Note (return) — VIII. THE RETIREMENT OF GENERAL PIKE

It finally dawned upon Pike that it was useless to argue any longer upon the matters in dispute between him and Hindman, for Holmes had pre-judged the case. Moreover, Holmes was beginning to appreciate the advantage of being in a position where he could, by ignoring Pike's authority and asserting his own, be much the gainer in a material way. How he could have reconciled such an attitude with the instructions he had received from Randolph it is impossible to surmise. The instructions, whether verbal or written, must have been in full accord with the secretary's letter to Pike of the fourteenth of July, which, although Pike was as yet ignorant of it, had explicitly said that no supplies for Indian Territory should be diverted from their course and that there should be no interference whatever with Pike's somewhat peculiar command.507 All along the authorities in Richmond, their conflicting departmental regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, had insisted that the main object of the Indian alliance had been amply attained when the Indians were found posing as a Home Guard. Indians were not wanted for any service outside the limits of their own country. Service outside was to be deprecated, first, last, and always. Indeed, it was in response to a suggestion from Pike, made in the autumn of 1861, that the Indian Territory ought to be regarded as a thing apart, to be held for the Confederacy most certainly but not to be involved in the warfare outside, that Pike's department had been created and no subsequent