The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War

by Annie Heloise Abel

Footnote 703: [(return)]

Official Records, vol. xxii, part i, 30.

Footnote 704: [(return)]

Perhaps the word, army, is inapplicable here. Steele himself was in doubt as to whether he was in command of an army or of a department [Confederate Records, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 54].

Footnote 705: [(return)]

Confederate Records, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 36. See also, Steele to Anderson, January 22, 1863 [ibid., 50-51], which besides detailing the movements of Steele's men furnishes, on the authority of "Mr. Thomas J. Parks of the Cherokee Nation," evidence of brutal murders and atrocities committed by Blunt's army "whilst on their march through the northwestern portion of this State in the direction of Kansas."

Footnote 706: [(return)]

Crosby's telegram, February first, to the Chief of Ordnance is sufficient attestation,

"Many of Cooper's men have inferior guns and many none at all. Can you supply?" [Ibid., 65-66].

Footnote 707: [(return)]

The detention and the misapplication of funds by William Quesenbury seem to have been largely responsible for Steele's monetary embarrassment [ibid., 28, 63-64, 75, 76, 77, 79-81, 101, 147]. Cotton speculation in Texas was alluring men with ready money southward [ibid., 94, 104].

Footnote 708: [(return)]

Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, 6.

conflict of interests.[⁷⁰⁹] So petty was Schofield and so much in a mood for disparagement that he went the length of condemning the work of Blunt and Herron[⁷¹⁰] in checking Hindman's advance as but a series of blunders and their success at Prairie Grove as but due to an accident.[⁷¹¹] General Curtis, without, perhaps, having any particular regard for the aggrieved parties himself, resented Schofield's insinuations against their military capacity, all the more so, no doubt, because he was not above making the same kind of criticisms himself and was not impervious to them. In the sequel, Schofield reorganized the divisions of his command, relieved Blunt altogether, and personally resumed the direction of the Army of the Frontier.[⁷¹²] Blunt went back to his District of Kansas and made his headquarters at Fort Leavenworth.

In some respects, the reorganization decided upon by Schofield proved a consummation devoutly to be wished; for, within the reconstituted First Division was placed an Indian Brigade, which was consigned to the charge of a man the best fitted of all around to have it, Colonel William A. Phillips.[⁷¹³] And that was not all; inasmuch as the Indian Brigade, consisting of the three regiments of Indian Home Guards, a battalion of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, and a four-gun battery that had been captured at the Battle of Old

Footnote 709: [(return)]

It seems unnecessary and inappropriate to drag into the present narrative the political squabbles that disgraced Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, and Colorado during the war. Lane was against Schofield, Gamble against Curtis.