Note (return) — XIII. ASPECTS, CHIEFLY MILITARY, 1864-1865
Reading edition
Phillips was again in charge of their northern compatriots972 and, at Fort Gibson, he, too, was handling Indians carefully. It was in a final desperate sort of a way that a league with the Indians of the Plains was again considered advisable and held for debate at the coming meeting of the general council. To effect it, when decided upon, the services of Albert Pike were solicited.973 No other could be trusted as he. Apparently he never served or agreed to serve974 and no alliance was needed; for the war was at an end. On the twenty-sixth of May, General E. Kirby Smith entered into a convention with Major-general E.R.S. Canby, commanding the Military Division of West Mississippi, by which he agreed to surrender the Trans-Mississippi Department and everything appertaining to it.975 The Indians had made an alliance with the Southern Confederacy in vain. The promises of Pike, of Cooper, and of many another government agent had all come to naught.
Footnote 971:
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(cont.) confidentially to Anderson, May 15, 1865. Official Records, vol. xlviii, part ii, 1306.