Note (return) — V. THE MARCH TO TAHLEQUAH AND THE RETROGRADE MOVEMENT OF THE "WHITE AUXILIARY"

management of Indian affairs, particularly as those affairs might be concerned with the future attitude of the Cherokee Nation. The programme comprised instructions that emanated from both civil and military sources. The special Indian agents, Carruth and Martin, had been given suitable tasks to perform and the instructions handed them have already been commented upon. Personally, these two men were very much disposed to magnify the importance of their own position and to resent anything that looked like interference on the part of the military. As a matter of fact, the military men treated them with scant courtesy and made little or no provision for their comfort and convenience.342 Colonel Weer seems to have ignored, at times, their very existence. On more than one occasion, for instance, he deplored the absence of some official, accredited by the Indian Office, to take charge of what he contemptuously called "this Indian business,"343 which business, he felt, greatly complicated all military undertakings344 and was decidedly beyond the bounds of his peculiar province.345