Part 43 (1/2)

Months before they might have been secured for the North but not now.

For them the hour of wavering was past. Maxey's vigor was stimulating.

[Footnote 930: To Governor Colbert of the Chickasaw Nation [_Official Records_, vol. x.x.xiv, part i, 109-110], to the Council of the Choctaw Nation [Ibid., 110], to John Jumper of the Seminole Nation [Ibid., 111], to McIntosh, possibly D.N.

[Ibid., part ii, 997]. For Maxey's comments upon Phillips and his letters, see Maxey to Smith, February 26, 1864, Ibid., 994-997.]

[Footnote 931: Phillips to Curtis, February 24, 1864, Ibid., part i, 108-109.]

[Footnote 932: For the itinerary of the course, see Ibid., 111-112.]

The explanation of Phillips's whole proceeding during the month of February is to be found in his genuine friends.h.i.+p for the Indian, which eventually profited him much, it is true, but, from this time henceforth, was lifelong. He stood in somewhat of a contrast to Blunt, whom General Steele thought unprincipled[933] and who in Southern parlance was ”an old land speculator,”[934] and to Curtis, who was soon to show himself, as far as the Indians were concerned, in his true colors. While Phillips was absent from Fort Gibson, Curtis arrived there. He was making a reconnoissance of his command and, as he pa.s.sed over one reservation after another, he doubtless coveted the Indian land for white settlement and justified to himself a scheme of forfeiture as a way of penalizing the red men for their defection.[935] Phillips was not encouraged to repeat his peace mission.

Blunt's journey to Was.h.i.+ngton had results, complimentary and gratifying to his vanity because publicly vindicatory. On the twenty-seventh of February he was restored to his old command or, to be exact, ordered ”to resume command of so much of the District of the Frontier as is included within the boundaries of the Department of Kansas.”[936] His headquarters were at Fort Smith and immediately began the controversy between him and Thayer, although scornfully unacknowledged by Thayer, as to the status of Fort Smith. Thayer refused to admit that there could be any issue[937] between them for the law in the case was clear. What Blunt and Curtis really wanted was to get hold of the

[Footnote 933: F. Steele to S. Breck, March 27, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. x.x.xiv, part ii, 751.]

[Footnote 934: T.M. Scott to Maxey, April 12, 1864, Ibid., part iii, 762.]

[Footnote 935: This matter is very much generalized here for the reason that it properly belongs in the volume on reconstruction that is yet to come.]

[Footnote 936: February 23, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. x.x.xiv, part ii, 408.]

[Footnote 937: John M. Thayer to Charles A. Dana, March 15, 1864, Ibid., 617.]

western counties of Arkansas[938] so as to round out the Department of Kansas. To them it was absurd that Fort Smith should be within their jurisdiction and its environs within Steele and Thayer's. The upshot of the quarrel was, the reorganization of the frontier departments on the seventeenth of April which gave Fort Smith and Indian Territory to the Department of Arkansas[939] and sent Blunt back to Leavenworth.

His removal from Fort Smith, especially as Curtis had intended, had no change in department limits been made, to transfer Blunt's headquarters to Fort Gibson,[940] was an immense relief to Phillips.

Blunt and Phillips had long since ceased to have harmonious views with respect to Indian Territory. During his short term of power, Blunt had managed so to deplete Phillips's forces that two of the three Indian regiments were practically all that now remained to him since one, the Second Indian Home Guards, had been permanently stationed at Mackey's Salt Works on the plea that its colonel, John Ritchie, was Phillips's ranking officer and it was not expedient that he and Phillips ”should operate together.”[941] Blunt had detached also a part of the Third Indian and had placed it at Scullyville as an outpost to Fort Smith.

There were to be no more advances southward for Phillips.[942] Instead of making them he was to occupy himself with the completion of the fortifications at Fort Gibson.[943]

[Footnote 938: Thayer to Grant, March 11, 1864, _Official Records_, vol. x.x.xiv, part ii, 566.]

[Footnote 939:--Ibid., part iii, 192, 196.]

[Footnote 940:--Ibid., part ii, 651. Blunt would have preferred Scullyville [Ibid., part iii, 13].]

[Footnote 941: Blunt to Curtis, March 30, 1864, Ibid., part ii, 791.]

[Footnote 942: Blunt to Phillips, April 3, 1864, Ibid., part iii, 32; Phillips to Curtis, April 5, 1864, Ibid., 52-53.]

[Footnote 943: Curtis had ordered the completion of the fortifications which might be taken to imply that he too was not favoring a forward policy.]

Among the southern Indians, Maxey's reconstruction policy was all this time having its effect. It was revitalizing the Indian alliance with the Confederacy, but army conditions were yet a long way from being satisfactory. In March Price relieved Holmes in command of the District of Arkansas.[944] A vigorous campaign was in prospect and Price asked for all the help the department commander could afford him. The District of Indian Territory had forces and of all the disposable Price asked the loan. Maxey, unlike his predecessors, was more than willing to cooperate but one difficulty, which he would fain have ignored himself--for he was not an Albert Pike--he was compelled to report. The Indians had to be free, absolutely free, to go or to stay.[945] The choice of cooperating was theirs but theirs also the power to refuse to cooperate, if they so desired, and no questions asked. The day had pa.s.sed when Arkansans or Texans could decide the matter arbitrarily. Watie was expected to prefer to continue the irregular warfare that he and Adair, his colonel of scouts, had so successfully been waging for a goodly time now. Formerly, they had waged it to Steele's great annoyance;[946] but Maxey felt no repugnance to the services of Quantrill, so, of course, had nothing to say in disparagement of the work of Watie. It was the kind of work, he frankly admitted he thought the Indians best adapted to. The Choctaws under Tandy Walker were found quite willing to cross the line and they did excellent service in the Camden campaign, which, both in the cannonade near Prairie d'Ane on the thirteenth of April and in the Battle of Poison Spring on the

[Footnote 944: _Official Records_, vol. x.x.xiv, part ii, 1034, 1036.]

[Footnote 945: Maxey to Smith, April 3, 1864, Ibid., part iii, 728-729.]

[Footnote 946: For Steele's opposition to Adair's predatory movements, see _Confederate Records_, chap. 2, nos. 267, 268.]

eighteenth of April, offered a thorough test of what Indians could do when well disciplined, well officered, and well considered. The Indian reinforcement of Marmaduke was ungrudgingly given and ungrudgingly commended.[947] The Camden campaign was short and, when about over, Maxey was released from duty with Price's army. His own district demanded attention[948] and the Indians recrossed the line.