Note (return) — IV. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE FIRST INDIAN EXPEDITION
Reading edition
The outfit for the Indians of the Home Guard was decidedly inferior. Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la wanted batteries, "wagons that shoot."282 His braves, many of them, were given guns that were worthless, that would not shoot at all.283 In such a way was their eagerness to learn the white man's method of fighting and to acquire his discipline rewarded. The fitting out was done at Humboldt, although Colonel William Weer284 of the Tenth Kansas Infantry, who was the man finally selected to command the entire force, would have preferred it done at Fort Scott.285 The Indians had a thousand and one excuses for not expediting matters. They seemed to have a deep-seated distrust of what the Federal intentions regarding them might be when
Footnote 280:
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(cont.) directed his mail, and sixty or seventy from Fort Scott. His communications were held up until Coffin happened to go to Leavenworth. Moreover, Coffin was then expecting to go soon "into the Indian country."