The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War

by Annie Heloise Abel

Footnote 340: [(return)]

Weer to Moonlight, July 12, 1862, ibid., 488.

Footnote 341: [(return)]

Blunt to Salomon, August 3, 1862, ibid., 532; Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, 304.

management of Indian affairs, particularly as those affairs might be concerned with the future attitude of the Cherokee Nation. The programme comprised instructions that emanated from both civil and military sources. The special Indian agents, Carruth and Martin, had been given suitable tasks to perform and the instructions handed them have already been commented upon. Personally, these two men were very much disposed to magnify the importance of their own position and to resent anything that looked like interference on the part of the military. As a matter of fact, the military men treated them with scant courtesy and made little or no provision for their comfort and convenience.[³⁴²] Colonel Weer seems to have ignored, at times, their very existence. On more than one occasion, for instance, he deplored the absence of some official, accredited by the Indian Office, to take charge of what he contemptuously called "this Indian business,"[³⁴³] which business, he felt, greatly complicated all military undertakings[³⁴⁴] and was decidedly beyond the bounds of his peculiar province.[³⁴⁵]

Footnote 342: [(return)]

Pretty good evidence of this appears in a letter, which Carruth and Martin jointly addressed to Coffin, September 4, 1862, in anticipation of the Second Indian Expedition, their idea being to guard against a repetition of some of the experiences of the first. "We wish to call your attention," wrote they, "to the necessity of our being allowed a wagon to haul our clothing, tents, etc. in the Southern expedition.

"In the last expedition we had much annoyance for the want of accommodations of our own. Unless we are always by at the moment of moving, our things are liable to be left behind, that room may be made for army baggage which sometimes accumulates amazingly....

"The cold nights of autumn and winter will overtake us in the next expedition and we ought to go prepared for them. We must carry many things, as clothing, blankets, etc."—General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862.

Footnote 343: [(return)]

Official Records, vol. xiii, 460.

Footnote 344: [(return)]

—Ibid., 487.

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Footnote 345: [(return)]

Weer, nevertheless, was not long in developing some very pronounced ideas on the subject of Indian relations. The earliest and best indication of (cont.)