Part 11 (1/2)

IV. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE FIRST INDIAN EXPEDITION

Among the manifold requests put forward by the refugees, none was so insistent, none so dolefully sincere, as the one for means to return home. It is a mistake to suppose that the Indian, traditionally laconic and stoical, is without family affection and without that n.o.blest of human sentiments, love of country. The United States government has, indeed, proceeded upon the supposition that he is dest.i.tute of emotions, natural to his more highly civilized white brother, but its files are full to overflowing with evidences to the contrary. Everywhere among them the investigator finds the exile's lament. The red man has been banished so often from familiar and greatly loved scenes that it is a wonder he has taken root anywhere and yet he has. Attachment to the places where the bones of his people lie is with him the most constant of experiences and his cry for those same sacred places is all the stronger and the more sorrowful because it has been persistently ignored by the white man.

The southern Indians had not been so very many years in the Indian Territory, most of them not more than the span of one generation, but Indian Territory was none the less home. If the refugees could only get there again, they were confident all would be well with them. In Kansas, they were hungry, afflicted with disease, and dying daily by the score.[193] Once at home

[Footnote 193: And yet they did have their amus.e.m.e.nts. Their days of exile were not filled altogether with bitterness. Coffin, in a letter to the (cont.)]

all the ills of the flesh would disappear and lost friends be recovered. The exodus had separated them cruelly from each other.

There were family and tribal encampments within the one large encampment,[194] it is true, but there were also widely isolated groups, scattered indiscriminately across two hundred miles of bleak and lonely prairie, and no amount of philanthropic effort on the part of the government agents could mitigate the misery arising therefrom or bring the groups together. The task had been early abandoned as, under the circ.u.mstances, next to impossible; but the refugees went on begging for its accomplishment, notwithstanding that they had neither the physical strength nor the means to render any a.s.sistance themselves. Among them the wail of the bereaved vied in tragic cadence with the sad inquiry for the missing.

When Dole arrived at Leavenworth the latter part of January, representatives of the loyal Indians interviewed him and received a.s.surances, honest and well-meant at the time given, that an early return to Indian Territory would be made possible. Lane, likewise interviewed,[195] was similarly encouraging and had every reason to be; for was not his Indian brigade in process of formation? Much cheered and even exhilarated in spirit, the Indians went away to endure and to wait. They had great confidence in Lane's power to accomplish; but, as the days and the weeks pa.s.sed and he did not come, they grew tired of waiting. The waiting

[Footnote 193: (cont.) _Daily Conservative_, published April 16, 1862, gives, besides a rather gruesome account of their diseases, some interesting details of their camp life.]

[Footnote 194: On their division into tribal encampments, see Kile to Dole, April 10, 1862 [Indian Office General Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1859-1862, K 119 of 1862].]

[Footnote 195: They had their interview with Lane at the Planters'

House while they were awaiting the arrival of Dole. Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la (Crazy Dog) and a Seminole chief, Aluktustenuke (Major Potatoes) were among them [_Daily Conservative_, January 28, February 8, 1862].]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAIT OF COLONEL W.A. PHILLIPS]

seemed so hopeless to them miserable, so endlessly long. Primitive as they were, they simply could not understand why the agents of a great government could not move more expeditiously. The political and military aspects of the undertaking, involved in their return home, were unknown to them and, if known, would have been uncomprehended.

Then, too, the vacillation of the government puzzled them. They became suspicious; for they had become acquainted, through the experience of long years, with the white man's bad faith and they had nothing to go upon that would counteract the influence of earlier distrust. And so it happened, that, as the weary days pa.s.sed and Lane's brigade did not materialize, every grievance that loomed up before them took the shape of a disappointed longing for home.

So poignant was their grief at the continued delay that they despaired of ever getting the help promised and began to consider how they could contrive a return for themselves. And yet, quite independent of Lane's brigade, there had been more than one movement initiated in their behalf. The desire to recover lost ground in Indian Territory, under the pretext of restoring the fugitives, aroused the fighting instinct of many young men in southern Kansas and several irregular expeditions were projected.[196] Needless to say they came to nothing. In point of fact, they never really developed, but died almost with the thought.

There was no adequate equipment for them and the longer the delay, the more necessary became equipment; because after the Battle of Pea Ridge, Pike's brigade had been set free to operate, if it so willed, on the Indian Territory border.

[Footnote 196: In addition to those referred to in doc.u.ments already cited, the one, projected by Coffin's son and a Captain Brooks, is noteworthy. It is described in a letter from Coffin to Dole, March 24, 1862.]

Closely following upon the Federal success of March 6 to 8, came numerous changes and readjustments in the Missouri-Kansas commands; but they were not so much the result of that success as they were a part of the general reorganization that was taking place in the Federal service incident to the more efficient war administration of Secretary Stanton. By order of March 11, three military departments were arranged for, the Department of the Potomac under McClellan, that of the Mountain under Fremont, and that of the Mississippi under Halleck. The consolidation of Hunter's Department of Kansas with Halleck's Department of Missouri was thus provided for and had long been a consummation devoutly to be wished.[197] Both were naturally parts of the same organic whole when regarded from a military point of view. Neither could be operated upon independently of the other.

Moreover, both were infested by political vultures. In both, the army discipline was, in consequence, bad; that is, if it could be said to be in existence at all. If anything, Kansas was in a worse state than Missouri. Her condition, as far as the military forces were concerned, had not much improved since Hunter first took command and it was then about the worst that could possibly be imagined. Major Halpine's description[198] of it, made by him in his capacity as a.s.sistant adjutant-general, officially to Halleck, is anything but flattering.

Hunter was probably well rid of his job and Halleck, whom Lincoln much admired because he was ”wholly for the service,”[199] had asked for the entire command.[200]

[Footnote 197: Halleck, however, had not desired the inclusion of Kansas in the contemplated new department because he thought that state had only a remote connection with present operations.]

[Footnote 198: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 615-617.]

[Footnote 199: Thayer, _Life and Letters of John Hay_, vol. i, 127-128.]

[Footnote 200: Badeau, _Military History of U.S. Grant_, vol. i, 53, _footnote_.]

Halleck's plans for remodeling the const.i.tuent elements of his department were made with a thorough comprehension of the difficulties confronting him. It is not surprising that they brought General Denver again to the fore. Hunter's troubles had been bred by local politics.

That Halleck well knew; but he also knew that Indian relations were a source of perplexity and that there was no enemy actually in Kansas and no enemy worth considering that would threaten her, provided her own jay-hawking hordes could be suppressed. Her problems were chiefly administrative.[201] For the work to be done, Denver seemed the fittest man available and, on the nineteenth, he, having previously been ordered to report to Halleck for duty,[202] was a.s.signed[203] to the command of a newly-const.i.tuted District of Kansas, from which the troops,[204] who were guarding the only real danger zone, the southeastern part of the state, were expressly excluded. The hydra-headed evil of the western world then a.s.serted itself, the meddling, particularistic spoils system, with the result that Lane and Pomeroy, unceasingly vigilant whenever and wherever what they regarded as their preserves were likely to be encroached upon, went to President Lincoln and protested against the preferment of Denver.[205]

Lincoln weakly yielded and wired to Halleck to suspend

[Footnote 201: Halleck to Stanton, March 28, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. viii, 647-648.]