The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War. Annie Heloise Abel

Kansas troops had been called to Missouri; but, at the same time, Lyon was complaining that men from the West, where they were greatly needed, were being called by Scott to Virginia.⁹⁵ On August 6 two emergency calls went forth, one from Frémont for a brigade from California that could be stationed at El Paso and moved as occasion might require, either upon San Antonio or into the Indian Territory,⁹⁶

Footnote 92: (return)

      Branch to Mix, June 22, 1861, enclosing letter from Agent Elder, June 15, 1861 [Indian Office Files, Neosho, B 547 of 1861].

Footnote 93: (return)

      —Ibid., Cherokee, C 1200 of 1861

Footnote 94: (return)

      Official Records, vol. iii, 405.

Footnote 95: (return)

      —Ibid., 397, 408.

Footnote 96: (return)

      —Ibid., 428.

      

the other from Congressmen John S. Phelps and Francis P. Blair junior, who addressed Lincoln upon the subject of enlisting Missouri troops for an invasion of Arkansas in order to ward off any contemplated attack upon southwestern Missouri and to keep the Indians west of Arkansas in subjection.⁹⁷ On August 10 came the disastrous Federal defeat at Wilson's Creek. It was immediately subsequent to that event and in anticipation of a Kansas invasion by Price and McCulloch that Lane resolved to take position at Fort Scott.⁹⁸

The Battle of Wilson's Creek, lost to the Federals largely because of Frémont's failure to support Lyon, was an unmitigated disaster in more than one sense. The death of Lyon, which the battle caused, was of itself a severe blow to the Union side as represented in Missouri; but the moral effect of the Federal defeat upon the Indians was equally worthy of note. It was instantaneous and striking. It rallied the wavering Cherokees for the Confederacy⁹⁹ and their defection was something that could not be easily counterbalanced and was certainly not counterbalanced by the almost coincident, cheap, disreputable, and very general Osage offer, made towards the end of August, of services to the United States in exchange for flour and whiskey.¹⁰⁰

      The disaster in its effect upon Lane was, however, little short of exhilarating. It brought him sympathy, understanding, and a fair measure of support from people who, not until the eleventh hour, had really comprehended their own danger and it inspired him to redouble his efforts to organize a brigade that should

Footnote 97: (return)

      Official Records, vol. iii, 430.

Footnote 98: (return)

      —Ibid., 446.

Footnote 99: (return)

      The Daily Conservative (Leavenworth), October 5, 1861.

Footnote 100: (return)

      —Ibid., August 30, 1861, quoting from the Fort Scott Democrat.

      

adequately protect Kansas and recover ground lost. Prior to the battle, "scarcely a battalion had been recruited for each" of the five regiments, the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Kansas, which he had been empowered by the War Department to raise.¹⁰¹ It was in the days of gathering reinforcements, for which he made an earnest plea on August 29,¹⁰² that he developed a disposition to utilize the loyal Indians in his undertaking. The Indians, in their turn, were looking to him for much needed assistance. About a month previous to the disaster of August 10, Agent Elder had been obliged to make Fort Scott, for the time being, the Neosho Agency headquarters, everything being desperately insecure at Crawford's Seminary.¹⁰³

Footnote 101: (return)

      Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, 122.

Footnote 102: (return)

      Official Records, vol. iii, 465.

Footnote 103: (return)

      The following letter, an enclosure of a report from Branch to Dole, August 14, 1861, gives some slight indication of its insecurity:

      OFFICE OF NEOSHO AGENCY

       Fort Scott, July 27, 1861.

      Sir—I deem it important to inform the Department of the situation of this Agency at this time. After entering upon the duties of this office as per instructions—and attending to all the business that seemed to require my immediate attention—I repaired to Franklin Co. Kan. to remove my family to the Agency.

      Leaving the Agency in care of James Killebrew Esq. the Gov't Farmer for the Quapaw Nation. Soon after I left I was informed by him that the Agency had been surrounded by a band of armed men, and instituted an inquiry for "that Abolition Superintendent and Agent." After various interrogatories and answers they returned in the direction of Missouri and Arkansas lines from whence they were supposed to have come. He has since written me and Special Agent Whitney and Superintendent Coffin told me that it would be very unsafe for me to stay at that place under the present excited state of public feeling in that vicinity. I however started with my family on the 6th July and arrived at Fort Scott on the 9th intending to go direct to the Agency. Here I learned from Capt. Jennison commanding a detachment of Kansas Militia, who had been scouting in that vicinity, that the country was full of marauding parties from Gov. Jackson's Camp in S.W. Mo. I therefore concluded to remain here and watch the course of events believing as I did the Federal troops (cont.)

      

Lane, conjecturing rightly that Price, moving northwestward from Springfield, which place he had left on the twenty-sixth of August, would threaten, if he did not actually attempt, an invasion of Kansas at the point of its greatest vulnerability, the extreme southeast, hastened his preparations for the defence and at the very end of the month appeared in person at Fort Scott, where all the forces he could muster, many of them refugee Missourians, had been rendezvousing. On the second of September, the two armies, if such be not too dignified a name for them, came into initiatory action at Dry Wood Creek,¹⁰⁴