Footnote 70: [(return)]
By vote of the committee, General Curtis had been instructed to furnish information on the subject of the employment of Indians by the Confederates [Journal, 92].
upon before they went into battle."[71] Presumptively, if the Cherokees could plot to kill their own allies, they could be found despicable enough and cruel enough to mutilate the dead,[72] were the chance given them and that without any direction, instruction, or encouragement from white men being needed.
The Confederate defeat at Pea Ridge was decisive and, as far as Van Dorn's idea of relieving Missouri was concerned, fatally conclusive. As early as the twenty-first of February, Beauregard had expressed a wish to have him east of the Mississippi[73] and March had not yet expired before Van Dorn was writing in such a way as to elicit the consummation of the wish. The Federals were in occupation of the northern part of Arkansas; but Van Dorn was very confident they would not be able to subsist there long or "do much harm in the west." In his opinion, therefore, it was incumbent upon the Confederates, instead of dividing their strength between the east and the west, to concentrate on the saving of the Mississippi.[74] To all appearances, it was there that the situation was most critical. In due time, came the order for Van Dorn to repair eastward and to take with him all the troops that might be found available.
The completeness of Curtis's victory, the loss to the Southerners, by death or capture, of some of their best-loved and ablest commanders, McCulloch, McIntosh, Hébert, and the nature of the country through which the Federals pursued their fleeing forces, to say nothing of the miscellaneous and badly-trained character of
Footnote 71: [(return)]
Official Records, vol. xiii, 486.
Footnote 72: [(return)]
The same charge was made against the Indians who fought at Wilson's Creek [Leavenworth Daily Conservative, August 24, 1861].
Footnote 73: [(return)]
Roman, Military Operations of General Beauregard, vol. i, 240.
Footnote 74: [(return)]
Official Records, vol. viii, 796.