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These chiefs all say they want to fight for the Union, and that they will do so if they can get arms and ammunition. Gen'l Hunter has ordered me to await his arrival here at which time he will council with these men, and report to you the result. I think he will be here on Tuesday or Wednesday. Cutler wants to take the Indians to Washington, but I advised him not to do so until I could hear from you. When I met him here he was on his way there.
You had better write to him here as soon as you get this, or you will see him there pretty soon.
I have nothing more to write now but will write in a day or two.
Yours Truly R.W. DOLE.
P.S. Coffin is at home sick, but will be here soon. Branch is at St. Joe but would not come over with me, cause, too buissie to attend to business.
[Indian Office Special Files, no 201, Southern Superintendency, D 410 of 1861].
156. In part proof of this take his letter to Adjutant-general Thomas, January 15, 1862.
"On my arrival here in November last I telegraphed for permission to muster a Brigade of Kansas Indians into the service of the United States, to assist the friendly Creek Indians in maintaining their loyalty. Had this permission been promptly granted, I have every reason to believe that the present disastrous state of affairs, in the Indian country west of Arkansas, could have been avoided. I now again respectfully repeat my request."—Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862.
157. To the references given in Abel, The American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist, add Thomas to Hunter, January 24, 1862, Official Records, vol. viii, 525.
158. The St. Louis Republican credited Halleck with characterizing Hunter's command, indiscriminately, as "marauders, bandits, and outlaws" [Daily Conservative, February 7, 1862]. In a letter to Lincoln, January 6, 1862, Halleck said some pretty plain truths about Lane [Official Records, vol. vii, 532-533]. He would probably have had the same objection to the use of Indians that he had to the use of negroes in warfare [Daily Conservative, May 23, 1862, quoting from the Chicago Tribune].
159. On marauding by Lane's brigade, see McClellan to Stanton, February 11, 1862 [Official Records, vol. viii, 552-553].
160. Note this series of telegrams [Indian Office Special Files, no. 201, Southern Superintendency, D 576 of 1862]:
"Secretary of War is unwilling to put Indians in the army. Is to consult with President and settle it today."—SMITH to Dole, February 6, 1862.
"President cant attend to business now. Sickness in the family. No arrangements can be made now. Make necessary arrangements for relief of Indians. I will send communication to Congress today."—Same to Same, February 11, 1862.
"Go on and supply the destitute Indians. Congress will supply the means. War Department will not organize them."—Same to Same, February 14, 1862.
161. Smith to Dole, January 3, 1862 [Indian Office Special Files, no. 201, Central Superintendency, I 531 of 1862; Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, p. 150].
162. On the second of January, Agent Cutler wired from Leavenworth to Dole, "Heopothleyohola with four thousand warriors is in the field and needs help badly. Secession Creeks are deserting him. Hurry up Lane."—Indian Office Special Files, no. 201, Southern Superintendency, C 1443 of 1862.
163. Their plea was expressed most strongly in the course of an interview which Dole had with representatives of the Loyal Creeks and Seminoles, Iowas and Delawares, February 1, 1862. Robert Burbank, the Iowa agent, was there. White Cloud acted as interpreter [Daily Conservative, February 2, 1862].
164. Some of these had been provoked to a desire for war by the inroads of Missourians. Weas, Piankeshaws, Peorias, and Miamies, awaiting the return of Dole from the interior of Kansas, said, "they were for peace but the Missourians had not left them alone" [ibid., February 9, 1862].
III. THE INDIAN REFUGEES IN SOUTHERN KANSAS
The thing that would most have justified the military employment of Indians by the United States government, in the winter of 1862, was the fact that hundreds and thousands of their southern brethren were then refugees because of their courageous and unswerving devotion to the American Union. The tale of those refugees, of their wanderings, their deprivations, their sufferings, and their wrongs, comparable only to that of the Belgians in the Great European War of 1914, is one of the saddest to relate, and one of the most disgraceful, in the history of the War of Secession, in its border phase.
The first in the long procession of refugees were those of the army of Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la who, after their final defeat by Colonel James McIntosh in the Battle of Chustenahlah, December 26, 1861, had fled up the valley of the Verdigris River and had entered Kansas near Walnut Creek. In scattered lines, with hosts of stragglers, the enfeebled, the aged, the weary, and the sick, they had crossed the Cherokee Strip and the Osage Reservation and, heading steadily towards the northeast, had finally encamped on the outermost edge of the New York Indian Lands, on Fall River, some sixty odd miles west of Humboldt. Those lands, never having been accepted as an equivalent for their Wisconsin holdings by the Iroquois, were not occupied throughout their entire extent by Indians and only here and there encroached upon by white intruders, consequently the impoverished and greatly fatigued travellers encountered no obstacles in settling themselves down to rest and to wait for a much needed replenishment of their resources.
Their coming was expected. On their way northward, they had fallen in, at some stage of the journey, with some buffalo hunters, Sacs and Foxes of the Mississippi, returning to their reservation, which lay some distance north of Burlington and chiefly in present Osage County, Kansas. To them the refugees reported their recent tragic experience. The Sacs and Foxes were most sympathetic and, after relieving the necessities of the refugees as best they could, hurried on ahead, imparting the news, in their turn, to various white people whom they met. In due course it reached General Denver, still supervising affairs in Kansas, and William G. Coffin, the southern superintendent.165 It was the first time, since his appointment the spring before, that Coffin had had any prospect of getting in touch with any considerable number of his charges and he must have welcomed the chance of now really earning his salary. He ordered all of the agents under him—and some166 of them had not previously entered officially upon their duties—to assemble at Fort Roe, on