or not at all. The letter of July 3 could scarcely have been received before the objectionable orders of July 8 had been planned.