Part 25 (1/2)
Conversely and most fortuitously, a friendliness grew up between Holmes and the man whom he had supplanted that made the former, either forget the orders given him in Richmond or put so new a construction upon them that they were rendered nugatory. It was a situation, exceedingly fortunate for
[Footnote 504: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 855.]
[Footnote 505: He had reached Vicksburg by the thirtieth of July and from that point he issued his orders a.s.suming the command [ibid., 860].]
[Footnote 506: Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862 (Appendix); _Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 121-122.]
the service as a whole, no doubt, but most unhappy for Indian Territory.
It finally dawned upon Pike that it was useless to argue any longer upon the matters in dispute between him and Hindman, for Holmes had pre-judged the case. Moreover, Holmes was beginning to appreciate the advantage of being in a position where he could, by ignoring Pike's authority and a.s.serting his own, be much the gainer in a material way.
How he could have reconciled such an att.i.tude with the instructions he had received from Randolph it is impossible to surmise. The instructions, whether verbal or written, must have been in full accord with the secretary's letter to Pike of the fourteenth of July, which, although Pike was as yet ignorant of it, had explicitly said that no supplies for Indian Territory should be diverted from their course and that there should be no interference whatever with Pike's somewhat peculiar command.[507] All along the authorities in Richmond, their conflicting departmental regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, had insisted that the main object of the Indian alliance had been amply attained when the Indians were found posing as a Home Guard.
Indians were not wanted for any service outside the limits of their own country. Service outside was to be deprecated, first, last, and always. Indeed, it was in response to a suggestion from Pike, made in the autumn of 1861, that the Indian Territory ought to be regarded as a thing apart, to be held for the Confederacy most certainly but not to be involved in the warfare outside, that Pike's department had been created and no subsequent
[Footnote 507: Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862. The same a.s.surance had apparently been given to Pike in May [_Official Records_, vol. xiii, 863].]
arrangements for the Trans-Mississippi Department or District, whichever it may have been at the period, were intended to militate against that fundamental fact.[508]
Despairing of accomplis.h.i.+ng anything by lingering longer in Little Rock, Pike applied to Holmes for a leave of absence and was granted it for such time as might have to elapse before action upon his resignation could be secured.[509] The circ.u.mstance of Hindman's having relieved Pike from duty was thus ignored or pa.s.sed over in silence. General Pike had come to Little Rock to see his family[510]
but he now decided upon a visit to Texas. Exactly what he expected to do there n.o.body knows; but he undoubtedly had at heart the interests of his department. He went to Warren first and later to Grayson County. At the latter place, he made Sherman his private headquarters and it was from there that he subsequently found it convenient to pa.s.s over again into Indian Territory.
Pike was in Arkansas as late as the nineteenth of August and probably still there when Randolph's letter of the fourteenth of July, much delayed, arrived.[511] If angry before, he was now incensed; for he knew for a certainty at last that Hindman had been a sort of usurper in the Trans-Mississippi District and, with power emanating from no one higher than Beauregard, had never legally possessed a flicker of authority for doing the many insulting things that he had arrogantly done to him.[512] Next, from some source, came the
[Footnote 508: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 861, 864, 868.]
[Footnote 509: Holmes to the Secretary of War, November 15, 1862 [ibid., 918].]
[Footnote 510: For an account of Pike's movements, see _Confederate Military History_, vol. x, 126.]
[Footnote 511: Abel, _American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist_, 356.]
[Footnote 512: Pike to Holmes, December 30, 1862, ”Appendix.”]
news that President Davis had refused positively to accept Pike's resignation.[513] What better proof could anyone want that Pike was sustained at headquarters? What that view of the matter may have meant in emboldening him to his later excessively independent actions must be left to the reader's conjecture. It never occurred to Pike that if his resignation had been refused, it had probably been refused upon the supposition that, with Hindman out of the way, all would be well.
One good reason for thinking that that was the Richmond att.i.tude towards the affair is the fact that no record of anything like immediate and formal action upon the resignation is forthcoming.
Pike heard that it had been refused and positively, which was very gratifying; but it is far more likely that it had been put to one side and purposely; in order that, since Pike was unquestionably the best man for Indian Territory, all difficulties might be left to adjust themselves, the less said about Hindman's autocracy the better it would be for all concerned.
But it was soon apparent that Hindman was not to be put out of the way. It was to be still possible for him to work mischief in Indian Territory. With some slight modifications, the Trans-Mississippi District had been converted into the Trans-Mississippi Department and, on the twentieth of August, orders[514] issued from
[Footnote 513: There is something very peculiar about the acceptance or non-acceptance of Pike's resignation. Randolph wrote to Holmes, October 27, 1862, these words: ”... General Pike's resignation having been accepted, you will be left without a commanding officer in the Indian Territory...” [_Official Records_, vol. xiii, 906]. A letter endors.e.m.e.nt, made by Randolph, on or later than September 19th, was to this effect: ”General Pike's resignation has not yet been accepted” [Ibid., liii, supplement, 821], and another, made by him, November 5th, to this: ”Accept General Pike's resignation, and notify him of it” [Ibid., 822].]
[Footnote 514: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 877.]
Little Rock, arranging for an organization into three districts, the Texas, the Louisiana,[515] and the Arkansas. The last-named district was entrusted to General Hindman and made to embrace Arkansas, Missouri, and the Indian Territory. Hindman took charge at Fort Smith, August twenty-fourth and straightway planned such disposition of his troops as would make for advancing the Confederate line northward of the Boston Mountains, Fort Smith, and the Arkansas River. The Indian forces that were concentrated around Forts Smith and Gibson were s.h.i.+fted to Carey's Ferry that they might cover the military road southward from Fort Scott. To hold the Cherokee country and to help maintain order there, a battalion of white cavalry was posted at Tahlequah and, in each of the nine towns.h.i.+ps, or districts, of the country, the formation of a company of home guard, authorized.[516]
The maintaining of order in the Cherokee Nation had come to be imperatively necessary. John Ross, the Princ.i.p.al Chief, was now a prisoner within the Federal lines.[517] His capture had been accomplished by strategy only a short time before and not without strong suspicion that he had been in collusion with his captors. Early in August, General Blunt, determined that the country north of the Arkansas should not be abandoned, notwithstanding the retrograde movement of Colonel Salomon, had ordered Salomon, now a brigadier in command of the Indian Expedition, to send
[Footnote 515: Not all of Louisiana was in Holmes's department and only that part of it west of the Mississippi const.i.tuted the District of Louisiana. Governor Moore had vigorously protested against a previous division, one that ”tacked” ”all north of Red River” ”onto Arkansas” [_Official Records_, vol. liii, supplement, 819].]
[Footnote 516:--Ibid., vol. xiii, 46-47.]