The retrograde movement of Colonel Salomon and the white auxiliary of the Indian Expedition was peculiarly unfortunate and ill-timed since, owing to circumstances 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 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 ingratitude 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 ingratitude 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 by white troops, the need of which, for moral as well as for physical strength, he had always insisted upon.
It is quite believable that Van Dorn was the person most responsible for Hindman's interference with Pike, although, of course, the very seriousness and desperateness of Hindman's situation would have impelled him to turn to the only place where ready help was to be had. Three days prior to the time that Hindman had been assigned to the Trans-Mississippi Department, Roane, an old antagonist of Pike[396] and the commander to whose immediate care Van Dorn had confided Arkansas,[397] had asked of Pike at Van Dorn's suggestion[398] all the white forces he could spare, Roane having practically none of his own. Pike had refused the request, if request it was, and in refusing it, had represented how insufficient his forces actually were for purposes of his own department and how exceedingly difficult had been the task, which was his and his alone, of getting them together. At the time of writing he had not a single dollar of public money for his army and only a very limited amount of ammunition and other supplies.[399]
Pike received Hindman's communication of May 31 late in the afternoon of June 8 and he replied to it that same evening immediately after he had made arrangements[400] for complying in part with its requirements.
The reply[401] as it stands in the records today is a strong indictment of the Confederate management of Indian affairs in the West and should be dealt with analytically, yet also as a whole; since no paraphrase, no mere synopsis of contents could ever do the subject justice. From the facts presented, it is only too evident that very little had been attempted or done by the Richmond authorities for the Indian regiments. Neither officers nor men had been regularly or fully paid. And not all the good intentions, few as they were, of the central government had been allowed realization. They had been checkmated by the men in control west of the Mississippi. In fact, the army men in Arkansas had virtually exploited Pike's command, had appropriated for their own use his money, his supplies, and had never permitted anything to pass on to Indian Territory, notwithstanding that it had been bought with Indian funds, "that was fit to be sent anywhere else." The Indian's portion was the "refuse," as Pike so truly, bitterly, and emphatically put it, or, in other words of his, the "crumbs" that fell from the white man's table.
Pike's compliance with Hindman's orders was only partial and he offered not the vestige of an apology that it was so. What he did send was Dawson's[402] infantry regiment and Woodruff's battery which went duly on to Little Rock with the requisite thirty days' subsistence and the caution that not a single cartridge was to be fired along the way. The caution Pike must have repeated in almost ironical vein; for the way to Little Rock lay through Indian Territory and cartridges like everything else under Pike's control had been collected solely for its defense.
Respecting the forward movement of the Indian troops, Pike made not the slightest observation in his reply. His silence was ominous. Perhaps it was intended as a warning to Hindman not to encroach too far upon his department; but that is mere conjecture; inasmuch as Pike had not yet seen fit to question outright Hindman's authority over himself. As if anticipating an echo from Little Rock of criticisms that were rife elsewhere, he ventured an explanation of his conduct in establishing himself in the extreme southern part of Indian Territory and towards the west and in fortifying on an open prairie, far from any recognized base.[403] He had gone down into the Red River country, he asserted, in order to be near Texas where supplies might be had in abundance and where, since he had no means of defence, he would be safe from attack. He deplored the seeming necessity of merging his department in another and larger one. His reasons were probably many but the one reason he stressed was, for present purposes, the best he could have offered. It was, that the Indians could not be expected to render to him as a subordinate the same obedience they had rendered to him as the chief officer in command. Were his authority to be superseded in any degree, the Indians would naturally infer that his influence at Richmond had declined, likewise his power to protect them and their interests.
During the night Pike must have pondered deeply over things omitted from his reply to Hindman and over all that was wanting to make his compliance with Hindman's instructions full and satisfactory. On the ninth, his assistant-adjutant, O.F. Russell, prepared a fairly comprehensive report[404] of the conditions in and surrounding his command. Pike's force,[405] so the report stated, was anything but complete. With Dawson gone, there would be in camp, of Arkansas troops, one company of cavalry and one of artillery and, of Texas, two companies of cavalry. When men, furloughed for the wheat harvest, should return, there would be "in addition two regiments and one company of cavalry, and one company of artillery, about 80 strong."[406] The withdrawal of white troops from the Territory would be interpreted by the Indians to mean its abandonment.
Of the Indian contingent, Russell had this to say:
The two Cherokee regiments are near the Kansas line, operating on that frontier. Col. Stand Watie has recently had a skirmish there, in which, as always, he and his men fought gallantly, and were successful. Col. D.N. McIntosh's Creek Regiment is under orders to advance up the Verdigris, toward the Santa Fé road. Lieut. Col. Chilly McIntosh's Creek Battalion, Lieut. Col. John Jumper's Seminole Battalion, and Lieut. Col. J.D. Harris' Chickasaw Battalion are under orders, and part of them now in motion toward the Salt Plains, to take Fort Larned, the post at Walnut Creek, and perhaps Fort Wise, and intercept trains going to New Mexico. The First Choctaw (new)[407] Regiment, of Col. Sampson Folsom, and the Choctaw Battalion (three companies), of Maj. Simpson (N.) Folsom, are at Middle Boggy, 23 miles northeast of this point. They were under orders to march northward to the Salt Plains and Santa Fé road; but the withdrawal of Colonel Dawson's regiment prevents that, and the regiment is now ordered to take position here, and the battalion to march to and take position at Camp McIntosh, 17 miles this side of Fort Cobb, where, with Hart's Spies, 40 in number, it will send out parties to the Wichita Mountains and up the False Wichita, and prevent, if possible, depredations on the frontier of Texas.
The First Choctaw and Chickasaw Regiment, of Col. Douglas H. Cooper, goes out of service on the 25th and 26th of July. It is now encamped 11 miles east of here.... The country to the westward is quiet, all the Comanches this side of the Staked Plains being friendly, and the Kiowas[408] having made peace, and selected a home to live at on Elk Creek, not far from the site of Camp Radziwintski, south of the Wichita Mountains.
The Indian troops have been instructed, if the enemy[409] invades the country, to harass him, and impede his progress by every possible means, and, falling back here as he advances, to assist in holding this position against him.
Included in Russell's report there might well have been much interesting data respecting the condition of the troops that Pike was parting with; for it can scarcely be said that he manifested any generosity in sending them forth. He obeyed the letter of his order and ignored its spirit. He permitted no guns to be taken out of the Territory that had been paid for with money that he had furnished. Dawson's regiment had not its full quota of men, but that was scarcely Pike's fault. Neither was it his fault that its equipment was so sadly below par that it could make but very slow progress on the nine hundred mile march between Fort McCulloch and Little Rock. Moreover, the health of the men was impaired, their duties, especially the "fort duties, throwing up intrenchments, etc.,"[410] had been very fatiguing. Pike had no wagons to spare them for the trip eastward. So many of his men had obtained furloughs for the harvest season and every company, in departing, had taken with it a wagon,[411] no one having any thought that there would come a call decreasing Pike's command.
So slowly and laboriously did Dawson's regiment progress that Hindman, not hearing either of it or of Woodruff's battery, which was slightly in advance, began to have misgivings as to the fate of his orders of May 31. He, therefore, repeated them in substance, on June 17, with the additional specific direction that Pike should "move at once to Fort Gibson." That order Pike received June 24, the day following his issuance of instructions to his next in command, Colonel D.H. Cooper, that he should hasten to the country north of the Canadian and there take command of all forces except Chief Jumper's.
The receipt of Hindman's order of June 17 was the signal for Pike to pen another lengthy letter[412] of description and protest. Interspersed through it were his grievances, the same that were recited in the letter of June 8, but now more elaborately dwelt upon. Pike was getting irritable. He declared that he had done all he could to expedite the movement of his troops. The odds were unquestionably against him. His Indians were doing duty in different places. Most of the men of his white cavalry force were off on furlough. Their furloughs would not expire until the twenty-fifth and not until the twenty-seventh could they be proceeded against as deserters. Not until that date, too, would the reorganization, preliminary to marching, be possible. He was short of transportation and half of what he had was unserviceable.
Of his available Indian force, he had made what disposition to him seemed best. He had ordered the newly-organized First Choctaw Regiment, under Colonel Sampson Folsom, to Fort Gibson and had assigned Cooper to the command north of the Canadian, which meant, of course, the Cherokee country. Cooper's own regiment was the First Choctaw and Chickasaw, of which, two companies, proceeding from Scullyville, had already posted themselves in the upper part of the Indian Territory, where also were the two Cherokee regiments, Watie's and Drew's. The remaining eight companies of the First Choctaw and Chickasaw were encamped near Fort McCulloch and would have, before moving elsewhere, to await the reorganization of their regiment, now near at hand. However, Cooper was not without hope that he could effect reorganization promptly and take at least four companies to join those that had just come from Scullyville. There were six companies in the Chickasaw Battalion, two at Fort Cobb and four on the march to Fort McCulloch; but they would all have to be left within their own country for they were averse to moving out of it and were in no condition to move. The three companies of the Choctaw Battalion would also have to be left behind in the south for they had no transportation with which to effect a removal. The Creek commands, D.N. McIntosh's Creek Regiment, Chilly McIntosh's Creek Battalion, and John Jumper's Seminole Battalion, were operating in the west, along
the Santa Fé Trail and towards Forts Larned and Wise.
June 17 might be said to mark the beginning of the real controversy between Pike and Hindman; for, on that day, not only did Hindman reiterate the order to hurry that aroused Pike's ire but he encroached upon Pike's prerogative in a financial particular that was bound, considering Pike's experiences in the past, to make for trouble. Interference with his commissary Pike was determined not to brook, yet, on June 17, Hindman put N. Bart Pearce in supreme control at Fort Smith as commissary, acting quartermaster, and acting ordnance officer.[413] His jurisdiction was to extend over northwestern Arkansas and over the Indian Territory. Now Pike had had dealings already with Pearce and thought that he knew too well the limits of his probity. Exactly when Pike heard of Pearce's promotion is not quite clear; but, on the twenty-third, Hindman sent him a conciliatory note explaining that his intention was "to stop the operations of the commissaries of wandering companies in the Cherokee Nation, who" were "destroying the credit of the Confederacy by the floods of certificates they" issued and not "to restrict officers acting under" Pike's orders.[414] All very well, but Pearce had other ideas as to the functions of his office and lost no time in apprising various people of them. His notes[415] to Pike's officers were most impertinently prompt. They were sent out on the twenty-fourth of June and on the twenty-sixth Pike reported[416] the whole history of his economic embarrassments to the Secretary of War.[417]
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 accumulated 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 advertisement 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.
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 assistant 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 assume any military authority in the Indian country, and much less assume command of any Confederate troops or 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 establishing 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 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 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 substitution 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 destitute 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 instituted 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, 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 ingratitude and wrong, he rose to heights really noble. 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 succumb to its charm. He was a classicist 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 incumbent 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.
The last ten days of July were days of constant scouting on the part of both the Federal and Confederate Indians but nothing of much account resulted. Colonel W.A. Phillips of the Third Indian Home Guard,
whose command had been left by Furnas to scout around Tahlequah and Fort Gibson, came into collision with Stand Watie's force on the twenty-seventh at Bayou Bernard, seven miles, approximately, from the latter place. The Confederate Cherokees lost considerably in dead and prisoners.[443] Phillips would have followed up his victory by pursuing the foe even to the Verdigris had not Cooper, fearing that his forces might be destroyed in detail, ordered them all south of the Arkansas and thereby circumvented his enemy's designs. Phillips then moved northward in the direction of Furnas's main camp on Wolf Creek.[444]
Pike had his own opinion of Cooper and Watie's daring methods of fighting and most decidedly disapproved of their attempting to meet the enemy in the neighborhood of Fort Gibson. That part of the Indian Territory, according to his view of things, was not capable of supporting an army. He discounted the ability of his men to conquer, their equipment being so meagre. He, therefore, persisted in advising that they should fight only on the defensive. He advised that, notwithstanding he had a depreciatory[445] regard for the Indian Expedition, and, both before and after the retrograde movement of Colonel Salomon, underestimated its size and strength. He Was confident that Cooper would have inevitably to fall back to the Canadian, where, as he said, "the defensible country commences." Pike objected strenuously to the courting of an open battle and, could he have followed the bent of his own inclinations, "would have sent only small bodies of mounted Indians and white troops to the Arkansas."[446]
No doubt it was in repudiation of all responsibility for what Cooper and Watie might eventually do that he chose soon to bring himself, through a mistaken notion of justice and honor, into very disagreeable prominence. Discretion was evidently not Pike's cardinal virtue. At any rate, he was quite devoid of it when he issued, July 31, his remarkable circular address[447] "to the Chiefs and People of the Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, Chickasaws, and Choctaws." In that address, he notified them that he had resigned his post as department commander and dilated upon the causes that had moved him to action. He shifted all blame for failure to keep faith with the Indian nations from himself and from the Confederate government to the men upon whom he steadfastly believed it ought to rest. He deprecated the plundering that would bring its own retribution and begged the red men to be patient and to keep themselves true to the noble cause they had espoused.
Remain true, I earnestly advise you, to the Confederate States and yourselves. Do not listen to any men who tell you that the Southern States will abandon you. They will not do it. If the enemy has been able to come into the Cherokee country it has not been the fault of the President; and it is but the fortune of war, and what has happened in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and even Arkansas. We have not been able to keep the enemy from our frontier anywhere; but in the interior of our country we can defeat them always.
Be not discouraged, and remember, above all things, that you can have nothing to expect from the enemy. They will have no mercy on you, for they are more merciless than wolves and more rapacious. Defend your country with what help you can get until the President can send you troops. If the enemy ever comes to the Canadian he cannot go far beyond that river. The war must soon end since the recent victories near Richmond, and no treaty of peace will be made that will give up any part of your country to the Northern States. If I am not again placed in command of your country some other officer will be in whom you can confide. And whatever may be told you about me, you will soon learn that if I have not defended the whole country it was because I had not the troops with which to do it; that I have cared for your interest alone; that I have never made you a promise that I did not expect, and had not a right to expect, to be able to keep, and that I have never broken one intentionally nor except by the fault of others.
The only fair way to judge Pike's farewell address to his Indian charges is to consider it in the light of its effect upon them, intended and accomplished.[448] So little reason has the red man had, in the course of his long experience with his white brother, to trust him that his faith in that white brother rests upon a very slender foundation. Pike knew the Indian character amazingly well and knew that he must retain for the Confederacy the Indian's confidence at all cost. Were he to fail in that, his entire diplomatic work would have been done in vain. To stay the Cherokees in their desertion to the North was of prime necessity. They had already gone over in dangerously large numbers and must be checked before other tribes followed in their wake. Very possibly Pike had been made aware of Chief Ross's complaint to Hindman. If so, it was all important that he should vindicate himself. So maligned had he been that his sensitiveness on the score of the discharge of his duties was very natural, very pardonable. After all he had done for the Confederacy and for the Indians, it seemed hardly right that he should be blamed for all that others had failed to do. His motives were pure and could not be honestly impugned by anybody. The address was an error of judgment but it was made with the best of intentions.
And so the authorities at Richmond seem to have regarded it; that is, if the reference in President Davis's letter[449] to Pike of August 9 is to this affair. Pike wrote to the president on the same day that he started his address upon its rounds, but that letter,[450] in which he rehearsed the wrongs he had been forced to endure, also those more recently inflicted upon him, did not reach Richmond until September 20. His address was transmitted by Colonel D.H. Cooper, who had taken great umbrage at it and who now charged the author with having violated an army regulation, which prohibited publications concerning Confederate troops.[451] Davis took the matter under advisement and wrote to Pike a mild reprimand. It was as follows:
Richmond, Va., August 9, 1862.
Brig. Gen. Albert Pike,
Camp McCulloch, Choctaw Nation:
General: Your communication of July 3 is at hand. I regret the necessity of informing you that it is an impropriety for an officer of the Army to address the President through a printed circular.[452] Under the laws for the government of the Army the publication of this circular was a grave military offense, and if the purpose was to abate an evil, by making an appeal that would be heeded by me, the mode taken was one of the slowest and worst that could have been adopted.
Very respectfully, yours, Jefferson Davis.
The sympathy of Secretary Randolph was conceivably with Pike; for, on the fourteenth of July, he wrote assuring him that certain general orders had been sent out by the Adjutant and Inspector General's Office which were "intended to prevent even the major-general commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department from diverting from their legitimate destination (the Department of Indian Territory) munitions of war and supplies procured by 'him' for that department."[453] That did not prevent Hindman's continuing his pernicious practices, however. On the seventeenth he demanded[454] that Pike deliver to him his best battery and Pike, discouraged and yet thoroughly beside himself with ill-suppressed rage,[455] sent it to him.[456] At the same time he insisted that he be immediately relieved of his command.[457] He could endure the indignities to which he was subjected no longer. The order for his relief arrived in due course and also directions for him to report in person at Hindman's headquarters.[458] He had not then issued his circular; but, as soon as he had, the whole situation changed. He had deliberately put himself in the wrong and into the hands of his enemies. The address was, in some respects, the last act of a desperate[459] man. And there is no doubt that General Pike was desperate. Reports were spreading in Texas that he was a defaulter to the government and, as he himself in great bitterness of spirit said, "The incredible villainy of a slander so monstrous, and so without even any ground for suspicion," was "enough to warn every honest man not to endeavor to serve his country."[460]
Not until August 6 did General Pike's circular address reach Colonel D.H. Cooper, who was then at Cantonment Davis. Cooper wisely suppressed all the copies he could procure and then, believing Pike to be either insane or a traitor, ordered his arrest,[461] sending out an armed force for its accomplishment. Hindman, as soon as notified, "indorsed and approved" his action.[462] This is his own account of what he did:
... I approved his action, and ordered General Pike sent to Little Rock in custody. I also forwarded Colonel Cooper's letter to Richmond, with an indorsement, asking to withdraw my approval of General Pike's resignation, that I might bring him before a court-martial on charges of falsehood, cowardice, and treason. He was also liable to the penalties prescribed by section 29 of the act of Congress regulating intercourse with the Indians and to preserve peace on the frontiers, approved April 8, 1862....
But his resignation had been accepted....[463]
[Footnote 392: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 934.]
[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 Hampshire--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.]
[Footnote 396: Pike had fought a duel with Roane, Roane having challenged him because he had dared to criticize his conduct in the Mexican War [Hallura, _Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas_, vol. i, 229; _Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 99].]
[Footnote 397: Maury to Roane, May 11, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 827.]
[Footnote 398: Maury to Pike, May 19, 1862, Ibid.]
[Footnote 399: Pike to Roane, June 1, 1862, Ibid., 935-936.]
[Footnote 400: General Orders, June 8, 1862, Ibid., 943.]
[Footnote 401: Pike to Hindman, June 8, 1862, Ibid., 936-943.]
[Footnote 402: C.L. Dawson of the Nineteenth Regiment of Arkansas Volunteers had joined Pike at Fort McCulloch in April [_Fort Smith Papers_].]
[Footnote 403: His enemies were particularly scornful of his work in this regard. They poked fun at him on every possible occasion. Edwards, in _Shelby and His Men_, 63, but echoed the general criticism,
"Pike, also a Brigadier, had retreated with his Indian contingent out of North West Arkansas, unpursued, through the Cherokee country, the Chickasaw country, and the country of the Choctaws, two hundred and fifty miles to the southward, only halting on the 'Little Blue', an unknown thread of a stream, twenty miles from Red river, where he constructed fortifications on the open prairie, erected a saw-mill remote from any timber, and devoted himself to gastronomy and poetic meditation, with elegant accompaniments..."]
[Footnote 404: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 943-945.]
[Footnote 405: For tabulated showing of Pike's brigade, see Ibid., 831.]
[Footnote 406: Compare Russell's statement with Hindman's [Ibid., 30]. See also Maury to Price, March 22, 1862 [Ibid., vol. viii, 798].]
[Footnote 407: The parentheses appear here as in the original.]
[Footnote 408: Pike had just received assurances of the friendly disposition of the Kiowas [Bickel to Pike, June 1, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 936].]
[Footnote 409: The enemy in mind was the Indian Expedition. Pike had heard that Sturgis had been removed "on account of his tardiness in not invading the Indian country...." [Ibid., 944].]
[Footnote 410: Dawson to Hindman, June 20, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 945-946.]
[Footnote 411: Dawson had allowed his wagons to go "of his own motion" [Pike to Hindman, June 24, 1862, Ibid., 947].]
[Footnote 412:--Ibid., 947-950.]
[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.]
[Footnote 418: "George E. White, formerly a partner, I believe, of Senator Oldham of Texas..."--_Official Records_, vol. xiii, 842.]
[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.]
[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, illustrative 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].]
[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].]
[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].]
[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 instituted 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.]
[Footnote 443: Phillips to Furnas, July 27, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 181-182.]
[Footnote 444: Same to same, August 6, 1862, Ibid., 183-184.]
[Footnote 445: Cooper reported that Pike regarded the Indian Expedition as only a "jayhawking party," and "no credit due" "for arresting its career" [Cooper to Davis, August 8, 1862, Ibid., vol liii, supplement, 821].]
[Footnote 446: Pike to the Secretary of War, July 20, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 859-860.]
[Footnote 447:--Ibid., 869-871.]
[Footnote 448: Pike gives this as the effect of his proclamation:
"... it effected what I desired. The Choctaw force was immediately increased to two full regiments; the Creek force to two regiments and two companies; the Seminole force was doubled; the Chickasaws reorganized five companies and a sixth is being made up. The Indians looked to me alone, and for me to vindicate myself was to vindicate the Government. We lost half the Cherokees solely because their moneys and supplies were intercepted..."--Ibid., 904-905. See also Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862. Another effect was, the creation of a prejudice self-confessed in General Holmes's mind against Pike.]
[Footnote 449: Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 822.]
[Footnote 450:--Ibid., vol. xiii, 860-869.]
[Footnote 451:--Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 820-821.]
[Footnote 452: It is possible that the printed circular here referred to was some other one that was directly addressed to the president but none such has been found.]
[Footnote 453: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 903; Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862, Pike _Papers_, Library of the Supreme Council, 33º. Pike did not receive Randolph's letter of July fourteenth until some time in August and not until after he had had an interview with Holmes. See Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862.]
[Footnote 454: Official Records, vol. xiii, 970.]
[Footnote 455: This is inferred from the very peculiar _General Orders_ that issued from Fort McCulloch that selfsame day. They were sarcastic in the extreme. No general in his right senses would have issued them. They are to be found, Ibid., 970-973.]
[Footnote 456:--Ibid., 973, 974.]
[Footnote 457:--_Ib id_., 973.]
[Footnote 458: Pike to Hindman, July 31, 1862, Ibid., 973.]
[Footnote 459: And yet, August 1, 1862, Pike wrote to Davis one of the sanest papers he ever prepared. It was full of sage advice as to the policy that ought to be pursued in Indian Territory [_Official Records_, vol. xiii, 871-874].]
[Footnote 460: Pike to S. Cooper, August 3, 1862, Ibid., 975. See also Pike to Newton, August 3, 1862, Ibid., 976.]
[Footnote 461: D.H. Cooper to Hindman, August 7, 1862, ibid., 977.]
[Footnote 462: Pike to Anderson, October 26, 1862, Ibid., 903.]
[Footnote 463: Hindman's Report, Ibid., 41.]