The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War Part 10

towards the end of January and their condition was then so bad, so wretched that it was impossible for him to depict it. Prairie gra.s.ses were "their only protection from the snow" upon which they were lying "and from the wind and weather sc.r.a.ps and rags stretched upon switches." Ho-go-bo-foh-yah, the second Creek chief, was ill with a fever and "his tent (to give it that name) was no larger than a small blanket stretched over a switch ridge pole, two feet from the ground, and did not reach it by a foot from the ground on either side of him." Campbell further said that the refugees were greatly in need of medical a.s.sistance. They were suffering "with inflammatory diseases of the chest, throat, and eyes." Many had "their toes frozen off,"

others, "their feet wounded." But few had "either shoes or moccasins."

Dead horses were lying around in every direction and the sanitary conditions were so bad that the food was contaminated and the newly-arriving refugees became sick as soon as they ate.[169]

Other details of their dest.i.tution were furnished by Coffin's son who was acting as his clerk and who was among the first to attempt alleviation of their misery.[170] As far as relief went, however, the supply was so out of proportion to the demand that there was never any time that spring when it could be said that they were fairly comfortable and their ordinary wants satisfied. Campbell frankly admitted that he "selected the nakedest of the naked" and doled out to them the few articles he

[Footnote 168: (cont.) of January 18, 1862, the _Daily Conservative_ has this to say: "The Kansas Seventh has been ordered to move to Humboldt, Allen Co. to give relief to Refugees encamped on Fall River. Lt. Col. Chas. T. Clark, 1st Battalion, Kansas Tenth, is now at Humboldt and well acquainted with the conditions."]

[Footnote 169: Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862, pp. 151-152.]

[Footnote 170: O.S. Coffin to William G. Coffin, January 26, 1862, Indian Office Special Files, no. 201, _Southern Superintendency_, C 1506 of 1862.]

had. When all was gone, how pitiful it must have been for him to see the "hundreds of anxious faces" for whom there was nothing! Captain Turner, from Hunter's commissary department, had similar experiences.

According to him, the refugees were "in want of every necessary of life." That was his report the eleventh of February.[171] On the fifteenth of February, the army stopped giving supplies altogether and the refugees were thrown back entirely upon the extremely limited resources of the southern superintendency.

Dole[172] had had warning from Hunter[173] that such would have to be the case and had done his best to be prepared for the emergency.

Secretary Smith authorized expenditure for relief in advance of congressional appropriation, but that simply increased the moral obligation to practice economy and, with hundreds of loyal Indians on the brink of starvation,[174] it was no

[Footnote 171: Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862, pp. 152-154.]

[Footnote 172: Dole had an interview with the Indians immediately upon his arrival in Kansas [Moore, _Rebellion Record_, vol. iv, 59-60, Doc. 21].]

[Footnote 173: Hunter to Dole, February 6, 1862, forwarded by Edward Wolcott to Mix, February 10, 1862 [Indian Office General Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1859-1862, W 513 and D 576 of 1862; Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862, p. 150].]

[Footnote 174: Agent G.C. Snow reported, February 13, 1862, on the utter dest.i.tution of the Seminoles [Indian Office General Files, _Seminole_, 1858-1869] and, on the same day, Coffin [Ibid., _Southern Superintendency_, 1859-1862, C 1526] to the same effect about the refugees as a whole. They were coming in, he said, about twenty to sixty a day. The "dest.i.tution, misery and suffering amongst them is beyond the power of any pen to portray, it must be seen to be realised--there are now here over two thousand men, women, and children entirely barefooted and more than that number that have not rags enough to hide their nakedness, many have died and they are constantly dying. I should think at a rough guess that from 12 to 15 hundred dead Ponies are laying around in the camp and in the river.

On this account so soon as the weather gets a little warm, a removal of this camp will be indespensable, there are perhaps now two thousand Ponies living, they are very poor and many of them must die before gra.s.s comes which we expect here from the first to the 10th of March.

We are issuing a little corn to (cont.)]

time for economy. The inadequacy of the Indian service and the inefficiency of the Federal never showed up more plainly, to the utter discredit of the nation, than at this period and in this connection.

Besides getting permission from Secretary Smith to go ahead and supply the more pressing needs of the refugees, Dole accomplished another thing greatly to their interest. He secured from the staff of General Lane a special agent, Dr. William Kile of Illinois,[175] who had formerly been a business partner of his own[176] and, like Superintendent Coffin, his more or less intimate friend. Kile's particular duty as special agent was to be the purchasing of supplies for the refugees[177] and he at once visited their encampment in order the better to determine their requirements. His investigations more than corroborated the earlier accounts of their sufferings and privations and his appointment under the circ.u.mstances seemed fully justified, notwithstanding that on the surface of things it appeared very suggestive of a near approach to nepotism, and of nepotism Dole, Coffin, and many others were unquestionably guilty. They worked into the service just as many of their own relatives and friends as they conveniently and safely could. The official pickings were considered by them as their proper perquisites. "'Twas ever thus" in American politics, city, county, state, and national.

The Indian encampment upon the occasion of

[Footnote 174: (cont.) the Indians and they are feeding them a little...." See also Moore, _Rebellion Record_, vol. iv, 30.]

[Footnote 175: Dole was from Illinois also, from Edgar County; Coffin was from Indiana [Indian Office Miscellaneous Records, no. 8, p.

432].]

[Footnote 176: _Daily Conservative_, February 8, 1862.]

[Footnote 177: Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Southern Superintendency_, D 576 of 1862; _Letter Book_, no. 67, pp.

450-452.]

Kile's[178] visit was no longer on Fall River. Gradually, since first discovered, the main body of the refugees had moved forward within the New York Indian Lands to the Verdigris River and had halted in the neighborhood of Fort Roe, where the government agents had received them; but smaller or larger groups, chiefly of the sick and their friends, were scattered all along the way from Walnut Creek.[179] Some of the very belated exiles were as far westward as the Arkansas, over a hundred miles distant. Obviously, the thing to do first was to get them all together in one place. There were reasons why the Verdigris Valley was a most desirable location for the refugees. Only a very few white people were settled there and, as they were intruders and had not a shadow of legal claim to the land upon which they had squatted, any objections that they might make to the presence of the Indians could be ignored.[180]

For a few days, therefore, all efforts were directed, at large expense, towards converting the Verdigris Valley, in the vicinity of Fort Roe, into a concentration camp; but no precautions were taken against allowing unhygienic conditions to arise. The Indians themselves were much diseased. They had few opportunities for personal cleanliness and less ambition. Some of the food doled out to them was stuff that the army had condemned and rejected as unfit for use. They were emaciated, sick, discouraged. Finally, with

[Footnote 178: Indian Office Land Files, 1855-1870, _Southern Superintendency_, K 107 of 1862.]

[Footnote 179: Some had wandered to the Cottonwood and were camped there in great dest.i.tution. Their chief food was hominy [_Daily Conservative_, February 14, 1862].]

[Footnote 180: For an account of the controversy over the settlement of the New York Indian Lands, see Abel, _Indian Reservations in Kansas and the Extinguishment of their t.i.tle_, 13-14.]

the February thaw, came a situation that soon proved intolerable. The "stench arising from dead ponies, about two hundred of which were in the stream and throughout the camp,"[181] unburied, made removal imperatively necessary.

The Neosho Valley around about Leroy presented itself as a likely place, very convenient for the distributing agents, and was next selected. Its advantages and disadvantages seemed about equal and had all been antic.i.p.ated and commented upon by Captain Turner.[182] It was near the source of supplies--and that was an item very much to be considered, since transportation charges, extraordinarily high in normal times were just now exorbitant, and the relief funds very, very limited. No appropriation by Congress had yet been made although one had been applied for.[183] The great disadvantage of the location was the presence of white settlers and they objected, as well they might, to the near proximity of the inevitable disease and filth and, strangely enough, more than anything else, to the destruction of the timber, which they had so carefully husbanded. The concentration on the Neosho had not been fully accomplished when the pressure from the citizens became so great that Superintendent Coffin felt obliged to plan for yet another removal. Again the sympathy of the Sacs and Foxes of Mississippi manifested itself and most opportunely. Their reservation

[Footnote 181: Annual Report of Superintendent Coffin, October 15, 1862, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862, p. 136.

Compare with Coffin's account given in a letter to Dole, February 13, 1862.]

[Footnote 182: February 11, 1862, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862, p. 153; Indian Office Special Files, no. 201, _Southern Superintendency_, D 576 of 1862.]

[Footnote 183: _Congressional Globe_, 37th congress, second session, part I, pp. 815, 849. Dole's letter to Smith, January 31, 1862, describing the dest.i.tution of the refugees, was read in the Senate, February 14, 1862, in support of joint resolution S. no. 49, for their relief.]

lay about twenty-five miles to the northward and they generously offered it as an asylum.[184] But the Indians balked. They were homesick, disgusted with official mismanagement[185] and indecision, and determined to go no farther. They complained bitterly of the treatment that they had received at the hands of Superintendent Coffin and of Agent Cutler and, in a stirring appeal[186] to President Lincoln, set forth their injuries, their grievances, and their incontestable claim upon a presumably just and merciful government.[187]

The Indians were not alone in their rebellious att.i.tude. There was mutiny seething, or something very like it, within the ranks of the agents.[188] E.H. Carruth

[Footnote 184: Coffin to Dole, March 28, 1862 [Indian Office Special Files, no. 201, _Southern Superintendency_, C 1565 of 1862].]

[Footnote 185: Mismanagement there most certainly had been. In no other way can the fact that there was absolutely no amelioration in their condition be accounted for. Many doc.u.ments that will be cited in other connections prove this point and Collamore's letter is of itself conclusive. George W. Collamore, known best by his courtesy t.i.tle of "General," went to Kansas in the critical years before the war under circ.u.mstances, well and interestingly narrated in Stearns' _Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns_, 106-108. He had been agent for the New England Relief Society in the year of the great drouth, 1860-1861 [_Daily Conservative_, October 26, 1861] and had had much to do with Lane, in whose interests he labored, and who had planned to make him a brigadier under himself as major-general [Stearns, 246, 251]. He became quartermaster-general of Kansas [_Daily Conservative_, March 27, 1862] and in that capacity made, in the company of the Reverend Evan Jones, a visit of inspection to the refugee encampment. His discoveries were depressing [Ibid., April 10, 1862]. His report to the government [Indian Office General Files, _Southern Superintendency_, C 1602 of 1862] is printed almost _verbatim_ in Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862, 155-158.]

[Footnote 186: Coffin's letter to Dole of April 21, 1862 [Indian Office General Files, _Wichita_, 1862-1871, C 1601 of 1862] seems to cast doubt upon the genuineness of some of the signatures attached to this appeal and charges Agent Carruth with having been concerned in making the Indians discontented.]

[Footnote 187: Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la and other prominent refugees addressed their complaints to Dole, March 29, 1862 [Indian Office Land Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1855-1870, O 43 of 1862] and two days later to President Lincoln, some strong partisan, supposed by Coffin to be Carruth, acting as scribe.]

[Footnote 188: On the way to the Catholic Mission, whither he was going in order (cont.)]

who had been so closely a.s.sociated with Lane in the concoction of the first plan for the recovery of Indian Territory, was now figuring as the promoter of a rising sentiment against Coffin and his minions, who were getting to be pretty numerous. The removal to the Sac and Fox reservation would mean the getting into closer and closer touch with Perry Fuller,[189] the contractor, whose dealings in connection with the Indian refugees were to become matter, later on, of a notoriety truly disgraceful. Mistrust of Coffin was yet, however, very vague in expression and the chief difficulty in effecting the removal from the Neosho lay, therefore, in the disgruntled state of the refugees, which was due, in part, to their unalleviated misery and, in part, to domestic

[Footnote 188: (cont.) to cooperate with Agent Elder in negotiating with the Osages, Coffin heard of "a sneaking conspiracy" that was "on foot at Iola for the purpose of prejudicing the Indians against us [himself and Dole, perhaps, or possibly himself and the agents]."

The plotters, so Coffin reported, "sent over the Verdigris for E.H.

Carruth who" was "deep in the plot," which was a scheme to induce the Indians to lodge complaint against the distributers of relief. One of the conspirators was a man who had studied law under Lane and who had wanted a position under Kile. Lane had used his influence in the man's behalf and the refusal of Coffin to a.s.sign him to a position was supposed to be the cause of all the trouble. Coffin learned that his enemies had even gone so far as to plan vacancies in the Indian service and to fill them. They had "instructed Lane, Pomeroy, and Conway accordingly," leaving graciously to Lane the choice of superintendent. A Mr. Smith, correspondent of the Cincinnati _Gazette_ was their accredited secretary [Coffin to Dole, April 2, 1862, Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Southern Superintendency_, C 1571 of 1862].

Further particulars of the disaffection came to Coffin's ears before long and he recounted them to Dole in a letter of April 9, 1862 [Ibid., General Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1859-1862].]

[Footnote 189: Perry Fuller had been in Kansas since 1854 [U.S.

House _Reports_, 34th congress, first session, no. 200, p. 8 of "Testimony"]. The first time that his name is intimately used in the correspondence, relative to the affairs of the refugees, is in a letter from Kile to Dole, March 29, 1862 [Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Southern Superintendency_, K 113 of 1862, which also makes mention of the great unwillingness of the Indians to move to the Sac and Fox reservation.]]

tribal discord. There was a quarrel among them over leaders.h.i.+p, the election of Ock-tah-har-sas Harjo as princ.i.p.al chief having aroused strong antagonistic feeling among the friends of Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la.[190] Moreover, dissatisfaction against their agent steadily increased and they asked for the subst.i.tution of Carruth; but he, being satisfied with his a.s.signment to the Wichitas,[191] had no wish to change.[192]

[Footnote 190: Carruth gave particulars of this matter to Dole, April 20, 1862 [Indian Office General Files, _Wichita_, 1862-1871, C 1601 of 1862].]

[Footnote 191: Dole to Carruth, March 18, 1862 [Indian Office _Letter Book_, no. 67, pp. 493-494].]

[Footnote 192: Carruth to Dole, April 10, 1862 [Ibid., General Files, _Wichita_, 1862-1871, C 1588 of 1862; _Letters Registered_, vol. 58].]