[235] Rhodes, op. cit., vol. iii, 237-238; also Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the Abstraction of Bonds Held by the United States Government in Trust for Indian Tribes, being House Report, 36th congress, second session, no. 78. Dole, in his Annual Report for 1861, p. 27, urged that the government make the loss good to the Indians and also appropriate money “to meet the unpaid interest on those trust bonds of the revolted States yet in custody of the Secretary of the Interior.” There ought never, either from the standpoint of national faith or of that of political expediency, to have been any hesitation in the matter.
[236] The entire letter is to be found in Official Records, first ser., vol. xiii, 498-499; also in General Files, Cherokee, 1850-1865, C515.
War Department, C. S. Army, Montgomery, May 13, 1861.
Major Douglas H. Cooper, Choctaw Nation:
Sir: The desire of this Government is to cultivate the most friendly relations and the closest alliance with the Choctaw Nation and all the Indian tribes west of Arkansas and south of Kansas. Appreciating your sympathies with these tribes, and their reciprocal regard for you, we have thought it advisable to enlist your services in the line of this desire. From information in possession of the Government it is deemed expedient to take measures to secure the protection of these tribes in their present country from the agrarian rapacity of the North, that, unless opposed, must soon drive them from their homes and supplant them in their possessions, as, indeed, would have been the case with the entire South but for our present efforts at resistance. It is well known that with these unjust designs against the Indian country the Northern movement for several years has had its emissaries scheming among the tribes for their ultimate destruction. Their destiny has thus become our own, and common with that of all the Southern States entering this Confederation.
Entertaining these views and feelings, and with these objects before us, we have commissioned General Ben. McCulloch, with three regiments under his command, from the States of Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana, to take charge of the military district embracing the Indian country, and I now empower you to raise among the Choctaws and Chickasaws a mounted regiment, to be commanded by yourself, in co-operation with General McCulloch. It is designed also to raise two other similar regiments among the Creeks, Cherokees, Seminoles, and other friendly tribes for the same purpose. This combined force of six regiments will be ample to secure the frontiers upon Kansas and the interests of the Indians, while to the south of the Red River three regiments from Texas, under a different command, have been already assigned to the Rio Grande and western border.
It will thus appear, I trust, that the resources of this Government are adequate to its ends, and assured to the friendly Indians. We have our agents actively engaged in the manufacture of ammunition and in the purchase of arms, and when your regiment has been reported organized in ten companies, ranging from 64 to 100 men each, and enrolled for twelve months, if possible, it will be received into the Confederate service, and supplied with arms and ammunition. Such will be the course pursued also in relation to the two other regiments I have indicated.
The arms we are purchasing for the Indians are rifles, and they will be forwarded to Fort Smith. Respectfully,
L. P. Walker, Secretary of War.