[524] —Ibid., 22.
[525] Official Records, first ser., vol. viii, 23-24.
[526] Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, p. 136.
[527] The agents were, George A. Cutler, Creek, Charles W. Chatterton, Cherokee, Isaac Coleman, Choctaw and Chickasaw, G. C. Snow, Seminole, and Peter P. Elder, Neosho River. Agent Elder did not report for duty.
[528] The Indian agents usually referred to it as “Fort Roe” but the military men, with a few possible exceptions, when meaning identically the same locality, spoke of “Roe’s Fork.” There is no such place as Fort Roe given in the Lists of Military Posts, etc., established in the United States from its earliest settlement to the present time, published by the United States War Department, 1902. That list, however, is far from being complete.
[529] Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, p. 138.
In compliance with instructions from Major-General Hunter, contained in your order of the 22d. ultimo, I left this place on the 22d. and proceeded to Burlington, where I learned that the principal part of the friendly Indians were congregated, and encamped on the Verdigris river, near a place called Roe’s Fork, from twelve to fifteen miles south of the town of Belmont. I proceeded there without delay. By a census of the tribes taken a few days before my arrival, there was found to be of the Creeks, 3,168; slaves of the Creeks, 53; free negroes, members of the tribe, 38; Seminoles, 777; Quapaws, 136; Cherokees, 50; Chickasaws, 31; some few Kickapoos and other tribes, about 4,500 in all. But the number was being constantly augmented by the daily arrival of other camps and families....—A. B. Campbell, surgeon, U. S. A., to James K. Barnes, surgeon, U. S. A., medical director, Department of Kansas, dated Fort Leavenworth, February 5, 1862.
[531] These were purchased by Coffin, acting under the advice of Hunter [Dole to Smith, June 5, 1862, Indian Office, Report Book, no. 12, pp. 392-396].
[532] Extracts from Agent Cutler’s Report, September 30, 1862. Various reports, more or less detailed, descriptive of the intense sufferings of Indian refugees in the first weeks of their sojourn in Kansas may be found in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1862, pp. 135-175. Those of Turner, Campbell, Cutler, and George W. Collamore are particularly good. Some of the reports originally accompanied Dole’s Report of June 5, 1862 [Indian Office, Report Book, no. 12, pp. 392-396; Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, pp. 147-149; House Executive Documents, 37th congress, second session, vol. x, no. 132], which was prepared in answer to a House resolution, calling for information on the southern refugee Indians.