The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War Part 29

sheer humbug. The army was not doing that and why should the defenceless Indians be expected to do it. As it was, they seem to have been reduced to plundering in Kansas.[612] On the whole, it is difficult to explain Blunt's plan for the concentration of the Cherokee refugees at Neosho, since there were, at the time, many indications that Hindman was considering another advance and an invasion of southwest Missouri.

The November operations of the Federals in northeastern Arkansas were directed toward arresting Hindman's progress, if progress were contemplated. Meanwhile, Phillips with detachments of his Indian brigade was continuing his reconnoissances and, when word came that Stand Watie had ventured north of the Arkansas, Blunt sent him to compel a recrossing.[613] Stand Watie's exploit was undoubtedly a preliminary to a general Confederate plan for the recovery of northwestern Arkansas and the Indian Territory, a plan, which Blunt, vigorous and aggressive, was determined to circ.u.mvent. In the action at Cane Hill,[614] the latter part of November, and in the Battle of Prairie Grove,[615] December seventh, the mettle of the Federals was put to a severe test which it stood successfully and Blunt's cardinal purpose was fully accomplished.[616] In both engagements, the Indians played a part and played it

[Footnote 612: These Indians must have been the ones referred to in Richard C. Vaughn's letter to Colonel W.D. Wood, December i, 1862 [_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 796].]

[Footnote 613: Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. i, p.

382.]

[Footnote 614:--Ibid., vol. i, chapter xxix.]

[Footnote 615:--Ibid., vol. i, chapter x.x.x; _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 66-82, 82-158, vol. liii, supplement, 458-461, 866, 867; Livermore, _The Story of the Civil War_, part iii, bk. 1, 84-85.]

[Footnote 616: One opinion is to the effect that the result of the Battle of Prairie Grove, Fayetteville, or Illinois Creek, was virtually to end the war north of the Arkansas River [Ibid., p.

85; _Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 82]. (cont.)]

conspicuously and well, the northern regiments so well,[617] indeed, that shortly afterwards two additional ones, the Fourth and the Fifth, were projected.[618] Towards the end of the year, Phillips, whom Blunt had sent upon another excursion into Indian Territory,[619] could report

[Footnote 616: (cont.) Bishop wrote, "After the battle of Prairie Grove, and the gradual retrogression of the Army of the Frontier into Missouri, Fayetteville was still held as a military post, and those of us who remained there were given to understand that the place would not be abandoned ... The demoralized enemy had fallen back to Little Rock, with the exception of weak nomadic forces that, like Stygian ghosts, wandered up and down the Arkansas from Dardanelle to Fort Smith...." [_Loyalty on the Frontier_, 205]. Schofield was of the opinion, however, that the Battle of Prairie Grove was a hard-won victory. "Blunt and Herron were badly beaten in detail, and owed their escape to a false report of my arrival with re-enforcements."

[_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part ii, p. 6].]

[Footnote 617: And yet it was only a short time previously that Major A.C. Ellithorpe, commanding the First Regiment Indian Home Guards, had had cause to complain seriously of the Creeks of that regiment. On November 7, he wrote from Camp Bowen that Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la was enticing the Indians away from the performance of their duties. "You will now perceive that we are on the border of the Indian country and a very large portion of the Indians are now scouting through their own Territory. What I now desire is that every man who was enlisted as a soldier shall at once return to his command by the way of Fort Scott unless otherwise ordered by competent authority...." [Indian Office Land Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1855-1870, C 1933].

Coffin, as usual, appeared as an apologist for the Indians and attempted to exonerate Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la from all blame [Letter to Dole, December 3, 1862, Ibid.]. He called the aged chief, "that n.o.ble old Roman of the Indians," and the chief himself protested against the injustice and untruth of Ellithrope's accusation [Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la to Coffin, November 24, 1862, Ibid.].]

[Footnote 618: Officers for these two regiments were appointed by the president, December 26, 1862, and ordered to report to Blunt, who, in turn ordered them to report to Phillips. When the officers arrived in Indian Territory, they found no such regiments as the Fourth and Fifth Indian [_U.S. Senate Report_, 41st congress, third session, no.

359]. They never did materialize as a matter of fact; but the officers did duty, nevertheless, and were regularly mustered out of the service in 1863. In 1864, Congress pa.s.sed an act for the adjudication of their claim for salary [_U.S. Statutes at Large_, vol. xiii, 413]. It is rather surprising that the regiments were not organized; inasmuch as many new recruits were constantly presenting themselves.]

[Footnote 619: Phillips to Blunt, December 25, 1862 [_Official Records_, vol. xxii, part i, 873-874].]

that Stand Watie and Cooper had been pushed considerably below the Arkansas, that many of the buildings at Fort Davis had been demolished,[620] that one of the Creek regiments was about to retire from the Confederate service, and that the Choctaws, once so deeply committed, were wavering in their allegiance to the South.[621]

[Footnote 620: The buildings at Fort Davis were burnt, and deliberately, by Phillips's orders. [See his own admission, Ibid., part ii, 56, 62].]

[Footnote 621: Blunt to Weed, December 30, 1862, Ibid., part i, 168.]

X. NEGOTIATIONS WITH UNION INDIANS

As though the Indians had not afflictions enough to endure merely because of their proximity to the contending whites, life was made miserable for them, during the period of the Civil War, as much as before and after, by the insatiable land-hunger of politicians, speculators, and would-be captains of industry, who were more often than not, rogues in the disguise of public benefactors. Nearly all of them were citizens of Kansas. The cessions of 1854, negotiated by George W. Manypenny, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, were but a prelude to the many that followed. For years and years there was in reality never a time when some sort of negotiation, _sub rosa_ or official, was not going on. The order of procedure was pretty much what it had always been: a promise that the remaining land should be the Indian's, undisturbed by white men and protected by government guarantee, forever; encroachment by enterprising, covetous, and lawless whites; conflict between the two races, the outraged and the aggressive; the advent of the schemer, the man with political capital and undeveloped or perverted sense of honor, whose vision was such that he saw the Indian owner as the only obstacle in the way of vast material and national progress; political pressure upon the administration in Was.h.i.+ngton, lobbying in Congress; authorization of negotiations with the bewildered Indians; delimitation of the meaning of the solemn and grandly-sounding word, _forever_.

When the war broke out, negotiations, begun in the

border warfare days, were still going on. This was most true as regarded the Osages, whose immense holding in southern Kansas was something not to be tolerated, so the politicians reasoned, indefinitely. Pet.i.tions,[622] praying that the lands be opened to white settlement were constantly being sent in and intruders,[623] who intended to force action, becoming more and more numerous and more and more recalcitrant. One of the first official communications of Superintendent Coffin embodied a plea for getting a treaty of cession for which the signs had seemed favorable the previous year.

Coffin, however, discredited[624] a certain Dr. J.B. Chapman, who, notwithstanding he represented white capitalists,[625] had yet found favor with the Osages. To their

[Footnote 622: For example, take the pet.i.tions forwarded by M.W.

Delahay, surveyor-general of Kansas [Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Neosho_, D 455 of 1861]. One of the pet.i.tions contains this statement: "... The lands being largely settled upon and improved and those adjacent being all claimed and settled upon by residents--while a large emigration from Texas and other rebellious States are forced to seek homes in a more northern and uncongenial climate greatly against their interests and inclinations...."]

[Footnote 623: Intruders upon the Osage lands, as upon the Cherokee Neutral, were numerous for years before the war. Agent Dorn was continually complaining of them, chiefly because they were free-state in politics. He again and again asked for military a.s.sistance in removing them. See his letter to Greenwood, February 26, 1860, _Neosho_, 1833-1865, D 107. Buchanan's administration had conceived the idea of locating other Kansas Indians upon the huge Osage Reserve. See Dorn to Greenwood, March 26, 1860, Ibid., D 119. Apparently, the fragments of tribes in the northeastern corner of Indian Territory had been approached on the same subject, but they did not favor it and Agent Dorn was doubtful if the Osages would [Dorn to Greenwood, April 17, 1860, Ibid., D 129].]

[Footnote 624: He described him as a self-appointed guardian of the Osages, as a scamp and a nuisance [Coffin to Dole, June 17, 1861, Ibid., C 1223 of 1861].]

[Footnote 625: Chapman, August 26, 1860, inquired of Greenwood whether there was any prospect of a treaty being negotiated with the Osages and whether the capitalists he represented would be likely to secure railroad rights to the South by it. He a.s.serted that the Delawares had been "humbugged" by their treaty, it having been negotiated "in the interests of the Democrats at Leavenworth" [Ibid., C 702 of 1860].]

everlasting sorrow and despoliation, the Indians have been fated to place a child-like trust in those least worthy.

The defection of portions of the southern tribes offered an undreamed of opportunity for Kansas politicians to accomplish their purposes.

They had earlier thought of removing the Kansas tribes, one by one, to Indian Territory; but the tribes already there had a lien upon the land, t.i.tles, and other rights, that could not be ignored. Their possession was to continue so long as the gra.s.s should grow and the water should run. It was not for the government to say that they should open their doors to anybody. An early intimation that the Kansans saw their opportunity was a resolution[626] submitted by James H. Lane to the Senate, March 17, 1862, proposing an inquiry into "the propriety and expediency of extending the southern boundary of Kansas to the northern boundary of Texas, so as to include within the boundaries of Kansas the territory known as the Indian territory."

Obviously, the proposition had a military object immediately in view; but Commissioner Dole, to whom it was referred, saw its ulterior meaning and reported[627] adversely upon it as he had upon an earlier proposition to erect a regular territorial form of government in the Indian country south of Kansas.[628] He was "unable to perceive any advantage to be derived from the adoption of such a measure, since the same military power that would be required to enforce the authority of territorial officers is all-sufficient to protect and enforce the authority of such officers as are required in the management of our present system

[Footnote 626: _United State Congressional Globe_, 37th congress, second session, part ii, p. 1246.]

[Footnote 627: Dole to Smith, April 2, 1862, Indian Office _Report Book_, no. 12, 353-354.]

[Footnote 628: Dole to Smith, March 17, 1862, Ibid., 335-337.]

of Indian relations."[629] And he insisted that the whole of the present Indian country should be left to the Indians.[630] The honor of the government was pledged to that end. Almost coincidently he negatived[631] another suggestion, one advocated by Pomeroy for the confiscation of the Cherokee Neutral Lands.[632] For the time being, Dole was strongly opposed to throwing either the Neutral Lands or the Osage Reserve open to white settlers.

Behind Pomeroy's suggestion was the spirit of retaliation, of meting out punishment to the Indians, who, because they had been so basely deserted by the United States government, had gone over to the Confederacy; but the Kansas politicians saw a chance to kill two birds with one stone, vindictively punish the southern Indians for their defection and rid Kansas of the northern Indians, both emigrant and indigenous. The intruders upon Indian lands, the speculators and the politicians, would get the spoils of victory. Against the idea of punis.h.i.+ng the southern Indians for what after all was far from being entirely their fault, the friends of justice marshaled their forces.

Dole was not exactly of their number; for he had other ends to serve in resisting measures advanced by the Kansans, yet, to his credit be it said that he did always hold firmly to the notion that tribes like the Cherokee were more sinned against than sinning. The government had been the first to s.h.i.+rk responsibility and to violate sacred obligations. It had failed to give the protection guaranteed by treaties and it was not giving it yet adequately.

[Footnote 629: Dole to Smith, March 17, 1862, Indian Office _Report Book_, no. 12, 335.]

[Footnote 630: Report of April 2, 1862.]

[Footnote 631: Dole to Smith, March 20, 1862, Indian Office _Report Book_, no. 12, 343-344.]

[Footnote 632: _Daily Conservative_, May 10, 1862. Note the arguments in favor of confiscation as quoted from the _Western Volunteer_.,]

The true friends of justice were men of the stamp of W.S.

Robertson[633] and the Reverend Evan Jones,[634] who went out of their way to plead the Indian's cause and to detail the extenuating circ.u.mstances surrounding his lamentable failure to keep faith.

Supporting the men of the opposite camp was even the Legislature of Kansas. In no other way can a memorial from the General a.s.sembly, urging the extinguishment of the t.i.tle of certain Indian lands in Kansas, be interpreted.[635]

It is not easy to determine always just what motives did actuate Commissioner Dole. They were not entirely above suspicion and his name is indissolubly connected with some very nefarious Indian transactions; but fortunately they have not to be recounted here. At the very time when he was offering unanswerable arguments against the propositions of Lane and Pomeroy, he was entertaining something similar to those propositions in his own mind. A special agent, Augustus Wattles, who had been sufficiently familiar and mixed-up with the free state and pro-slavery controversy to be called upon to give testimony before the Senate

[Footnote 633: Robertson wrote to the Secretary of the Interior, January 7, 1862, asking most earnestly "that decisive measures be not taken against the oppressed and betrayed people of the Creek and Cherokee tribes, until everything is heard about their struggle in the present crisis" [Department of the Interior, _Register of Letters Received_, "Indians," no. 4]. The letter was referred to the Indian Office and Mix replied to it, February 14, 1862 [Indian Office _Letter Book_, no. 67, p. 357]. The concluding paragraph of the letter is indicative of the government feeling, "... In reply I transmit herewith for your information the Annual Report of this Office, which will show ... what policy has governed the Office as to this matter, and that it is in consonance with your wish...."]

[Footnote 634: Jones wrote frequently and at great length on the subject of justice to the Cherokees. One of his most heartfelt appeals was that of January 21, 1862 [Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Cherokee_, J 556 of 1862].]

[Footnote 635: Cyrus Aldrich, representative from Minnesota and chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs referred the memorial to the Indian Office [_Letters Registered_, vol. 58, _Southern Superintendency_, A. 484 of 1862].]

Harper's Ferry Investigating Committee[636] and who had been on the editorial staff of the New York Tribune,[637] had, in 1861, been sent by the Indian Office to inspect the houses that Robert S. Stevens had contracted to build for the Sacs and Foxes of Mississippi and for the Kaws.[638] The whole project of the house-building was a fraud upon the Indians, a scheme for using up their funds or for transferring them to the pockets of promoters like Stevens[639] and M.C.

d.i.c.key[640] without the trouble of giving value received.

From a letter[641] of protest, written by Stevens against Wattles's mission of inspection, it can be inferred that there was a movement on foot to induce the Indians to emigrate southward. Stevens, not wholly disinterested, thought it a poor time to attempt changes in tribal