Note (return) — XI. INDIAN TERRITORY IN 1863, JANUARY TO JUNE INCLUSIVE

Conditions in Indian Territory, at the time Steele took command, were conceivably the worst that could by any possibility be imagined. The land had been stripped of its supplies, the troops were scarcely worthy of the name.697 Around Fort Smith, in Arkansas, things were equally bad.698 People were clamoring for protection against marauders, some were wanting only the opportunity to move themselves and their effects far away out of the reach of danger, others were demanding that the unionists be cleaned out just as secessionists had, in some cases, been. Confusion worse confounded prevailed. Hindman had resorted to a system of almost wholesale furloughing to save expense.699 Most of the Indians had taken advantage of it and were off duty when Steele arrived. Many had preferred to subsist at government cost.700 There was so little in their own homes for them to get. Forage was practically non-existent and Steele soon had it impressed 701 upon him that troops in the Indian Territory ought, as Hindman had come to think months before,702 to be all unmounted.