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

by Annie Heloise Abel

He received a reply[556] that should have been dictated, not so much in the spirit of generosity, as of simple justice:

Go on and supply the destitute Indians, Congress will supply the means. War Department will not organize them.

With this approbation in hand, Dole went to work, purchased sufficient supplies on credit, and appointed[557] a special agent, Dr. William Kile of Illinois, who had been commissioned[558] by President Lincoln to act on Lane’s staff and was then in Kansas as Lane’s brigade quartermaster, to attend to their distribution. Meanwhile, the attention of Congress had been called to the matter and a particularly strong letter of Dole’s, describing the utter misery of the exiles, was read in the Senate February 14, in support of a joint resolution for their relief.[559] It was intended originally to apply only to the loyal Creeks, Seminoles, and Chickasaws but had its title changed later so as to make it include the Choctaws. On the third of March, Congress passed[560] an act providing that the annuities of the “hostiles,” Creeks, Chickasaws, Seminoles, Wichitas, and Cherokees, should be applied, as might be necessary, to the relief of refugees from Indian Territory. It was expressly stipulated in this enactment[561] that the money should not be used for other than Indian Territory tribes.

Secretary Smith’s telegram, as the reader has probably already observed, had given to Dole a small piece of information that was not of slight significance, signifying as it did a change of front by the War Department. The War Department had rescinded its former action and had now refused to organize the Indians for service. The objections to Lane’s enterprise must have been cumulative. Before the idea of it had embraced the Indians and before it had become so closely identified with Lane’s name and personality, in fact, while it was more or less a scheme of McClellan’s, Hunter had interposed[562] objections, but purely on military grounds. His force was scarcely equal to a movement southward. Subsequently, Halleck interposed objections likewise and his reasons,[563] whatever his motives may have been, were perfectly sound, indeed, rather alarmingly so, since they broadly hinted at the miserably local interests involved in the war in the west and the gross subordination of military policies to political. Then came Lane with energy like the whirlwind, a local politician through and through. He had absolutely no respect for official proprieties and the military men, opposed to him, were men of small calibre. He reached Kansas, joyfully intent upon putting into immediate effect the power that Lincoln had conferred upon him, only to find that there stood Hunter, fully prepared to contest authority with him. The Adjutant-general had written[564] Hunter that Lane had not been given a command independent of his own and that, if he so desired, he might conduct the expedition southward in person. In the evening of the twenty-sixth, Lane reached Leavenworth, and the very next day, Hunter issued general orders[565] that he would command in person. Taken aback and excusably indignant, Lane communicated[566] at once with John Covode and requested him to impart the news to the President, to Stanton[567] and the new Secretary of War, and to General McClellan.

Official sensitiveness was unquestionably at the bottom of the whole trouble, yet Lincoln was very largely to blame for having yielded to Lane’s importunities. He frankly said that he had wished to keep the affair out of McClellan’s hands as far as possible.[568] He hoped to profit by the services of both Hunter and Lane; but, if they could not agree, then Lane must yield the precedence to Hunter. He must report for orders or decline the service.[569] Military men, stationed in the west, and civil officers of Kansas were all prejudiced against the “Lane Expedition.”[570] They expected it to be nothing but jayhawking and marauding of the worst description. The Indians, however, were deeply disappointed[571] when a halt came in the preparations. Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la personally addressed a communication[572] to Lincoln. He wanted nobody but Lane to command the expedition. Pending a settlement, Dole ordered[573] Coffin[574] to desist from further enrollment. Secretary Stanton was declared opposed to the use of Indians in civilized warfare.[575] Soon the orders for the expedition were countermanded with the understanding, explicit or implied, that it should later proceed under the personal direction of General Hunter.

The military situation in the middle west and the great desire on the part of the Confederacy to gain Missouri and to complete her secession from the old Union necessitated, at the opening of 1862, a thorough-going reörganization of forces concentrated in that part of the country. Experience had shown that separate and independent commands had a tendency to become too much localized, individual commanders too much inclined to keep within the narrow margin, each of his instructions, for the good of the service as a whole to be promoted. It was thought best, therefore, to establish the Trans-Mississippi District of Department No. 2[576] and to place in command of it, Major-general Earl Van Dorn. The district was to comprise all of Louisiana north of the Red River, all of Indian Territory proper, all of Arkansas, and all of Missouri west of the St. Francis. Wise in the main, as the scheme for consolidation unquestionably was, it had its weak points. The unrestricted inclusion of Indian Territory was decidedly a violation of the spirit of the Pike treaties, if not of the actual letter. Under the conditions of their alliance with the Confederacy, the Indian nations were not obliged to render service outside of the limits of their own country; but the Confederacy was obliged, independent of any departmental reörganization or regulations, to furnish them protection.

Almost the first thing that Van Dorn did, after assuming command of the new military district, was to write,[577] from his headquarters at Jacksonport in eastern Arkansas, to Price, advising him that Pike would shortly be ordered to take position in southwestern Missouri, say in Lawrence County near Mt. Vernon, “with instructions to coöperate with you in any emergency.” Van Dorn was then laboring under the impression that Pike’s force consisted of a majority of white troops, three regiments, he thought, out of a brigade of eight or nine thousand men, whereas there was only one white regiment in the whole Indian department. Colonel Cooper complained[578] that this latter condition was the fact and insisted that it was contrary to the express promises made, by authority,[579] to the Choctaws and Chickasaws when he had begun his recruiting work among them the previous summer. Had Van Dorn only taken a little trouble to inquire into the real state of affairs among the Indians, he would, instead of ordering Pike to bring the Indian regiments out of Indian Territory, have seen to it that they stayed at home and that danger of civil strife among the Cherokees was prevented by the presence of three white regiments, as originally promised. At this particular time as it happened, Pike was not called upon to move his force; for the order so to move did not reach him until after the Federals, “pursuing General Price, had invaded Arkansas.”[580]

[From Office of Indian Affairs]