The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War. Annie Heloise Abel
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in the whole scheme of organization.
It will be remembered that, in November of the preceding year, the Department of Indian Territory had been created and Brigadier-general Albert Pike assigned to the same.30 His authority was not explicitly
Footnote 26: (return)
Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 767, 774.
Footnote 27: (return)
Van Dora's protection, if given, was given to little purpose; for the mines were soon abandoned [Britton, Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border, 1863, 120].
Footnote 28: (return)
Official Records, vol. viii, 734.
Footnote 29: (return)
—Ibid., 745.
Footnote 30: (return)
—Ibid., 690.
superseded by that which later clothed Van Dorn and yet his department was now to be absorbed by a military district, which was itself merely a section of another department. The name and organization of the Department of Indian Territory remained to breed confusion, disorder, and serious discontent at a slightly subsequent time. Of course, since the ratification of the treaties of alliance with the tribes, there was no question to be raised concerning the status of Indian Territory as definitely a possession of the Southern Confederacy. Indeed, it had, in a way, been counted as such, actual and prospective, ever since the enactment of the marque and reprisal law of May 6, 1861.31
Albert Pike, having accepted the appointment of department commander in Indian Territory under somewhat the same kind of a protest—professed consciousness of unfitness for the post—as he had accepted the earlier one of commissioner, diplomatic, to the tribes, lost no time in getting into touch with his new duties. There was much to be attended to before he could proceed west. His appointment had come and had been accepted in November. Christmas was now near at hand and he had yet to render an account of his mission of treaty-making. In late December, he sent in his official report32 to President Davis and, that done, held himself in readiness to respond to any interpellating call that the Provincial Congress might see fit to make. The intervals of time, free from devotion to the completion of the older task, were spent by him in close attention to the preliminary details of the newer, in securing funds and in purchasing supplies and equipment
Footnote 31: (return)
Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, vol. i, 105.
Footnote 32: (return)
The official report of Commissioner Pike, in manuscript, and bearing his signature, is to be found in the Adjutant-general's office of the U.S. War Department.
generally, also in selecting a site for his headquarters. By command of Secretary of War, Judah P. Benjamin, Major N.B. Pearce33 was made chief commissary of subsistence for Indian Territory and Western Arkansas and Major G.W. Clarke,34 depot quartermaster. In the sequel of events, both appointments came to be of a significance rather unusual.
The site chosen for department headquarters was a place situated near the junction of the Verdigris and Arkansas Rivers and not far from Fort Gibson.35 The fortifications erected there received the name of Cantonment Davis and upon them, in spite of Pike's decidedly moderate estimate in the beginning, the Confederacy was said by a contemporary to have spent "upwards of a million dollars."36 In view of the ostensible object of the very formation of the department and of Pike's appointment to its command, the defence of Indian Territory, and, in view of the existing location of enemy troops, challenging that defence, the selection of the site was a reasonably wise one; but, as subsequent pages will reveal, the commander did not retain it long as his headquarters. Troubles came thick and fast upon him and he had barely reached Cantonment Davis before they began. His delay in reaching that place, which he did do, February 25,37 was caused by various occurrences that made it difficult for him to get his materials together, his funds and the like. The very difficulties presaged disaster.
Pike's great purpose—and, perhaps, it would be no exaggeration to say, his only purpose—throughout the
Footnote 33: (return)
Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 764.
Footnote 34: (return)
—Ibid, 770.
Footnote 35: (return)
—Ibid, 764.
Footnote 36: (return)
Britton, Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border, 72.
Footnote 37: (return)
Official Records, vol. viii, 286.
full extent of his active connection with the Confederacy was to save to that Confederacy the Indian Territory. The Indian occupants in and for themselves, unflattering as it may seem to them for historical investigators to have to admit it, were not objects of his solicitude except in so far as they contributed to his real and ultimate endeavor. He never at any time or under any circumstances advocated their use generally as soldiers outside of Indian Territory in regular campaign work and offensively.38 As guerrillas he would have used them.39 He would have sent them on predatory expeditions into Kansas or any other near-by state where pillaging would have been profitable or retaliatory; but never as an organized force, subject to the rules of civilized warfare because fully cognizant of them.40 It is doubtful if he would ever have allowed them, had he consulted only his own inclination, to so much as cross the line except under stress of an attack from without. He would never have sanctioned their joining an unprovoked invading force. In the treaties
Footnote 38: (return)