The American Indian as Slaveholder and Seccessionist / An Omitted Chapter in the Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy

by Annie Heloise Abel

The history of their destitution, and terrible sufferings in their pilgrimage of three hundred miles in mid-winter, is familiar to you and not necessary here to relate [General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1863-1864, C824].

[533] Others had reached that decision likewise. On the tenth of December, McClellan had written to Halleck, “I shall send troops to Hunter to enable him to move into the Indian Territory west of Arkansas and upon Northern Texas. That movement should relieve you very materially”—Official Records, first ser., vol. viii, 419. See also the letter of December 11, 1861 [ibid., 428].

[534] It was to this delegation, I have no doubt, that the Shawnees sent their note of encouragement. It bears date November 15, 1861 and was issued from the Shawnee Agency, Johnson County, Kansas. Its inspiring passages are these:

Brothers, hold fast to the Union! Hold to your treaties! And now call upon the United States government to fulfill their treaty stipulations with you by protecting you in this your time of need, and save your country to you first, and then, by so doing, save the whole of the Indian country to the Union.

... And now our advice to you is, go immediately to Washington City, lay your case before President Lincoln, state everything, and we assure you that he will protect you, and that immediately; we think that delay on your part will be ruinous to your people; we believe that your agent ought to conduct you there. Put your confidence only in the Union and you will be safe....—Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1861, p. 45.

[535] Report of Agent Cutler, September 30, 1862 [Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, p. 138].

[536] Montgomery to Lincoln, November 19, 1861 [ibid., 1861, p. 461].

[537] Hunter to Dole, December 1, 1861 [Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1861, p. 49].

[538] Note that Hunter, when writing to McClellan, December 19, 1861 [Official Records, first ser., vol. viii, 450], professed that, previous to the receipt of McClellan’s letter of the eleventh, he had not known that it was expected of him that he should undertake an expedition for the defense of Indian Territory. He declared that Thomas’ communication of November twenty-sixth, touching the matter, had been vague in the extreme.

[539] Extract from letter of Carruth to Hunter, November 26, 1861 [Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1861, p. 49].