The danger is imminent. Hordes of whites & half breeds in the Indian country are in arms driving out & killing Union men. They threaten to overrun Kansas and exterminate both whites & Indians. It it rumored that John Ross, the Cherokee Chief is likely to be overcome unless he is assisted.
The Osages also need assistance. Gen. Lane intends to establish a strong Indian camp near the neutral lands as a guard to prevent forage into Kansas. He is very solicitous that you should come if possible with the Chiefs & see him at Ft. Lincoln on the Little Osage 10 miles south of Mound City.
If you do come, please bring all the fighting men you can, of all Kinds. Men are needed.
If you do not come, please authorise some responsible man to lead the Indians as far as Ft. Lincoln where Gen. Lane will receive them and give them a big war talk. Bring an interpreter. Expenses will be paid.
Congress will undoubtedly make suitable acknowledgements to the Kaws, as an independent nation, for any valuable services which they may render....
P.S. A Captain’s wages will be given to any competent man whom you may appoint to take the lead of the band, provided there are fifty or more.—Augustus Wattles to Major Farnsworth, dated Sac and Fox Agency, Kansas, August 25, 1861.
Wattles had evidently not yet heard of the Tahlequah mass-meeting. Postal connections with Indian Territory were, of necessity, very poor. Dole had recommended, May 29, 1861, to Secretary Smith a new postal route through southwest Missouri or southern Kansas instead of the old route through Arkansas [Indian Office, Report Book, no. 12, p. 170].
The Confederates were similarly embarrassed. On the twenty-seventh of May, the postmaster at Fort Smith had complained to the postmaster-general J. H. Reagan,
Enclosed please find letter of G. B. Hester (a Choctaw who was made quarter-master and commissary in the First Choctaw Regiment and, in 1865, “cotton agent for the Creek Indians who were at that time squatting in the Chickasaw Nation.” See O’Beirne’s Leaders and Leading Men of the Indian Territory) at Boggy Depot, C. N. You will see they are without mails in that country. For three weeks the mails for the Indian country have been accumulating in this office. I sent forward all the mail that could be packed on a single horse.... I cannot get men to carry the mail. They say they are afraid of being robbed or murdered.... Our neighbours, the Indians must suffer great inconvenience on account of the stoppage of mail facilities. All tribes are in favor of the South except the Cherokees. A little good talk would do them good, perhaps a little powder and lead might help the cause. Ross and his party are not to be relied on.—Fort Smith Papers.
Mayers wrote Reagan in a similar vein a month later, on June 26, 1861,