The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War

By Annie Heloise Abel, Ph.D.

Professor of History, Smith College

1919

VI. GENERAL PIKE IN CONTROVERSY WITH GENERAL HINDMAN

The retrograde movement of Colonel Salomon and the white auxiliary of
the Indian Expedition was peculiarly unfortunate and ill-timed since,
owing to circumstances now to be related in detail, the Confederates
had really no forces at hand at all adequate to repel invasion. On the
thirty-first of May, as earlier narrated in this work, General Hindman
had written to General Pike instructing him to move his entire
infantry force of whites and Woodruff's single six-gun battery to
Little Rock without delay. In doing this, he admitted that, while
it was regrettable that Pike's force in Indian Territory should be
reduced, it was imperative that Arkansas should be protected, her
danger being imminent. He further ordered, that Pike should supply the
command to be sent forward with subsistence for thirty days, should
have the ammunition transported in wagons, and should issue orders
that not a single cartridge be used on the journey.[392]

To one of Pike's proud spirit, such orders could be nothing short
of galling. He had collected his force and everything he possessed
appertaining to it at the cost of much patience, much labor, much
expense. Untiring vigilance had alone made possible the formation of
his brigade and an unselfish willingness to advance his own funds had
alone furnished it with quartermaster and commissary stores. McCulloch
and Van Dorn[393]

[Footnote 392: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 934.]

each in turn had diverted his supplies from their destined
course, yet he had borne with it all, uncomplainingly. He had even
broken faith with the Indian nations at Van Dorn's instance; for,
contrary to the express terms of the treaties that he had negotiated,
he had taken the red men across the border, without their express
consent, to fight in the Pea Ridge campaign. And with what result?
Base ingratitude on the part of Van Dorn, who, in his official report
of the three day engagement, ignored the help rendered[394] and left
Pike to bear the stigma[395] of Indian atrocities alone.

With the thought of that ingratitude still rankling in his breast,
Pike noted additional features of Hindman's first instructions to him,
which were, that he should advance his Indian force to the northern
border of Indian Territory and hold it there to resist invasion from
Kansas. He was expected to do this unsupported

[Footnote 393: Van Dorn would seem to have been a gross offender in
this respect. Similar charges were made against him by other men and
on other occasions [_Official Records_, vol. liii, supplement,
825].]

[Footnote 394: It was matter of common report that Van Dorn despised
Pike's Indians [Ibid., vol. xiii, 814-816]. The entire Arkansas
delegation in Congress, with the exception of A.H. Garland, testified
to Van Dorn's aversion for the Indians [Ibid., 815].]

[Footnote 395: How great was that stigma can be best understood from
the following: "The horde of Indians scampered off to the mountains
from whence they had come, having murdered and scalped many of the
Union wounded. General Pike, their leader, led a feeble band to the
heights of Big Mountain, near Elk Horn, where he was of no use to
the battle of the succeeding day, and whence he fled, between roads,
through the woods, disliked by the Confederates and detested by the
Union men; to be known in history as a son of New Hampshire--a poet
who sang of flowers and the beauties of the sunset skies, the joys of
love and the hopes of the soul--and yet one who, in the middle of the
19th century, led a merciless, scalping, murdering, uncontrollable
horde of half-tame savages in the defense of slavery--themselves
slave-holders--against that Union his own native State was then
supporting, and against the flag of liberty. He scarcely struck a blow
in open fight.... His service was servile and corrupt; his flight
was abject, and his reward disgrace."--_War Papers and Personal
Recollections of the Missouri Commandery_, 232.]

by white troops, the need of which, for moral as well as for physical
strength, he had always insisted upon.

It is quite believable that Van Dorn was the person most responsible
for Hindman's interference with Pike, although, of course, the very
seriousness and desperateness of Hindman's situation would have
impelled him to turn to the only place where ready help was to be had.
Three days prior to the time that Hindman had been assigned to the
Trans-Mississippi Department, Roane, an old antagonist of Pike[396]
and the commander to whose immediate care Van Dorn had confided
Arkansas,[397] had asked of Pike at Van Dorn's suggestion[398] all the
white forces he could spare, Roane having practically none of his own.
Pike had refused the request, if request it was, and in refusing it,
had represented how insufficient his forces actually were for purposes
of his own department and how exceedingly difficult had been the task,
which was his and his alone, of getting them together. At the time of
writing he had not a single dollar of public money for his army and
only a very limited amount of ammunition and other supplies.[399]

Pike received Hindman's communication of May 31 late in the afternoon
of June 8 and he replied to it that same evening immediately after
he had made arrangements[400] for complying in part with its
requirements.

The reply[401] as it stands in the records today is a strong
indictment of the Confederate management of Indian

[Footnote 396: Pike had fought a duel with Roane, Roane having
challenged him because he had dared to criticize his conduct in
the Mexican War [Hallura, _Biographical and Pictorial History of
Arkansas_, vol. i, 229; _Confederate Military History_, vol.
x, 99].]

[Footnote 397: Maury to Roane, May 11, 1862, _Official Records_,
vol. xiii, 827.]

[Footnote 398: Maury to Pike, May 19, 1862, Ibid.]

[Footnote 399: Pike to Roane, June 1, 1862, Ibid., 935-936.]

[Footnote 400: General Orders, June 8, 1862, Ibid., 943.]

[Footnote 401: Pike to Hindman, June 8, 1862, Ibid., 936-943.]

affairs in the West and should be dealt with analytically, yet also as
a whole; since no paraphrase, no mere synopsis of contents could ever
do the subject justice. From the facts presented, it is only too
evident that very little had been attempted or done by the Richmond
authorities for the Indian regiments. Neither officers nor men had
been regularly or fully paid. And not all the good intentions, few as
they were, of the central government had been allowed realization.
They had been checkmated by the men in control west of the
Mississippi. In fact, the army men in Arkansas had virtually exploited
Pike's command, had appropriated for their own use his money, his
supplies, and had never permitted anything to pass on to Indian
Territory, notwithstanding that it had been bought with Indian funds,
"that was fit to be sent anywhere else." The Indian's portion was the
"refuse," as Pike so truly, bitterly, and emphatically put it, or, in
other words of his, the "crumbs" that fell from the white man's table.

Pike's compliance with Hindman's orders was only partial and he
offered not the vestige of an apology that it was so. What he did send
was Dawson's[402] infantry regiment and Woodruff's battery which went
duly on to Little Rock with the requisite thirty days' subsistence and
the caution that not a single cartridge was to be fired along the way.
The caution Pike must have repeated in almost ironical vein; for the
way to Little Rock lay through Indian Territory and cartridges like
everything else under Pike's control had been collected solely for its
defense.

Respecting the forward movement of the Indian troops, Pike made not
the slightest observation in his

[Footnote 402: C.L. Dawson of the Nineteenth Regiment of Arkansas
Volunteers had joined Pike at Fort McCulloch in April [_Fort Smith
Papers_].]

reply. His silence was ominous. Perhaps it was intended as a warning
to Hindman not to encroach too far upon his department; but that is
mere conjecture; inasmuch as Pike had not yet seen fit to question
outright Hindman's authority over himself. As if anticipating an echo
from Little Rock of criticisms that were rife elsewhere, he ventured
an explanation of his conduct in establishing himself in the extreme
southern part of Indian Territory and towards the west and in
fortifying on an open prairie, far from any recognized base.[403] He
had gone down into the Red River country, he asserted, in order to be
near Texas where supplies might be had in abundance and where, since
he had no means of defence, he would be safe from attack. He deplored
the seeming necessity of merging his department in another and larger
one. His reasons were probably many but the one reason he stressed
was, for present purposes, the best he could have offered. It
was, that the Indians could not be expected to render to him as a
subordinate the same obedience they had rendered to him as the chief
officer in command. Were his authority to be superseded in any degree,
the Indians would naturally infer that his influence at Richmond had
declined, likewise his power to protect them and their interests.

During the night Pike must have pondered deeply

[Footnote 403: His enemies were particularly scornful of his work
in this regard. They poked fun at him on every possible occasion.
Edwards, in _Shelby and His Men_, 63, but echoed the general
criticism,

"Pike, also a Brigadier, had retreated with his Indian contingent out
of North West Arkansas, unpursued, through the Cherokee country, the
Chickasaw country, and the country of the Choctaws, two hundred and
fifty miles to the southward, only halting on the 'Little Blue', an
unknown thread of a stream, twenty miles from Red river, where he
constructed fortifications on the open prairie, erected a saw-mill
remote from any timber, and devoted himself to gastronomy and poetic
meditation, with elegant accompaniments..."]

over things omitted from his reply to Hindman and over all that was
wanting to make his compliance with Hindman's instructions full and
satisfactory. On the ninth, his assistant-adjutant, O.F. Russell,
prepared a fairly comprehensive report[404] of the conditions in and
surrounding his command. Pike's force,[405] so the report stated, was
anything but complete. With Dawson gone, there would be in camp, of
Arkansas troops, one company of cavalry and one of artillery and, of
Texas, two companies of cavalry. When men, furloughed for the wheat
harvest, should return, there would be "in addition two regiments
and one company of cavalry, and one company of artillery, about 80
strong."[406] The withdrawal of white troops from the Territory would
be interpreted by the Indians to mean its abandonment.

Of the Indian contingent, Russell had this to say:

The two Cherokee regiments are near the Kansas line, operating on
that frontier. Col. Stand Watie has recently had a skirmish there,
in which, as always, he and his men fought gallantly, and were
successful. Col. D.N. McIntosh's Creek Regiment is under orders to
advance up the Verdigris, toward the Santa Fe road. Lieut. Col.
Chilly McIntosh's Creek Battalion, Lieut. Col. John Jumper's
Seminole Battalion, and Lieut. Col. J.D. Harris' Chickasaw
Battalion are under orders, and part of them now in motion toward
the Salt Plains, to take Fort Larned, the post at Walnut Creek,
and perhaps Fort Wise, and intercept trains going to New Mexico.
The First Choctaw (new)[407] Regiment, of Col. Sampson Folsom,
and the Choctaw Battalion (three companies), of Maj. Simpson (N.)
Folsom, are at Middle Boggy, 23 miles northeast of this point.
They were under orders to march northward to

[Footnote 404: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 943-945.]

[Footnote 405: For tabulated showing of Pike's brigade, see
Ibid., 831.]

[Footnote 406: Compare Russell's statement with Hindman's
[Ibid., 30]. See also Maury to Price, March 22, 1862
[Ibid., vol. viii, 798].]

[Footnote 407: The parentheses appear here as in the original.]

the Salt Plains and Santa Fe road; but the withdrawal of Colonel
Dawson's regiment prevents that, and the regiment is now ordered
to take position here, and the battalion to march to and take
position at Camp McIntosh, 17 miles this side of Fort Cobb, where,
with Hart's Spies, 40 in number, it will send out parties to
the Wichita Mountains and up the False Wichita, and prevent, if
possible, depredations on the frontier of Texas.

The First Choctaw and Chickasaw Regiment, of Col. Douglas H.
Cooper, goes out of service on the 25th and 26th of July. It is
now encamped 11 miles east of here.... The country to the westward
is quiet, all the Comanches this side of the Staked Plains being
friendly, and the Kiowas[408] having made peace, and selected
a home to live at on Elk Creek, not far from the site of Camp
Radziwintski, south of the Wichita Mountains.

The Indian troops have been instructed, if the enemy[409] invades
the country, to harass him, and impede his progress by every
possible means, and, falling back here as he advances, to assist
in holding this position against him.

Included in Russell's report there might well have been much
interesting data respecting the condition of the troops that Pike
was parting with; for it can scarcely be said that he manifested any
generosity in sending them forth. He obeyed the letter of his order
and ignored its spirit. He permitted no guns to be taken out of the
Territory that had been paid for with money that he had furnished.
Dawson's regiment had not its full quota of men, but that was scarcely
Pike's fault. Neither was it his fault that its equipment was so
sadly below par that it could make but very slow progress on the nine
hundred mile march between Fort McCulloch and Little Rock. Moreover,
the health of the

[Footnote 408: Pike had just received assurances of the friendly
disposition of the Kiowas [Bickel to Pike, June 1, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 936].]

[Footnote 409: The enemy in mind was the Indian Expedition. Pike had
heard that Sturgis had been removed "on account of his tardiness in
not invading the Indian country...." [Ibid., 944].]

men was impaired, their duties, especially the "fort duties, throwing
up intrenchments, etc.,"[410] had been very fatiguing. Pike had no
wagons to spare them for the trip eastward. So many of his men had
obtained furloughs for the harvest season and every company, in
departing, had taken with it a wagon,[411] no one having any thought
that there would come a call decreasing Pike's command.

So slowly and laboriously did Dawson's regiment progress that Hindman,
not hearing either of it or of Woodruff's battery, which was slightly
in advance, began to have misgivings as to the fate of his orders of
May 31. He, therefore, repeated them in substance, on June 17, with
the additional specific direction that Pike should "move at once to
Fort Gibson." That order Pike received June 24, the day following his
issuance of instructions to his next in command, Colonel D.H. Cooper,
that he should hasten to the country north of the Canadian and there
take command of all forces except Chief Jumper's.

The receipt of Hindman's order of June 17 was the signal for Pike
to pen another lengthy letter[412] of description and protest.
Interspersed through it were his grievances, the same that were
recited in the letter of June 8, but now more elaborately dwelt upon.
Pike was getting irritable. He declared that he had done all he could
to expedite the movement of his troops. The odds were unquestionably
against him. His Indians were doing duty in different places. Most
of the men of his white cavalry force were off on furlough. Their
furloughs would not expire until the

[Footnote 410: Dawson to Hindman, June 20, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 945-946.]

[Footnote 411: Dawson had allowed his wagons to go "of his own motion"
[Pike to Hindman, June 24, 1862, Ibid., 947].]

[Footnote 412:--Ibid., 947-950.]

twenty-fifth and not until the twenty-seventh could they be
proceeded against as deserters. Not until that date, too, would the
reorganization, preliminary to marching, be possible. He was short of
transportation and half of what he had was unserviceable.

Of his available Indian force, he had made what disposition to
him seemed best. He had ordered the newly-organized First Choctaw
Regiment, under Colonel Sampson Folsom, to Fort Gibson and had
assigned Cooper to the command north of the Canadian, which meant,
of course, the Cherokee country. Cooper's own regiment was the First
Choctaw and Chickasaw, of which, two companies, proceeding from
Scullyville, had already posted themselves in the upper part of the
Indian Territory, where also were the two Cherokee regiments, Watie's
and Drew's. The remaining eight companies of the First Choctaw and
Chickasaw were encamped near Fort McCulloch and would have, before
moving elsewhere, to await the reorganization of their regiment, now
near at hand. However, Cooper was not without hope that he could
effect reorganization promptly and take at least four companies
to join those that had just come from Scullyville. There were six
companies in the Chickasaw Battalion, two at Fort Cobb and four on the
march to Fort McCulloch; but they would all have to be left within
their own country for they were averse to moving out of it and were
in no condition to move. The three companies of the Choctaw Battalion
would also have to be left behind in the south for they had no
transportation with which to effect a removal. The Creek commands,
D.N. McIntosh's Creek Regiment, Chilly McIntosh's Creek Battalion, and
John Jumper's Seminole Battalion, were operating in the west, along

the Santa Fe Trail and towards Forts Larned and Wise.

June 17 might be said to mark the beginning of the real controversy
between Pike and Hindman; for, on that day, not only did Hindman
reiterate the order to hurry that aroused Pike's ire but he encroached
upon Pike's prerogative in a financial particular that was bound,
considering Pike's experiences in the past, to make for trouble.
Interference with his commissary Pike was determined not to brook,
yet, on June 17, Hindman put N. Bart Pearce in supreme control at
Fort Smith as commissary, acting quartermaster, and acting ordnance
officer.[413] His jurisdiction was to extend over northwestern
Arkansas and over the Indian Territory. Now Pike had had dealings
already with Pearce and thought that he knew too well the limits of
his probity. Exactly when Pike heard of Pearce's promotion is not
quite clear; but, on the twenty-third, Hindman sent him a conciliatory
note explaining that his intention was "to stop the operations of the
commissaries of wandering companies in the Cherokee Nation, who"
were "destroying the credit of the Confederacy by the floods of
certificates they" issued and not "to restrict officers acting under"
Pike's orders.[414] All very well, but Pearce had other ideas as to
the functions of his office and lost no time in apprising various
people of them. His notes[415] to Pike's officers were most
impertinently prompt. They were sent out on the twenty-fourth of June
and on the twenty-sixth Pike reported[416] the whole history of his
economic embarrassments to the Secretary of War.[417]

[Footnote 413: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 967.]

[Footnote 414:--Ibid., 946.]

[Footnote 415:--Ibid., 968, 968-969, 969.]

[Footnote 416:--Ibid., 841-844.]

[Footnote 417: George W. Randolph.]

His indignation must have been immense; but whether righteously so or
not, it was for others higher up to decide. That Pike had some sort of
a case against the men in Arkansas there can be no question. The tale
he told Secretary Randolph was a revelation such as would have put
ordinary men, if involved at all, to deepest shame. Hindman, perforce,
was the victim of accumulated resentment; for he, personally, had
done only a small part of that of which Pike complained. In the main,
Pike's report simply furnished particulars in matters, such as the
despoiling him of his hard-won supplies, of which mention has already
been made; and his chief accusation was little more than hinted at,
the gist of it being suggested in some of his concluding sentences:

... I struggled for a good while before I got rid of the curse of
dependence for subsistence, transportation, and forage on officers
at Fort Smith. I cannot even get from that place the supplies I
provide myself and hardly my own private stores. My department
quartermaster and commissary are fully competent to purchase what
we need, and I mean they shall do it. I have set my face against
all rascality and swindling and keep contractors in wholesome
fear, and have made it publicly known by advertisement that I
prefer to purchase of the farmer and producer and do not want any
contractors interposed between me and them. My own officers will
continue to purchase subsistence, transportation, forage, and
whatever else I need until I am ordered to the contrary by you,
and when that order comes it will be answered by my resignation.
Mr. White's[418] contract will not be acted under here. I have
beef enough on hand and engaged, and do not want any from him. I
have had to buy bacon at 20 to 26 cents, and he ought to be made
to pay every cent of the difference between that price and fifteen
cents. I also strenuously object to receiving mules or anything
else purchased at Fort Smith.

[Footnote 418: "George E. White, formerly a partner, I believe, of
Senator Oldham of Texas..."--_Official Records_, vol. xiii, 842.]

I could get up a mule factory now with the skeletons I have,
and there are a few miles from here 600 or 800 sent up by Major
Clark[419] in even a worse plight.

I know nothing about Major Pearce as a quartermaster nor of
any right Major-General Hindman has to make him one. He is an
assistant commissary of subsistence, with the rank of major, and
Major Quesenbury, my brigade or department quartermaster, is major
by an older commission....

While I am here there will be no fine contracts for mules, hay,
keeping of mules, beef on the hoof at long figures, or anything of
the kind. Fort Smith is very indignant at this, and out of this
grief grows the anxious desire of many patriots to see me resign
the command of this country or be removed....[420]

Subsequent communications[421] from Pike to Randolph reported the
continued despoiling of his command and the persistent infringement of
Pearce upon his authority, in consequence of which, the Indians were
suffering from lack of forage, medicines, clothing, and food.[422]
Pearce, in his turn, reported[423] to Hindman Pike's obstinacy and
intractability and he even cast insinuations against his honesty. Pike
was openly defying the man who claimed to be his superior officer,
Hindman. He was resisting his authority at every turn and had already
boldly declared,[424] with special reference to Clarkson, of course,
that

No officer of the Missouri State Guard, whatever his rank, unless
he has a command adequate to his rank, can ever exercise or assume
any military authority in the Indian country, and much less assume
command of any Confederate troops or

[Footnote 419: George W. Clark, _Official Records_, vol. xiii.]

[Footnote 420: For an equally vigorous statement on this score, see
Pike to Randolph, June 30, 1862 [Ibid., 849].]

[Footnote 421:--Ibid., 846-847, 848-849, 850-851, 852.]

[Footnote 422: Chilly McIntosh to Pike, June 9, 1862, Ibid.,
853; Pike to Chilly McIntosh, July 6, 1862, Ibid., 853-854.]

[Footnote 423: July 5, 1862 [Ibid., 963-965]; July 8, 1862
[Ibid., 965-967].]

[Footnote 424:--Ibid., 844-845.]

compare rank with any officer in the Confederate service. The
commissioned colonels of Indian regiments rank precisely as if
they commanded regiments of white men, and will be respected and
obeyed accordingly.

With the same confidence in the justness of his own cause, he
called[425] Pearce's attention to an act of Congress which seemed "to
have escaped his observation," and which Pike considered conclusively
proved that the whole course of action of his enemies was absolutely
illegal.

In some of his contentions, General Pike was most certainly on strong
ground and never on stronger than when he argued that the Indians were
organized, in a military way, for their own protection and for the
defence of their own country. Since first they entered the Confederate
service, many had been the times that that truth had been brought home
to the authorities and not by Pike[426] alone but by several of his
subordinates and most often by Colonel Cooper.[427] The Indians had
many causes of dissatisfaction and sometimes they murmured pretty
loudly. Not even Pike's arrangements satisfied them all and his
inexplicable conduct in establishing his headquarters at Fort
McCulloch was exasperating beyond measure to the Cherokees.[428] Why,
if he were really sincere in saying that his supreme duty was the
defence of Indian Territory, did he not place himself where he could
do something, where, for instance, he could take precautions against
invasions from

[Footnote 425: Pike to Pearce, July 1, 1862, _Official Records_,
vol. xiii, 967.]

[Footnote 426: One of the best statements of the case by Pike is to
be found in a letter from him to Stand Watie, June 27, 1862
[Ibid., 952].]

[Footnote 427: For some of Cooper's statements, illustrative of his
position, see his letter to Pike, February 10, 1862 [Ibid.,
896] and that to Van Dorn, May 6, 1862 [ibid., 824].]

[Footnote 428: It was at the express wish of Stand Watie and Drew that
Hindman placed Clarkson in the Cherokee country [Carroll to Pike, June
27, 1862, ibid., 952].]

Kansas? And why, when the unionist Indian Expedition was threatening
Fort Gibson, Tahlequah, and Cherokee integrity generally, did he not
hasten northward to resist it? Chief Ross, greatly aggrieved because
of Pike's delinquency in this respect, addressed[429] himself to
Hindman and he did so in the fatal days of June.

In addressing General Hindman as Pike's superior officer, John Ross
did something more than make representations as to the claims, which
his nation in virtue of treaty guaranties had upon the South. He urged
the advisability of allowing the Indians to fight strictly on the
defensive and of placing them under the command of someone who would
"enjoy their confidence." These two things he would like to have done
if the protective force, which the Confederacy had promised, were not
forthcoming. The present was an opportune time for the preferring
of such a request. At least it was opportune from the standpoint of
Pike's enemies and traducers.[430] It fitted into Hindman's scheme of
things exactly; for he had quite lost patience, granting he had ever
had any, with the Arkansas poet. It was not, however, within his
province to remove him; but it was within his power so to tantalize
him that he could render his position as brigade and department
commander, intolerable. That he proceeded to do. Pike's quick
sensibilities were not proof against such treatment and he soon lost
his temper.

His provocations were very great. As was perfectly

[Footnote 429: Ross to Hindman, June 25, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 950-951. A little while before, Ross had
complained, in a similar manner, to President Davis [Ibid.,
824-825].]

[Footnote 430: Pike had his traducers. The Texans and Arkansans
circulated infamous stories about him. See his reference to the same
in a letter to Hindman, July 3, 1862 [Ibid., 955].]

natural, the Confederate defeat at Locust Grove counted heavily
against him.[431] On the seventh of July, Hindman began a new attack
upon him by making requisition for his ten Parrott guns.[432] They
were needed in Arkansas. On the eighth of July came another attack in
the shape of peremptory orders, two sets of them, the very tone of
which was both accusatory and condemnatory. What was apparently the
first[433] set of orders reached Pike by wire on the eleventh of July
and commanded him to hurry to Fort Smith, travelling night and day,
there to take command of all troops in the Indian Territory and in
Carroll's district.[434] Almost no organization, charged Hindman, was
in evidence among the Confederate forces in the upper Indian country
and a collision between the two Cherokee regiments was impending. Had
he been better informed he might have said that there was only one of
them now in existence.

The second[435] set of orders, dated July 8, was of a tenor much the
same, just as insulting, just as peremptory. The only difference of
note was the substitution of the upper Indian country for Fort Smith
as a point for headquarters. In the sequel, however, the second
set proved superfluous; for the first so aroused Pike's ire that,
immediately upon its receipt, he prepared his resignation and sent it
to Hindman for transmission to Richmond.[436]

Hindman's position throughout this affair was not

[Footnote 431: July 3.]

[Footnote 432: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 854.]

[Footnote 433: First, probably only in the sense that it was the first
to be received.]

[Footnote 434: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 857.]

[Footnote 435:--Ibid., 856-857.]

[Footnote 436: Pike to Hindman, July 15, 1862 [Ibid., 858];
Pike to Secretary of War, July 20, 1862 [Ibid., 856].]

destitute of justification.[437] One has only to read his general
reports to appreciate how heavy was the responsibility that rested
upon him. It was no wonder that he resorted to questionable expedients
to accomplish his purposes, no wonder that he instituted martial
law[438] in a seemingly refractory country, no wonder that he took
desperate measures to force Pike to activity. Pike's leisurely way of
attending to business was in itself an annoyance and his leisurely way
of moving over the country was a positive offence. He had been ordered
to proceed with dispatch to Fort Gibson. The expiration of a month and
a half found him still at Fort McCulloch. He really did not move from
thence until, having sent in his resignation, he made preparations for
handing over his command to Colonel Cooper. That he intended to do at
some point on the Canadian and thither he wended his way.[439] By the
twenty-first of July, "he had succeeded in getting as far as Boggy
Depot, a distance of 25 miles;[440] but then he had not left Fort
McCulloch until that very morning.[441]

Pike's definite break with Hindman was, perhaps, more truly a
consummation of Hindman's wishes than of Pike's own. On the third
of July, as if regretting his previous show of temper, he wrote to
Hindman a long letter,[442] conciliatory in tone throughout. He
discussed the issues between them in a calm and temperate spirit,

[Footnote 437: In September, Hindman declared he had never had any
knowledge of the order creating Pike's department [_Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 978].]

[Footnote 438: He instituted martial law, June 30, 1862 and, although
he believed he had precedent in Pike's own procedure, Pike criticized
him severely. See Pike to J.S. Murrow, Seminole Agent, October 25,
1862, Ibid., 900-902. Hindman had authorized Pearce, June 17,
1862, to exercise martial law in the cities of Fort Smith and Van
Buren and their environs [Ibid., 835].]

[Footnote 439: Pike to Hindman, July 15, 1862.]

[Footnote 440: Hindman's Report [_Official Records_, vol. xiii,
40].]

[Footnote 441: Pike to the Secretary of War, July 20, 1862
[Ibid., 859].]

[Footnote 442:--Ibid., 954-962.]

changing nothing as regarded the facts but showing a willingness to
let bygones be bygones. Considering how great had been his chagrin,
his indignation, and his poignant sense of ingratitude and wrong, he
rose to heights really noble. He seemed desirous, even anxious, that
the great cause in which they were both so vitally interested should
be uppermost in both their minds always and that their differences,
which, after all, were, comparatively speaking, so very petty, should
be forgotten forever. It was in the spirit of genuine helpfulness that
he wrote and also in the spirit of great magnanimity. Pike was a man
who studied the art of war zealously, who knew the rules of European
warfare, and a man, who, even in war times, could read Napier's
_Peninsular War_ and succumb to its charm. He was a classicist
and a student very much more than a man of action. Could those around
him, far meaner souls many of them than he, have only known and
remembered that and, remembering it, have made due allowances for his
vagaries, all might have been well. His generous letter of the third
of July failed utterly of its mission; but not so much, perhaps,
because of Hindman's inability to appreciate it or unwillingness
to meet its writer half-way, as because of the very seriousness
of Hindman's own military situation, which made all compromises
impossible. The things he felt it incumbent upon him to do must be
done his way or not at all. The letter of July 3 could scarcely have
been received before the objectionable orders of July 8 had been
planned.

The last ten days of July were days of constant scouting on the part
of both the Federal and Confederate Indians but nothing of much
account resulted. Colonel W.A. Phillips of the Third Indian Home
Guard,

whose command had been left by Furnas to scout around Tahlequah and
Fort Gibson, came into collision with Stand Watie's force on the
twenty-seventh at Bayou Bernard, seven miles, approximately, from the
latter place. The Confederate Cherokees lost considerably in dead
and prisoners.[443] Phillips would have followed up his victory by
pursuing the foe even to the Verdigris had not Cooper, fearing that
his forces might be destroyed in detail, ordered them all south of the
Arkansas and thereby circumvented his enemy's designs. Phillips
then moved northward in the direction of Furnas's main camp on Wolf
Creek.[444]

Pike had his own opinion of Cooper and Watie's daring methods of
fighting and most decidedly disapproved of their attempting to meet
the enemy in the neighborhood of Fort Gibson. That part of the Indian
Territory, according to his view of things, was not capable of
supporting an army. He discounted the ability of his men to conquer,
their equipment being so meagre. He, therefore, persisted in advising
that they should fight only on the defensive. He advised that,
notwithstanding he had a depreciatory[445] regard for the Indian
Expedition, and, both before and after the retrograde movement
of Colonel Salomon, underestimated its size and strength. He Was
confident that Cooper would have inevitably to fall back to the
Canadian, where, as he said, "the defensible country commences." Pike
objected strenuously to the courting of an open battle and, could he
have followed the bent of his own inclinations, "would have sent only

[Footnote 443: Phillips to Furnas, July 27, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 181-182.]

[Footnote 444: Same to same, August 6, 1862, Ibid., 183-184.]

[Footnote 445: Cooper reported that Pike regarded the Indian
Expedition as only a "jayhawking party," and "no credit due" "for
arresting its career" [Cooper to Davis, August 8, 1862, Ibid.,
vol liii, supplement, 821].]

small bodies of mounted Indians and white troops to the
Arkansas."[446]

No doubt it was in repudiation of all responsibility for what Cooper
and Watie might eventually do that he chose soon to bring himself,
through a mistaken notion of justice and honor, into very disagreeable
prominence. Discretion was evidently not Pike's cardinal virtue. At
any rate, he was quite devoid of it when he issued, July 31, his
remarkable circular address[447] "to the Chiefs and People of the
Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, Chickasaws, and Choctaws." In that
address, he notified them that he had resigned his post as department
commander and dilated upon the causes that had moved him to action. He
shifted all blame for failure to keep faith with the Indian nations
from himself and from the Confederate government to the men upon whom
he steadfastly believed it ought to rest. He deprecated the plundering
that would bring its own retribution and begged the red men to be
patient and to keep themselves true to the noble cause they had
espoused.

Remain true, I earnestly advise you, to the Confederate States
and yourselves. Do not listen to any men who tell you that the
Southern States will abandon you. They will not do it. If the
enemy has been able to come into the Cherokee country it has not
been the fault of the President; and it is but the fortune of war,
and what has happened in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee,
and even Arkansas. We have not been able to keep the enemy from
our frontier anywhere; but in the interior of our country we can
defeat them always.

Be not discouraged, and remember, above all things, that you can
have nothing to expect from the enemy. They will have no mercy on
you, for they are more merciless than wolves and more rapacious.
Defend your country with what help you

[Footnote 446: Pike to the Secretary of War, July 20, 1862,
_Official Records_, vol. xiii, 859-860.]

[Footnote 447:--Ibid., 869-871.]

can get until the President can send you troops. If the enemy ever
comes to the Canadian he cannot go far beyond that river. The war
must soon end since the recent victories near Richmond, and no
treaty of peace will be made that will give up any part of your
country to the Northern States. If I am not again placed in
command of your country some other officer will be in whom you
can confide. And whatever may be told you about me, you will soon
learn that if I have not defended the whole country it was because
I had not the troops with which to do it; that I have cared for
your interest alone; that I have never made you a promise that I
did not expect, and had not a right to expect, to be able to keep,
and that I have never broken one intentionally nor except by the
fault of others.

The only fair way to judge Pike's farewell address to his Indian
charges is to consider it in the light of its effect upon them,
intended and accomplished.[448] So little reason has the red man had,
in the course of his long experience with his white brother, to trust
him that his faith in that white brother rests upon a very slender
foundation. Pike knew the Indian character amazingly well and knew
that he must retain for the Confederacy the Indian's confidence at all
cost. Were he to fail in that, his entire diplomatic work would have
been done in vain. To stay the Cherokees in their desertion to
the North was of prime necessity. They had already gone over in
dangerously large numbers and must be checked before other tribes
followed in their wake. Very possibly Pike had been made aware

[Footnote 448: Pike gives this as the effect of his proclamation:

"... it effected what I desired. The Choctaw force was immediately
increased to two full regiments; the Creek force to two regiments
and two companies; the Seminole force was doubled; the Chickasaws
reorganized five companies and a sixth is being made up. The Indians
looked to me alone, and for me to vindicate myself was to vindicate
the Government. We lost half the Cherokees solely because their moneys
and supplies were intercepted..."--Ibid., 904-905. See also
Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862. Another effect was, the creation of
a prejudice self-confessed in General Holmes's mind against Pike.]

of Chief Ross's complaint to Hindman. If so, it was all important
that he should vindicate himself. So maligned had he been that his
sensitiveness on the score of the discharge of his duties was very
natural, very pardonable. After all he had done for the Confederacy
and for the Indians, it seemed hardly right that he should be blamed
for all that others had failed to do. His motives were pure and could
not be honestly impugned by anybody. The address was an error of
judgment but it was made with the best of intentions.

And so the authorities at Richmond seem to have regarded it; that is,
if the reference in President Davis's letter[449] to Pike of August 9
is to this affair. Pike wrote to the president on the same day that he
started his address upon its rounds, but that letter,[450] in which
he rehearsed the wrongs he had been forced to endure, also those more
recently inflicted upon him, did not reach Richmond until September
20. His address was transmitted by Colonel D.H. Cooper, who had
taken great umbrage at it and who now charged the author with having
violated an army regulation, which prohibited publications concerning
Confederate troops.[451] Davis took the matter under advisement and
wrote to Pike a mild reprimand. It was as follows:

Richmond, Va., August 9, 1862.

Brig. Gen. Albert Pike,

Camp McCulloch, Choctaw Nation:

General: Your communication of July 3 is at hand. I regret the
necessity of informing you that it is an impropriety for an
officer of the Army to address the President through a printed
circular.[452] Under the laws for the government of

[Footnote 449: Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 822.]

[Footnote 450:--Ibid., vol. xiii, 860-869.]

[Footnote 451:--Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 820-821.]

[Footnote 452: It is possible that the printed circular here referred
to was some other one that was directly addressed to the president but
none such has been found.]

the Army the publication of this circular was a grave military
offense, and if the purpose was to abate an evil, by making an
appeal that would be heeded by me, the mode taken was one of the
slowest and worst that could have been adopted.

Very respectfully, yours, Jefferson Davis.

The sympathy of Secretary Randolph was conceivably with Pike; for, on
the fourteenth of July, he wrote assuring him that certain general
orders had been sent out by the Adjutant and Inspector General's
Office which were "intended to prevent even the major-general
commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department from diverting from their
legitimate destination (the Department of Indian Territory) munitions
of war and supplies procured by 'him' for that department."[453]
That did not prevent Hindman's continuing his pernicious practices,
however. On the seventeenth he demanded[454] that Pike deliver to
him his best battery and Pike, discouraged and yet thoroughly beside
himself with ill-suppressed rage,[455] sent it to him.[456] At
the same time he insisted that he be immediately relieved of his
command.[457] He could endure the indignities to which he was
subjected no longer. The order for his relief arrived in due course
and also directions for him to report in person at Hindman's
headquarters.[458] He had not then issued his circular; but, as

[Footnote 453: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 903; Pike to
Holmes, December 30, 1862, Pike _Papers_, Library of the
Supreme Council, 33º. Pike did not receive Randolph's letter of July
fourteenth until some time in August and not until after he had had an
interview with Holmes. See Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862.]

[Footnote 454: Official Records, vol. xiii, 970.]

[Footnote 455: This is inferred from the very peculiar _General
Orders_ that issued from Fort McCulloch that selfsame day. They
were sarcastic in the extreme. No general in his right senses would
have issued them. They are to be found, Ibid., 970-973.]

[Footnote 456:--Ibid., 973, 974.]

[Footnote 457:--_Ib id_., 973.]

[Footnote 458: Pike to Hindman, July 31, 1862, Ibid., 973.]

soon as he had, the whole situation changed. He had deliberately put
himself in the wrong and into the hands of his enemies. The address
was, in some respects, the last act of a desperate[459] man. And there
is no doubt that General Pike was desperate. Reports were spreading in
Texas that he was a defaulter to the government and, as he himself in
great bitterness of spirit said, "The incredible villainy of a slander
so monstrous, and so without even any ground for suspicion," was
"enough to warn every honest man not to endeavor to serve his
country."[460]

Not until August 6 did General Pike's circular address reach Colonel
D.H. Cooper, who was then at Cantonment Davis. Cooper wisely
suppressed all the copies he could procure and then, believing Pike to
be either insane or a traitor, ordered his arrest,[461] sending out
an armed force for its accomplishment. Hindman, as soon as notified,
"indorsed and approved" his action.[462] This is his own account of
what he did:

... I approved his action, and ordered General Pike sent to Little
Rock in custody. I also forwarded Colonel Cooper's letter to
Richmond, with an indorsement, asking to withdraw my approval
of General Pike's resignation, that I might bring him before a
court-martial on charges of falsehood, cowardice, and treason. He
was also liable to the penalties prescribed by section 29 of the
act of Congress regulating intercourse with the Indians and to
preserve peace on the frontiers, approved April 8, 1862....

But his resignation had been accepted....[463]

[Footnote 459: And yet, August 1, 1862, Pike wrote to Davis one of the
sanest papers he ever prepared. It was full of sage advice as to the
policy that ought to be pursued in Indian Territory [_Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 871-874].]

[Footnote 460: Pike to S. Cooper, August 3, 1862, Ibid., 975.
See also Pike to Newton, August 3, 1862, Ibid., 976.]

[Footnote 461: D.H. Cooper to Hindman, August 7, 1862, ibid., 977.]

[Footnote 462: Pike to Anderson, October 26, 1862, Ibid., 903.]

[Footnote 463: Hindman's Report, Ibid., 41.]