The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War. Annie Heloise Abel
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made in the first volume of this work.7 In the main, the circumstances were such as developed out of the persistent refusal of General McCulloch to coöperate with General Price.
There was much to be said in justification of McCulloch's obstinacy. To understand this it is well to recall that, under the plan, lying back of this first
Footnote 4: (return)
Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 781–782; Edwards, Shelby and His Men, 105.
Footnote 5: (return)
—Ibid., vol. viii, 734.
Footnote 6: (return)
It is doubtful if even this ought to be conceded in view of the fact that President Davis later admitted that Van Dorn entered upon the Pea Ridge campaign for the sole purpose of effecting "a diversion in behalf of General Johnston" [Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. ii, 51]. Moreover, Van Dorn had scarcely been assigned to the command of the Trans-Mississippi District before Beauregard was devising plans for bringing him east again [Greene, The Mississippi, II; Roman, Military Operations of General Beauregard, vol. i, 240–244].
Footnote 7: (return)
Abel, American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist, 225–226 and footnote 522.
appointment to the Confederate command, was the expectation that he would secure the Indian Territory. Obviously, the best way to do that was to occupy it, provided the tribes, whose domicile it was, were willing. But, if the Cherokees can be taken to have voiced the opinion of all, they were not willing, notwithstanding that a sensationally reported8 Federal activity under Colonel James Montgomery,9 in the neighborhood of the frontier posts, Cobb, Arbuckle, and Washita, was designed to alarm them and had notably influenced, if it had not actually inspired, the selection and appointment of the Texan ranger.10
Unable, by reason of the Cherokee objection thereto, to enter the Indian country; because entrance in the face of that objection would inevitably force the Ross faction of the Cherokees and, possibly also, Indians of other tribes into the arms of the Union, McCulloch intrenched himself on its northeast border, in Arkansas, and there awaited a more favorable opportunity for accomplishing his main purpose. He seems to have desired the Confederate government to add the contiguous portion of Arkansas to his command, but in that he was disappointed.11 Nevertheless, Arkansas early interpreted his presence in the state to imply that he was there primarily for her defence and, by the middle of June, that idea had so far gained general acceptance that C.C. Danley, speaking for the Arkansas Military Board, urged President Davis "to meet
Footnote 8: (return)
Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 679.
Footnote 9: (return)
The name of Montgomery was not one for even Indians to conjure with. James Montgomery was the most notorious of bushwhackers. For an account of some of his earlier adventures, see Spring, Kansas, 241, 247–250, and for a characterization of the man himself, Robinson, Kansas Conflict, 435.
Footnote 10: (return)
Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 682.
Footnote 11: (return)
Snead, Fight for Missouri, 229–230.
the exigent necessities of the State" by sending a second general officer there, who should command in the northeastern part.12
McCulloch's relations with leading Confederates in Arkansas seem to have been, from the first, in the highest degree friendly, even cordial, and it is more than likely that, aside from his unwillingness to offend the neutrality-loving Cherokees, the best explanation for his eventual readiness to make the defence of Arkansas his chief concern, instead of merely a means to the accomplishment of his original task, may be found in that fact. On the twenty-second of May, the Arkansas State Convention instructed Brigadier-general N. Bart Pearce, then in command of the state troops, to coöperate with the Confederate commander "to the full extent of his ability"13 and, on the twenty-eighth of the same month, the Arkansas Military Board invited that same person, who, of course, was Ben McCulloch, to assume command himself of the Arkansas local forces.14 Sympathetic understanding of this variety, so early established, was bound to produce good results and McCulloch henceforth identified himself most thoroughly with Confederate interests in the state in which he was, by dint of untoward circumstances, obliged to bide his time.
It was far otherwise as respected relations between McCulloch and the Missouri leaders. McCulloch had little or no tolerance for the rough-and-ready methods of men like Claiborne Jackson and Sterling Price. He regarded their plans as impractical, chimerical, and their warfare as after the guerrilla order, too much like
Footnote 12: (return)
Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 698–699.
Footnote 13: (return)
—Ibid., 687.
Footnote 14: (return)
—Ibid., 691.
that to which Missourians and Kansans had accustomed themselves during the period of border conflict, following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. McCulloch himself was a man of system. He believed in organization that made for efficiency. Just prior to the Battle of Wilson's Creek, he put himself on record as strongly opposed to allowing unarmed men and camp followers to infest his ranks, demoralizing them.15 It was not to be expected, therefore, that there could ever be much in common between him and Sterling Price. For a brief period, it is true, the two men did apparently act in fullest harmony; but it was when the safety of Price's own state, Missouri, was the thing directly in hand. That was in early August of 1861. Price put himself and his command subject to McCulloch's orders.16 The result was the successful engagement, August 10 at Wilson's Creek, on Missouri soil. On the fourteenth of the same month, Price reassumed control of the Missouri State Guard17