Note (return) — VI. GENERAL PIKE IN CONTROVERSY WITH GENERAL HINDMAN

June 17 might be said to mark the beginning of the real controversy between Pike and Hindman; for, on that day, not only did Hindman reiterate the order to hurry that aroused Pike's ire but he encroached upon Pike's prerogative in a financial particular that was bound, considering Pike's experiences in the past, to make for trouble. Interference with his commissary Pike was determined not to brook, yet, on June 17, Hindman put N. Bart Pearce in supreme control at Fort Smith as commissary, acting quartermaster, and acting ordnance officer.413 His jurisdiction was to extend over northwestern Arkansas and over the Indian Territory. Now Pike had had dealings already with Pearce and thought that he knew too well the limits of his probity. Exactly when Pike heard of Pearce's promotion is not quite clear; but, on the twenty-third, Hindman sent him a conciliatory note explaining that his intention was "to stop the operations of the commissaries of wandering companies in the Cherokee Nation, who" were "destroying the credit of the Confederacy by the floods of certificates they" issued and not "to restrict officers acting under" Pike's orders.414 All very well, but Pearce had other ideas as to the functions of his office and lost no time in apprising various people of them. His notes415 to Pike's officers were most impertinently prompt. They were sent out on the twenty-fourth of June and on the twenty-sixth Pike reported416 the whole history of his economic embarrassments to the Secretary of War.417