The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War

By Annie Heloise Abel, Ph.D.

Professor of History, Smith College

1919

VIII. THE RETIREMENT OF GENERAL PIKE

The tragedy at the Wichita agency brought General Pike again to the
fore. His resignation had not been accepted at Richmond as Hindman
supposed was the case at the time he released him from custody. In
fact, as events turned out, it looked as though Hindman were decidedly
more in disrepute there than was Pike. His arbitrary procedure in the
Trans-Mississippi District had been complained of by many persons
besides the one person whom he had so unmercifully badgered.
Furthermore, the circumstances of his assignment to command were being
inquired into and everything divulged was telling tremendously against
him.

The irregularity of Hindman's assignment to command has been already
commented upon in this narrative. Additional details may now be given.
Van Dorn had hopes, on the occasion of his own summons to work farther
east, that Sterling Price would be the one chosen eventually to
succeed him or, at all events, the one to take the chief command of
the Confederate forces in the West. He greatly wished that upon him
and upon him alone his mantle should fall.[497] The filling of the
position by Hindman was to be but tentative, to last only until
Price,[498] perhaps also Van Dorn,

[Footnote 497: Van Dorn to President Davis, June 9, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 831-832.]

[Footnote 498: Price was preferred to H.M. Rector; because Van Dorn
felt that Rector's influence with the people of Arkansas had greatly
declined. The truth was, Governor Rector had become incensed at the
disregard shown for Arkansas by Confederate commanders. In a recent
proclamation, he had announced that the state would henceforth look
out for herself.]

could discuss matters personally with the president and remove the
prejudice believed to be existing in his mind against Price; but the
War Department had quite other plans developed, a rumor of which soon
reached the ears of Van Dorn. It was then he telegraphed, begging
Davis to make no appointment for the present to the command of the
Trans-Mississippi District and informing him that Hindman had been
sent there temporarily.[499] The request came to Richmond too late. An
appointment had already been resolved upon and made. The man chosen
was John Bankhead Magruder, a major-general in the Army of Northern
Virginia. However, as he was not yet ready to take up his new duties,
Hindman was suffered to assume the command in the West; but Magruder's
rights held over. They were held in abeyance, so to speak, temporarily
waived.[500]

The controversy between Pike and Hindman would seem to have impelled
Secretary Randolph to wish to terminate early Magruder's delay; but
Magruder was loath to depart. His lack of enthusiasm ought to have
been enough to convince those sending him that he

[Footnote 499: The orders for Hindman to repair west, issuing from
Beauregard's headquarters, were explicit, not upon the point of the
temporary character of his appointment, but upon that of its having
been made "at the earnest solicitation of the people of Arkansas."
[_Official Records_, vol. x, part ii, 547].]

[Footnote 500: Price, nothing daunted, continued to seek the position
and submitted plans for operations in the West. His importunities
finally forced the inquiry from Davis as to whether Magruder's
appointment had ever been rescinded and whether, since he seemed in
no hurry to avail himself of it, he really wanted the place. Randolph
reported that Magruder had no objection to the service to which he had
been ordered but desired to remain near Richmond until the expected
battle in the neighborhood should have occurred. Randolph then
suggested that Price be tendered the position of second in command
[Randolph to Davis, June 23, 1862, _Official Records_, vol.
xiii, 837], an arrangement that met with Magruder's hearty approval
[Magruder to R.E. Lee, June 26, 1862, Ibid., 845].]

was hardly the man for the place. His acquaintance with
Trans-Mississippi conditions was very superficial, yet even he found
out that they were of a nature to admonish those concerned of their
urgency, especially in the matter of lack of arms.[501] By the
fourteenth of July his indecision was apparently overcome. At any
rate, on that day Randolph wrote Pike that Magruder, the real
commander of the Trans-Mississippi District, would soon arrive at
Little Rock and that the offences of which Pike had had reason to
complain would not be repeated.

Letters travelled slowly in those days and Randolph's comforting
intelligence did not reach Pike in time to avert the catastrophe of
his proclamation and consequent arrest. And it was just as well, all
things considered, for Magruder never reached Little Rock. He was a
man of intemperate habits and, while _en route_, was ordered back
to Richmond to answer "charges of drunkenness and disobedience of
orders."[502] His appointment was thereupon rescinded. The man
selected in his place, to the total ignoring of Price's prior claims,
was Theophilus H. Holmes, a native of North Carolina.[503] President
Davis was still possessed of the notion that frontier affairs could be
best conducted by men who had no local attachments there. Late events
had all too surely lent weight to his theory. Nevertheless, in holding
it, Davis was strictly inconsistent and illogical; for loyalty to
the particular home state constituted the strongest asset that the
Confederacy had. It was the lode-star that had drawn Lee and

[Footnote 501: Magruder to Randolph, July 5, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 851-852.]

[Footnote 502: Clark to Price, July 17, 1862, _Official Records_,
vol. liii, supplement, 816-817.]

[Footnote 503: Wright, _General Officers of C.S.A_., 15-16.]

many another, who cared not a whit for political principles in and
for themselves, from their allegiance to the Union. It was the great
bulwark of the South.

Holmes was ordered west July 16;[504] but, as he had the necessary
preparations to make and various private matters to attend to, August
had almost begun before it proved possible for him to reach Little
Rock.[505] The interval had given Hindman a new lease of official life
and a further extension of opportunity for oppression, which he had
used to good advantage. The new department commander, while yet in
Richmond, had discussed the Pike-Hindman controversy with his superior
officers and had arrived at a conclusion distinctly favorable to Pike.
He frankly confessed as much weeks afterwards. Once in Little Rock,
however, he learned from the Hindman coterie of Pike's Indian
proclamation and immediately veered to Hindman's side.[506] Pike
talked with him, recounted his grievances in a fashion that none could
surpass, but made absolutely no impression upon him. So small a thing
and so short a time had it taken to develop a hostile prejudice in
Holmes's mind, previously unbiased, so deep-seated that it never,
in all the months that followed, knew the slightest diminution.
Conversely and most fortuitously, a friendliness grew up between
Holmes and the man whom he had supplanted that made the former, either
forget the orders given him in Richmond or put so new a construction
upon them that they were rendered nugatory. It was a situation,
exceedingly fortunate for

[Footnote 504: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 855.]

[Footnote 505: He had reached Vicksburg by the thirtieth of July and
from that point he issued his orders assuming the command [ibid.,
860].]

[Footnote 506: Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862 (Appendix);
_Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 121-122.]

the service as a whole, no doubt, but most unhappy for Indian
Territory.

It finally dawned upon Pike that it was useless to argue any longer
upon the matters in dispute between him and Hindman, for Holmes had
pre-judged the case. Moreover, Holmes was beginning to appreciate the
advantage of being in a position where he could, by ignoring Pike's
authority and asserting his own, be much the gainer in a material way.
How he could have reconciled such an attitude with the instructions
he had received from Randolph it is impossible to surmise. The
instructions, whether verbal or written, must have been in full accord
with the secretary's letter to Pike of the fourteenth of July, which,
although Pike was as yet ignorant of it, had explicitly said that no
supplies for Indian Territory should be diverted from their course and
that there should be no interference whatever with Pike's somewhat
peculiar command.[507] All along the authorities in Richmond, their
conflicting departmental regulations to the contrary notwithstanding,
had insisted that the main object of the Indian alliance had been
amply attained when the Indians were found posing as a Home Guard.
Indians were not wanted for any service outside the limits of their
own country. Service outside was to be deprecated, first, last, and
always. Indeed, it was in response to a suggestion from Pike, made in
the autumn of 1861, that the Indian Territory ought to be regarded as
a thing apart, to be held for the Confederacy most certainly but not
to be involved in the warfare outside, that Pike's department had been
created and no subsequent

[Footnote 507: Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862. The same assurance
had apparently been given to Pike in May [_Official Records_,
vol. xiii, 863].]

arrangements for the Trans-Mississippi Department or District,
whichever it may have been at the period, were intended to militate
against that fundamental fact.[508]

Despairing of accomplishing anything by lingering longer in Little
Rock, Pike applied to Holmes for a leave of absence and was granted
it for such time as might have to elapse before action upon his
resignation could be secured.[509] The circumstance of Hindman's
having relieved Pike from duty was thus ignored or passed over in
silence. General Pike had come to Little Rock to see his family[510]
but he now decided upon a visit to Texas. Exactly what he expected to
do there nobody knows; but he undoubtedly had at heart the interests
of his department. He went to Warren first and later to Grayson
County. At the latter place, he made Sherman his private headquarters
and it was from there that he subsequently found it convenient to pass
over again into Indian Territory.

Pike was in Arkansas as late as the nineteenth of August and probably
still there when Randolph's letter of the fourteenth of July, much
delayed, arrived.[511] If angry before, he was now incensed; for he
knew for a certainty at last that Hindman had been a sort of usurper
in the Trans-Mississippi District and, with power emanating from no
one higher than Beauregard, had never legally possessed a flicker of
authority for doing the many insulting things that he had arrogantly
done to him.[512] Next, from some source, came the

[Footnote 508: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 861, 864, 868.]

[Footnote 509: Holmes to the Secretary of War, November 15, 1862
[ibid., 918].]

[Footnote 510: For an account of Pike's movements, see _Confederate
Military History_, vol. x, 126.]

[Footnote 511: Abel, _American Indian as Slaveholder and
Secessionist_, 356.]

[Footnote 512: Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862, "Appendix."]

news that President Davis had refused positively to accept Pike's
resignation.[513] What better proof could anyone want that Pike was
sustained at headquarters? What that view of the matter may have meant
in emboldening him to his later excessively independent actions must
be left to the reader's conjecture. It never occurred to Pike that if
his resignation had been refused, it had probably been refused upon
the supposition that, with Hindman out of the way, all would be well.
One good reason for thinking that that was the Richmond attitude
towards the affair is the fact that no record of anything like
immediate and formal action upon the resignation is forthcoming.
Pike heard that it had been refused and positively, which was very
gratifying; but it is far more likely that it had been put to one side
and purposely; in order that, since Pike was unquestionably the best
man for Indian Territory, all difficulties might be left to adjust
themselves, the less said about Hindman's autocracy the better it
would be for all concerned.

But it was soon apparent that Hindman was not to be put out of the
way. It was to be still possible for him to work mischief in Indian
Territory. With some slight modifications, the Trans-Mississippi
District had been converted into the Trans-Mississippi Department and,
on the twentieth of August, orders[514] issued from

[Footnote 513: There is something very peculiar about the acceptance
or non-acceptance of Pike's resignation. Randolph wrote to Holmes,
October 27, 1862, these words: "... General Pike's resignation having
been accepted, you will be left without a commanding officer in the
Indian Territory..." [_Official Records_, vol. xiii, 906]. A
letter endorsement, made by Randolph, on or later than September 19th,
was to this effect: "General Pike's resignation has not yet been
accepted" [Ibid., liii, supplement, 821], and another, made by
him, November 5th, to this: "Accept General Pike's resignation, and
notify him of it" [Ibid., 822].]

[Footnote 514: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 877.]

Little Rock, arranging for an organization into three districts, the
Texas, the Louisiana,[515] and the Arkansas. The last-named district
was entrusted to General Hindman and made to embrace Arkansas,
Missouri, and the Indian Territory. Hindman took charge at Fort Smith,
August twenty-fourth and straightway planned such disposition of his
troops as would make for advancing the Confederate line northward of
the Boston Mountains, Fort Smith, and the Arkansas River. The Indian
forces that were concentrated around Forts Smith and Gibson were
shifted to Carey's Ferry that they might cover the military road
southward from Fort Scott. To hold the Cherokee country and to help
maintain order there, a battalion of white cavalry was posted at
Tahlequah and, in each of the nine townships, or districts, of the
country, the formation of a company of home guard, authorized.[516]

The maintaining of order in the Cherokee Nation had come to be
imperatively necessary. John Ross, the Principal Chief, was now
a prisoner within the Federal lines.[517] His capture had been
accomplished by strategy only a short time before and not without
strong suspicion that he had been in collusion with his captors. Early
in August, General Blunt, determined that the country north of the
Arkansas should not be abandoned, notwithstanding the retrograde
movement of Colonel Salomon, had ordered Salomon, now a brigadier in
command of the Indian Expedition, to send

[Footnote 515: Not all of Louisiana was in Holmes's department and
only that part of it west of the Mississippi constituted the District
of Louisiana. Governor Moore had vigorously protested against a
previous division, one that "tacked" "all north of Red River" "onto
Arkansas" [_Official Records_, vol. liii, supplement, 819].]

[Footnote 516:--Ibid., vol. xiii, 46-47.]

[Footnote 517: Nominally, Ross was yet a prisoner, although, as a
matter of fact, he had started upon a mission to Washington, his
desire being to confer with President Lincoln in person regarding the
condition of the Cherokees [Blunt to Lincoln, August 13, 1862, ibid.,
565-566].]

back certain white troops in support of the Indian.[518] Dr.
Gillpatrick, who was the bearer of the orders, imparted verbal
instructions that the expeditionary force so sent should proceed to
Tahlequah and complete what Colonel Phillips had confessed he had not
had sufficient time for, the making of diplomatic overtures to the
Cherokee authorities.[519]

Blunt's expeditionary force had proceeded to Tahlequah and to Park
Hill and there, under the direction of Colonel William F. Cloud, had
seized John Ross and his family, their valuables, also official papers
and the treasury of the Cherokee Nation.[520] The departure of the
Principal Chief had had a demoralizing effect upon the Cherokees;
for, when his restraining influence was removed, likewise the Federal
support, political factions, the Pins, or full-bloods, and the
Secessionists, mostly half-breeds, had been able to indulge their
thirst for vengeance uninterruptedly.[521] Chaos had well-nigh
resulted.

The departure of the expeditionary force had meant more than mere
demoralization among the Indians. It had meant the abandonment of
their country to the Confederates and the Confederates, once realizing
that, delaying nothing, took possession. The secessionist Cherokees
then called a convention, formally deposed John Ross, and elected
Stand Watie as Principal Chief in his stead.[522] Back of all such
revolutionary work, was General Hindman and it was not long before
Hindman himself was in Tahlequah.[523] Once there, he proceeded to set
his stamp upon things with customary

[Footnote 518: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 531-532.]

[Footnote 519:--Ibid., 182.]

[Footnote 520:--Ibid., 552.]

[Footnote 521:--Ibid., 623, 648.]

[Footnote 522: _Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 129.]

[Footnote 523: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 42.]

vigor and order was shortly restored both north and south of the
Arkansas. Guerrilla warfare was summarily suppressed, marauding
stopped, and the perpetrators of atrocities so deservedly punished
that all who would have imitated them lost their taste for such
fiendish sport. As far north as the Moravian Mission, the Confederates
were undeniably in possession; but, at that juncture, Holmes called
Hindman to other scenes. A sort of apathy then settled like a cloud
upon the Cherokee Nation[524]. Almost lifeless, it awaited the next
invader.

One part of the programme, arranged for at the time of the
re-districting of the Trans-Mississippi Department, had called for a
scheme to reenter southwest Missouri. Hindman was to lead but Rains,
Shelby, Cooper, and others were to constitute a sort of outpost and
were to make a dash, first of all, to recover the lead mines at
Granby. The Indians of both armies were drawn thitherward, the one
group to help make the advance, the other to resist it. At Newtonia on
September 30 the first collision of any moment came and it came and it
ended with victory for the Confederates[525]. Cooper's Choctaws and
Chickasaws fought valiantly but so also did Phillips's Cherokees. They
lost heavily in horses[526], their own poorly shod ponies; but they
themselves stood fire well. To rally them after defeat proved,
however, a difficult matter. Their

[Footnote 524: Report of M.W. Buster to Cooper, September 19, 1862,
_Official Records_, vol. xiii, 273-277.]

[Footnote 525: For detailed accounts of the Battle of Newtonia, see
Ibid., 296-307; Edwards, _Shelby and his Men_, 83-89;
Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. i, 355-363; Anderson,
_Life of General Stand Watie_, 20; Crawford, _Kansas in the
Sixties_, 54; _Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 132.]

[Footnote 526: Evan Jones to Dole, January 8, 1864, Indian Office
General Files, Cherokee, 1859-1865, J 401.]

disciplining had yet left much to be desired.[527] Scalping[528] of
the dead took place as on the battle-field of Pea Ridge; but, in other
respects, the Indians of both armies acquitted themselves well and far
better than might have been expected.

The participation of the Indians in the Battle of Newtonia was
significant. Federals and Confederates had alike resorted to it for
purposes other than the red man's own. The Indian Expedition had now
for a surety definitely abandoned the intention for which it was
originally organized and outfitted. As a matter of fact, it had long
since ceased to exist. The military

[Footnote 527: "Since leaving the Fugitive Indians on Dry Wood Creek,
nothing has occurred of material interest other than you will receive
through official Dispatches from the Officers of our Army. The Indians
under Col. Phillips fought well at the Battle Newtonia, they have at
all times stood fire. The great difficulty of their officers is in
keeping them together in a retreat, and should such be necessary on
the field in presence of an enemy in their present state of discipline
it would be almost impossible to again return them to the attack in
good order--Another Battle was fought at this place in which the enemy
were defeated with considerable loss, four of their guns being taken
by a charge of the 2d Kansas.

"In this Contest the Indians behaved well, the officers and soldiers
of our own regiments now freely acknowledge them to be valuable Allies
and in no case have they as yet faltered, untill ordered to retire,
the prejudice once existing against them is fast disappearing from our
Army and it is now generaly conceded that they will do good service
in our border warfare. This we have never doubted and confident as we
have been of their fitness for border warfare we have been content to
await, untill they had proven to the country not only their loyalty
but their ability to fight. Since their organization they have been
engaged in several battles and in every case successfully, one of us
will start in a day or two for Tahlequah and may find something of
interest on the march. We are now in the Cherokee Nation. An effort
is now being made by Gen'l Blunt to punish plundering in the country.
Union People have suffered from this as much as rebels. We have before
called the attention of our Army Officers to this fact; with our
Fifteen Hundred Cherokee Warriors in the service of our government--we
feel that every possible protection should be extended to them as a
people" [Carruth to Coffin, October 25, 1862, enclosed in Coffin to
Dole, November 16, 1862, Indian Office General Files, _Southern
Superintendency_ 1859-1862].]

[Footnote 528: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 894.]

organization, of which the Indian regiments in the Federal service now
formed a part, was Blunt's division of the Army of the Frontier and
it had other objects in view, other tasks to perform, than the simple
recovery of Indian Territory.

It is true General Blunt had set his heart upon that particular
accomplishment but he was scarcely a free agent in the matter. Men
above him in rank had quite other aims and his, perforce, had to be
subordinated to theirs. In August, Blunt had planned a kind of second
Indian Expedition to go south to Fort Gibson and to restore the
refugees to their homes.[529] It had started upon its way when the
powers higher up interposed.

General Schofield, anticipating the renewed endeavor of the
Confederates to push their line forward, had called upon Blunt for
assistance and Blunt had responded with such alacrity as was possible,
considering that many of the troops he summoned for Schofield's use
were those that had been doing hard service within and on the border
of the Indian country for full two months. During all that time their
horses had been deprived entirely of grain feed and had been compelled
to subsist upon prairie grass. They were in a bad way.[530] Once
outside the Indian Territory, the Indian regiments, begrudging the
service demanded of them, were kept more fully occupied than were the
white; for there was

[Footnote 529: "Orders have been given by General Blunt for the Indian
Expedition to go South soon; he says the families of the Indians may
go"--CARRUTH to Coffin, August 29, 1862, enclosed in Coffin to
Mix, August 30, 1862, Indian Office General Files, _Southern
Superintendence_, 1859-1862.

"Enclosed you will find an order from General James G. Blunt in
regard to the removal of the Indian families to their homes. I start
to-morrow for Fort Scott, Kansas, to overtake the second Indian
expedition, commanded by General Blunt in person."--Carruth to Coffin,
September 19, 1862, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, p.
166.]

[Footnote 530: Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. i, 337.]

always scouting[531] for them to do and frequently skirmishing. On
Cowskin River, Phillips's Third Indian and, near Shirley's Ford on
Spring River, Ritchie's Second had each engaged the Confederates with
success, although not entirely with credit. Ritchie had allowed his
men to run amuck even to the extent of attacking their comrades in
Colonel Weer's brigade, which was the second in Blunt's reorganized
army. On account of his lack of control over his troops, Ritchie was
reported upon for dismissal from the service.[532]

The Battle of Newtonia was inconclusive. Subsequent to it, the
Federals were greatly reenforced and, in the first days of October,
Schofield and Blunt, who had both arrived recently upon the scene,
coming to the aid of Salomon, who had been the vanquished one at
Newtonia, were able, in combination with Totten, to deprive Cooper of
all the substantial fruits of victory. He was obliged to fall back
into Arkansas, whither a part of Blunt's division pursued him and
encamped themselves on the old battle-field of Pea Ridge.[533]

Cooper was far from being defeated, however, and, under orders from
Rains, soon made plans for attempting an invasion of Kansas; but
Blunt, ably seconded by Crawford of the Second Kansas, was too quick
for him. He followed him to Maysville and then a little beyond the
Cherokee border to old Fort Wayne in the present Delaware District of
the Nation. There, on the open prairie, a battle was fought,[534] on
October 22, so

[Footnote 531: Phillips to Blunt, September 5, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 614-615.]

[Footnote 532: Weer to Moonlight, September 12, 1862, ibid., 627; Weer
to Blunt, September 24, 1862, ibid., 665-666; Britton, _Civil War on
the Border_, vol. i, 352.]

[Footnote 533: Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. i, 366;
Crawford, _Kansas in the Sixties_, 54.]

[Footnote 534: Anderson, _Life of General Stand Watie_, 20;
Crawford, _Kansas in the_ (cont.)]

disastrous to the Confederates, who, by the by, were greatly
outnumbered, that they fled, a demoralized host, by way of Fort Gibson
across the Arkansas River to Cantonment Davis,[535] Stand Watie and
his doughty Cherokees covering their retreat. The Federals had then
once again an undisputed possession of Indian Territory north of the
Arkansas.[536]

Such was the condition of affairs when Pike emerged from his
self-imposed retreat in Texas. The case for the Confederate cause
among the Indians was becoming desperate. So many things that called
for apprehension were occurring. Cooper and Rains were both in
disgrace, the failure of the recent campaign having been attributed
largely to their physical unfitness for duty. Both were now facing an
investigation of charges for drunkenness. Moreover, the brutal attack
upon and consequent murder of Agent Leeper had just shocked the
community. Hearing of that murder and considering that he was still
the most responsible party in Indian Territory, General Pike made
preparations to proceed forthwith to the Leased District. His plans
were frustrated by his own arrest at the command of General Holmes.

His unfriendliness to Pike was in part due to Holmes's own
necessities. It was to his interest to assert authority over the man
who could procure supplies for Indian Territory and when occasion
offered, if that man should dare to prove obdurate, to ignore his
position altogether. Nevertheless, Holmes had not seen fit in early
October to deny Pike his title of

[Footnote 534: (cont.) _Sixties_, 56-62; Edwards, _Shelby and
his Men, 90; Official Records, vol. xiii, 43, 324. 325, 325-328,
329-331, 331-332, 332-336, 336-337, 759_; Britton, _Civil War on
the Border_, vol. i, _364-375_.]

[Footnote 535: _Official Records, vol. xiii, 765_.]

[Footnote 536: Blunt was ordered "to clean out the Indian country"
[Ibid., 762].]

commander and had personally addressed him by it.[537] Yet all the
time he was encroaching upon that commander's prerogatives, was
withholding his supplies, just as Hindman had done, and was exploiting
Indian Territory, in various ways, for his own purposes. Rumors came
that Pike was holding back munition trains in Texas and then that
he was conspiring with Texan Unionists against the Confederacy. To
further his own designs, Holmes chose to credit the rumors and
made them subserve the one and the same end; for he needed Pike's
ammunition and he wanted Pike himself out of the way. He affected to
believe that Pike was a traitor and, when he reappeared as brigade
commander, to consider that he had unlawfully reassumed his old
functions. Accordingly, he issued an order to Roane,[538] to whom
he had entrusted the Indians, for Pike's arrest; but he had already
called Pike to account for holding back the munition trains and had
ordered him, if the charge were really true, to report in person at
Little Rock.[539]

The order for General Pike's arrest bore date of November 3. Roane,
the man to whom the ungracious task was assigned, was well suited to
it. He had been adjudged by Holmes himself as absolutely worthless
as a commander and, being so, had been sent to take care of the
Indians,[540] a severe commentary upon Holmes's own fitness for
the supreme control of anything that had to do with them or their
concerns. Others had an equally poor opinion of Roane's generalship
and character. John S. Phelps, indeed, was writing at this very time,
the autumn of 1862, to Secretary

[Footnote 537: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 924.]

[Footnote 538:--Ibid., 923, 980, 981.]

[Footnote 539:--Ibid., 904.]

[Footnote 540:--Ibid., 899.]

Stanton in testimony of Roane's unsavory reputation.[541]

The arrest of Pike took place November 14 at Tishomingo in the
Chickasaw country and a detachment of Shelby's brigade was detailed
to convey him to Little Rock.[542] Then, as once before, his reported
resignation saved him from long confinement and from extreme
ignominy. On the fifth of November, President Davis instructed the
adjutant-general to accept Pike's resignation forthwith and five days
thereafter,[543] before the arrest had actually taken place, Holmes
advised Hindman that he had better let Pike go free so soon as he
should leave the Indian country; inasmuch as his resignation was now
an assured thing.[544] Holmes evidently feared to let the release take
place within the limits of Pike's old command; for some of the Indians
were still devotedly attached to him and were still pinning their
faith upon his plighted word. John Jumper and his Seminole braves were
among those most loyal to Pike; and Holmes was afraid that wholesale
desertions from their ranks would follow inevitably Pike's
degradation. Many desertions had already occurred, ostensibly because
of lack of food and raiment. Commissioner Scott had complained to
Holmes of the Indian privations[545] and Holmes had been forced to
concede, although only at the eleventh hour, the Indian claim to some
consideration. He had arbitrarily shared tribal quota of supplies,
bought with tribal money, with white troops and had lamely excused
himself by saying that he had done it to prevent

[Footnote 541: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 752.]

[Footnote 542:--Ibid., 921.]

[Footnote 543:--Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 821.]

[Footnote 544:--Ibid., vol. xiii, 913.]

[Footnote 545:--Ibid., 920.]

grumbling[546] and the charge of favoritism. One other offence of
which Holmes was guilty he did not attempt to palliate, the taking of
the Indians out of their own country without their consent. To the
very last Pike had expostulated[547] against such violation of treaty
promises; but Holmes and Hindman were deaf alike to entreaty and to
reprimand.

General Pike, poet and student, was now finally deprived of his
command and the Indians left to their own devices or at the mercy of
men, who could not be trusted or were not greatly needed elsewhere. No
one attempted any longer to conceal the truth that alliance with the
Indians was a supremely selfish consideration, and nothing more,
on the part of those who coveted Indian Territory because of its
geographical position, its strategic and economic importance. For a
little while longer, Pike contended with his enemies by means of the
best weapon he had, his facile pen. His acrimonious correspondence
with the chief of those enemies, Hindman and Holmes, reached its
highest point of criticism in a letter of December 30 to the latter.
That letter summed up his grievances and was practically his last
charge. Having made it, he retired from the scene, not to reappear
until near the close of the war, when Kirby Smith found it
advantageous to reemploy him for service among the red men.

[Footnote 546: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 928.]

[Footnote 547:--Ibid., 905, 963.]