Part 2 (1/2)
At the time of the issuance of the order, he seems to have offered no objections to taking his Indians out of their own territory. Disaster had not yet overtaken them or him and he had not yet met with the injustice that was afterwards his regular lot. If his were regarded as more or less of a puppet command, he was not yet aware of it and, oblivious of all scorn felt for Indian soldiers, kept his eye single on the a.s.sistance he was to render in the accomplishment of Van Dorn's object. It was anything but easy, however, for him to move with dispatch. He had difficulty in getting such of his brigade as was Indian and as had collected at Cantonment Davis, a Choctaw and Chickasaw battalion and the First Creek Regiment, to stir. They had not been paid their money and had not been furnished with arms and clothing as promised. Pike had the necessary funds with him, but time would be needed in which to distribute them, and the order had been for him to move promptly. It was something much more easily said than done. Nevertheless, he did what he could, paid outright the Choctaws and Chickasaws, a performance that occupied
[Footnote 51: _Official Records_, vol. liii, supplement, vol.
viii, 462.]
three precious days, and agreed to pay McIntosh's Creek regiment at the Illinois River. To keep that promise he tarried at Park Hill one day, expecting there to be overtaken by additional Choctaws and Chickasaws who had been left behind at Fort Gibson. When they did not appear, he went forward towards Evansville and upward to Cincinnati, a small town on the Arkansas side of the Cherokee line. There his Indian force was augmented by Stand Watie's regiment[52] of Cherokees and at Smith's Mill by John
[Footnote 52: Watie's regiment of Cherokees was scarcely in either marching or fighting trim. The following letter from John Ross to Pike, which is number nine in the John Ross _Papers_ in the Indian Office, is elucidative. It is a copy used in the action against John Ross at the close of the war. The italics indicate underscorings that were probably not in the original.
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, PARK HILL, Feb'y 25th, 1862.
To BRIG. GEN'L.A. PIKE, Com'dy Indian Department.
Sir: I have deemed it my duty to address you on the present occasion--You have doubtless ere this received my communication enclosing the action of the National Council with regard to the final ratification of our Treaty--Col. Drew's Regiment promptly took up the line of march on the receipt of your order from Fort Smith towards Fayetteville. _I accompanied the Troops some 12 miles East of this and I am happy to a.s.sure you in the most confident manner that in my opinion this Regiment will not fail to do their whole duty, whenever the Conflict with the common Enemy shall take place_. There are so many conflicting reports as to your whereabouts and consequently much interest is felt by the People to know where the Head Qrs. of your military operations will be established during the present emergencies--_I had intended going up to see the Troops of our Regiment; also to visit the Head Qrs of the Army at Cane Hill in view of affording every aid in any manner within the reach of my power to repel the Enemy_. But I am sorry to say I have been dissuaded from going at present in consequence of some unwarrantable conduct on the part of many _base, reckless and unprincipled persons belonging to Watie's Regiment who are under no subordination or restraint of their leaders in domineering over and trampling upon the rights of peaceable and unoffending citizens_. I have at all times in the most unequivocal manner a.s.sured the People that you will not only promptly discountenance, but will take steps to put a stop to such proceedings for the protection of their persons and property and to _redress their wrongs_--This is not the time for _crimination_ and _recrimination_; at a proper time _I have certain specific complaints to report for your investigation_. Pardon me for again reiterating that (cont.)]
Drew's.[53] The Cherokees had been in much confusion all winter. Civil war within their nation impended.[54] None the less, Pike, a.s.suming that all would be well when the call for action came, had ordered all the Cherokee and Creek regiments to hurry to the help of McCulloch.[55] He had done this upon the first intimation of the Federal advance. The Cherokees had proceeded only so far, the Creeks not at all, and the main body of the Choctaws and Chickasaws, into whose minds some unscrupulous merchants had instilled mercenary motives and the elements of discord generally, were lingering far in the background. Pike's white force was, moreover, ridiculously small, some Texas cavalry, dignified by him as collectively a squadron, Captain O.G. Welch in command. There had as yet not been even a pretense of giving him the three regiments of white men earlier asked for. Toward the close of the afternoon of March 6, Pike ”came up with the rear of McCulloch's division,”[56] which proved to be the very division he was to follow, but he was one day late for the fray.
The Battle of Pea Ridge, in its preliminary stages, was already being fought. It was a three day fight, counting the skirmish at Bentonville on the sixth between General Franz Sigel's detachment and General Sterling Price's advance guard as the work of the first day.[57] The real battle comprised the engagement at
[Footnote 52: (cont.) the ma.s.s of the People _are all right in Sentiment for the support of the Treaty of Alliance with the Confederate States_. I shall be happy to hear from you--I have the honor to be your ob't Serv't
John Ross, Prin'l Chief, Cherokee Nation.]
[Footnote 53: Pike's Report, March 14, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. viii, 286-292.]
[Footnote 54: James McIntosh to S. Cooper, January 4, 1862, Ibid., 732; D.H. Cooper to Pike, February 10, 1862, Ibid., vol. xiii, 896.]
[Footnote 55:--Ibid., 819.]
[Footnote 56:--Ibid., vol. viii, 287.]
[Footnote 57:--Ibid., 208-215, 304-306.]
Leetown on the seventh and that at Elkhorn Tavern[58] on the eighth.
At Leetown, Pike's Cherokee contingent[59] played what he, in somewhat quixotic fas.h.i.+on, perhaps, chose to regard as a very important part.
The Indians, then as always, were chiefly pony-mounted, ”entirely undisciplined,” as the term discipline is usually understood, and ”armed very indifferently with common rifles and ordinary shot-guns.”[60] The ponies, in the end, proved fleet of foot, as was to have been expected, and, at one stage of the game, had to be tethered in the rear while their masters fought from the vantage-ground of trees.[61] The Indian's most effective work was done, throughout, under cover of the woods. Indians, as Pike well knew, could never be induced to face sh.e.l.ls in the open. It was he who advised their climbing the trees and he did it without discounting, in the slightest, their innate bravery.[62] There came a time, too, when he gave countenance to another of their
[Footnote 58: The Elkhorn Tavern engagement is sometimes referred to, and most appropriately, as the Sugar Creek [Phisterer, _Statistical Record_, 95]. Colonel Eugene A. Carr of the Third Illinois Cavalry, commanding the Fourth Division of Curtis's army, described the tavern itself as ”situated on the west side of the Springfield and Fayetteville road, at the head of a gorge known as Cross Timber Hollow (the head of Sugar Creek) ...” [_Official Records_, vol. viii, 258]. ”Sugar Creek Hollow,” wrote Curtis, ”extends for miles, a gorge, with rough precipitate sides ...” [Ibid., 589]. It was there the closing scenes of the great battle were enacted.]
[Footnote 59: The practice, indulged in by both the Federals and the Confederates, of greatly overestimating the size of the enemy force was resorted to even in connection with the Indians. Pike gave the number of his whole command as about a thousand men, Indians and whites together [_Official Records_, vol. viii, 288; xiii, 820]
notwithstanding that he had led Van Dorn to expect that he would have a force of ”about 8,000 or 9,000 men and three batteries of artillery”
[Ibid., vol. viii, 749]. General Curtis surmised that Pike contributed five regiments [Ibid., 196] and Wiley Britton, who had excellent opportunity of knowing better because he had access to the records of both sides, put the figures at ”three regiments of Indians and two regiments of Texas cavalry” [_Civil War on the Border_, vol. i, 245].]
[Footnote 60: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 819.]
[Footnote 61:--Ibid., vol. viii, 288.]
[Footnote 62:--Ibid.]
peculiarities. He allowed Colonel Drew's men to fight in a way that was ”their own fas.h.i.+on,”[63] with bow and arrow and with tomahawk.[64]
This, as was only meet it should, called down upon him and them the opprobrium of friends and foes alike.[65] The Indian war-whoop was indulged in, of itself enough to terrify. It was hideous.