The Trans-Mississippi District would appear to have been constituted and its limits to have been defined without adequate reference to existing arrangements. The limits were, "That part of the State of Louisiana north of Red River, the Indian Territory west of Arkansas, and the States of Arkansas and Missouri, excepting therefrom the tract of country east of the Saint Francis, bordering on the Mississippi River, from the mouth of the Saint Francis to Scott County, Missouri...."[28] Van Dorn, in assuming command of the district, January 29, 1862, issued orders in such form that Indian Territory was listed last among the limits[29] and it was a previous arrangement affecting Indian Territory that was most ignored in the whole scheme of organization.
It will be remembered that, in November of the preceding year, the Department of Indian Territory had been created and Brigadier-general Albert Pike assigned to the same.[30] His authority was not explicitly
Footnote 26: [(return)]
Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 767, 774.
Footnote 27: [(return)]
Van Dora's protection, if given, was given to little purpose; for the mines were soon abandoned [Britton, Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border, 1863, 120].
Footnote 28: [(return)]
Official Records, vol. viii, 734.
Footnote 29: [(return)]
—Ibid., 745.
Footnote 30: [(return)]
—Ibid., 690.
superseded by that which later clothed Van Dorn and yet his department was now to be absorbed by a military district, which was itself merely a section of another department. The name and organization of the Department of Indian Territory remained to breed confusion, disorder, and serious discontent at a slightly subsequent time. Of course, since the ratification of the treaties of alliance with the tribes, there was no question to be raised concerning the status of Indian Territory as definitely a possession of the Southern Confederacy. Indeed, it had, in a way, been counted as such, actual and prospective, ever since the enactment of the marque and reprisal law of May 6, 1861.[31]
Albert Pike, having accepted the appointment of department commander in Indian Territory under somewhat the same kind of a protest—professed consciousness of unfitness for the post—as he had accepted the earlier one of commissioner, diplomatic, to the tribes, lost no time in getting into touch with his new duties. There was much to be attended to before he could proceed west. His appointment had come and had been accepted in November. Christmas was now near at hand and he had yet to render an account of his mission of treaty-making. In late December, he sent in his official report[32] to President Davis and, that done, held himself in readiness to respond to any interpellating call that the Provincial Congress might see fit to make. The intervals of time, free from devotion to the completion of the older task, were spent by him in close attention to the preliminary details of the newer, in securing funds and in purchasing supplies and equipment