Part 3 (1/2)

[Footnote 74: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 796.]

those forces, to which, by the way, Van Dorn ascribed[75] much of his recent ill-success, all helped to make the retirement of the Confederates from the Pea Ridge battle-ground pretty much of a helter-skelter affair. From all accounts, the Indians conducted themselves as well as the best. The desire of everybody was to get to a place of safety and that right speedily. Colonel Watie and his regiment made their way to Camp Stephens,[76] near which place the baggage train had been left[77] and where Cooper and Drew with their men had found refuge already. Some two hundred of Watie's Indians were detailed to help take ammunition back to the main army.[78] The baggage train moved on to Elm Springs, the remainder of the Indians, under Cooper, a.s.sisting in protecting it as far as that place.[79]

At Walnut Grove, the Watie detail, having failed to deliver the ammunition because of the departure of the army prior to their arrival, rejoined their comrades and all moved on to Cincinnati, where Pike, who with a few companions had wandered several days among the mountains, came up with them.[80]

In Van Dorn's calculations for troops that should accompany him east or follow in his wake, the Indians had no place. Before his own plans took final shape and while he was still arranging for an Army of the West, his orders for the Indians were, that they should make their way back as best they could to their own country and there operate ”to cut off trains, annoy the enemy in his marches, and to prevent him as far as possible from supplying his troops from Missouri and

[Footnote 75: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 282.]

[Footnote 76:--Ibid.. 291.]

[Footnote 77:--Ibid., 317.]

[Footnote 78:--Ibid., 318.]

[Footnote 79:--Ibid.; Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. i, 273.]

[Footnote 80: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 292.]

Kansas.”[81] A little later, but still anterior to Van Dorn's summons east, more minute particulars of the programme were addressed to Pike.

Maury wrote,

The general commanding has decided to march with his army against the enemy now invading the northeastern part of the State. Upon you, therefore, will devolve the necessity of impeding his advance into this region. It is not expected that you will give battle to a large force, but by felling trees, burning bridges, removing supplies of forage and subsistence, attacking his trains, stampeding his animals, cutting off his detachments, and other similar means, you will be able materially to hara.s.s his army and protect this region of country. You must endeavor by every means to maintain yourself in the Territory independent of this army.

In case only of absolute necessity you may move southward. If the enemy threatens to march through the Indian Territory or descend the Arkansas River you may call on troops from Southwestern Arkansas and Texas to rally to your aid. You may reward your Indian troops by giving them such stores as you may think proper when they make captures from the enemy, but you will please endeavor to restrain them from committing any barbarities upon the wounded, prisoners, or dead who may fall into their hands. You may purchase your supplies of subsistence from wherever you can most advantageously do so. You will draw your ammunition from Little Rock or from New Orleans via Red River. Please communicate with the general commanding when practicable.[82]

It was an elaborate programme but scarcely a n.o.ble one. Its note of selfishness sounded high. The Indians were simply to be made to serve the ends of the white men. Their methods of warfare were regarded as distinctly inferior. Pea Ridge was, in fact, the first and last time that they were allowed to partic.i.p.ate in the war on a big scale.

Henceforth, they were rarely ever anything more than scouts and skirmishers and that was all they were really fitted to be.

[Footnote 81: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 282, 790; vol. liii, supplement, 796.]

[Footnote 82:--Ibid., vol. viii, 795-796.]

II. LANE'S BRIGADE AND THE INCEPTION OF THE INDIAN

The Indian Expedition had its beginnings, fatefully or otherwise, in ”Lane's Kansas Brigade.” On January 29, 1861, President Buchanan signed the bill for the admission of Kansas into the Union and the matter about which there had been so much of bitter controversy was at last professedly settled; but, alas, for the peace of the border, the radicals, the extremists, the fanatics, call them what one may, who had been responsible for the controversy and for its bitterness, were still unsettled. James Lane was chief among them. His was a turbulent spirit and it permitted its owner no cessation from strife. With President Lincoln's first call for volunteers, April 15, 1861, Lane's martial activities began. Within three days, he had gathered together a company of warriors,[83] the nucleus, psychologically speaking, of what was to be his notorious, jayhawking, marauding brigade. His enthusiasm was infectious. It communicated itself to reflective men like Carl Schurz[84] and was probably the secret of Lane's

[Footnote 83: John Hay records in his _Diary_, ”The White House is turned into barracks. Jim Lane marshaled his Kansas warriors to-day at Willard's and placed them at the disposal of Major Hunter, who turned them to-night into the East Room. It is a splendid company--worthy such an armory. Besides the Western Jayhawkers it comprises some of the best _material_ in the East. Senator Pomeroy and old Anthony Bleecker stood shoulder to shoulder in the ranks. Jim Lane walked proudly up and down the ranks with a new sword that the Major had given him. The Major has made me his aid, and I labored under some uncertainty, as to whether I should speak to privates or not.”--THAYER, _Life and Letters of John Hay_, vol.

i, 92.]

[Footnote 84: It would seem to have communicated itself to Carl Schurz, although Schurz, in his _Reminiscences_, makes no definite admission of the fact. Hay (cont.)]

mysterious influence with the temperate, humane, just, and so very much more magnanimous Lincoln, who, in the first days of the war, as in the later and the last, had his hours of discouragement and deep depression. For dejection of any sort, the wild excitement and boundless confidence of a zealot like Lane must have been somewhat of an antidote, also a stimulant.

The first Kansas state legislature convened March 26, 1861, and set itself at once to work to put the new machinery of government into operation. After much political wire-pulling that involved the promise of spoils to come,[85] James H. Lane and Samuel C. Pomeroy[86] were declared to be elected United States senators, the term of office of each to begin with the first session of the thirty-seventh congress.

That session was

[Footnote 84: (cont.) says, ”Going into Nicolay's room this morning, C. Schurz, and J. Lane were sitting. Jim was at the window, filling his soul with gall by steady telescopic contemplation of a Secession flag impudently flaunting over a roof in Alexandria. 'Let me tell you,' said he to the elegant Teuton, 'we have got to whip these scoundrels like h.e.l.l, C. Schurz. They did a good thing stoning our men at Baltimore and shooting away the flag at Sumter. It has set the great North a-howling for blood, and they'll have it.'

”'I heard,' said Schurz, 'you preached a sermon to your men yesterday.'