I find here your letter to the Agent of the Delaware, requesting Fall Leaf to organize a party of 50 men for the service of your Department. Mr. Johnson the Agent called the tribe together before I arrived here, and found the Chiefs unwilling that their young men should enter the service as you desired. Since my arrival I have seen the Chiefs and stated to them that the Government was not asking them to enter the war as a tribe but that we wished to employ some of the tribe for Special Service and wished the Chiefs to make no objection. I could not however get their consent even to acquiesce in their men Volunteering for the service as you desired, & Fall Leaf and several of the tribe are here and determined to tender you their Services, with my consent. I have advised them that they are at Liberty to join you if they choose. Fall Leaf says he will be able to report at Fort Leavenworth in a very few days with twenty to twenty five men. Should you require more men, you will have probably to call on some other tribe. Those men who volunteer against the advice of their Chiefs should be particularly remembered by the Gov’t.—Dole to Frémont, dated Leavenworth City, September 13, 1861 [Indian Office, Letter Book, no. 66, p. 485].
[451] —Ibid.
I am instructed to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 13th inst., and to state that the Commanding General will accept with pleasure the services of Fall Leaf and his men.
Other tribes will be applied to immediately. I have written to the same effect to Mr. Johnson, at the Deleware Agency.—John R. Howard, captain and secretary, to William P. Dole, dated Headquarters, Western Department, at St. Louis, September 20, 1861 [General Files, Central Superintendency, 1860-1862].
[453] F. Johnson to Dole, June 6, 1862 [General Files, Delaware, 1862-1866].
[454] Dole to Captain Fall Leaf, November 22, 1863 [Indian Office, Letter Book, no. 72, p. 109].
[455] Report to Dole, October 22, 1861 [Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1861, p. 50]; Report to Dole, September 17, 1862 [Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, p. 98].
I send you a letter to General Fremont open that you may read and understand its object. Fall Leaf will call upon you probably this afternoon and receive from you such information as you see proper to give him. I am disinclined to encourage the Indians to engage in this war except in extreme cases, as guides. I have in this case used my influence in favor of the formation of this Company, without any knowledge of the views of Gov’t, supposing Genl Fremont was a special need of them or he would not have made the request....—Dole to Captain Price, dated Leavenworth, September 13, 1861 [Indian Office, Letter Book, no. 66, pp. 485-486].