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

natural, the Confederate defeat at Locust Grove counted heavily against him.431 On the seventh of July, Hindman began a new attack upon him by making requisition for his ten Parrott guns.432 They were needed in Arkansas. On the eighth of July came another attack in the shape of peremptory orders, two sets of them, the very tone of which was both accusatory and condemnatory. What was apparently the first433 set of orders reached Pike by wire on the eleventh of July and commanded him to hurry to Fort Smith, travelling night and day, there to take command of all troops in the Indian Territory and in Carroll's district.434 Almost no organization, charged Hindman, was in evidence among the Confederate forces in the upper Indian country and a collision between the two Cherokee regiments was impending. Had he been better informed he might have said that there was only one of them now in existence.