The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War

by Annie Heloise Abel

Footnote 299: [(return)]

Same to same, June 7, 1862, ibid., 422.

Footnote 300: [(return)]

The destruction of the Indian Expedition was most certainly the occasion for the massing, notwithstanding the fact that Missourians were apprehensive for the safety of their state only and wanted to have Weer's white troops diverted to its defence. Curtis, alone, of the commanders in Missouri seems to have surmised rightly in the matter [Curtis to Schofield, ibid., 432].

Weer, therefore, went on ahead to the Osage Catholic Mission and ordered the Fort Scott troops to meet him there. His purpose was to promote the enlistment of the Osages, who were now abandoning the Confederate cause.[³⁰¹] He would then go forward and join Doubleday, whom he had instructed to clear the way.[³⁰²]

Weer's plans were one thing, his embarrassments, another. Before the middle of June he was back again at Leroy,[³⁰³] having left Salomon and Doubleday[³⁰⁴] at Baxter Springs on the west side of Spring River in the Neutral Lands, the former in command. Weer hoped by his presence at Leroy to hurry the Indians along; for it was high time the expedition was started and he intended to start it, notwithstanding that many officers were absent from their posts and the men of the Second Indian Regiment not yet mustered in. It was absolutely necessary, if anything were going to be done with Indian aid, to get the braves away from under the influence of their chiefs, who were bent upon delay and determent. By the sixteenth he had the warriors all ready at Humboldt,[³⁰⁵] their bullet-proof medicine taken, their grand war dance indulged in. By the twenty-first, the final packing up began,[³⁰⁶] and it was not long thereafter before the Indian Expedition, after having experienced so many vicissitudes, had definitely materialized and was on its way south. Accompanying Weer were the Reverend Evan Jones, entrusted with

Footnote 301: [(return)]

Weer to Moonlight, June 13, 1862.

Footnote 302: [(return)]

Weer to Doubleday, June 6, 1862.

Footnote 303: [(return)]

Weer to Moonlight, June 13, 1862.

Footnote 304: [(return)]

On the twentieth, General Brown requested Salomon to send Doubleday to southwest Missouri [Official Records, vol. xiii, 440] and Salomon so far complied with the request as to post some companies of Doubleday's regiment, under Lieutenant-colonel Ratliff, at Neosho [ibid., 445, 459].

Footnote 305: [(return)]

—Ibid., 434.