INDEX (continued 5)

[574] Coffin had not been written to, Jan. 6, because the original plan did not contemplate the employment of southern Indians. Not until he heard of their presence, as refugees in Kansas, did Dole include them in his list of possible soldiers.

[575] Superintendent Branch may have had something to do with the opposition that grew up in Washington after Dole’s departure; for he was there the last days of the month. Lane asked for his immediate return to the west [Mix to Lane, January 27, 1862, Indian Office, Letter Book, no. 67, p. 293].

[576] Special Orders, no. 8, Jan. 10, 1862 [Official Records, vol. viii, 734].

[577] Van Dorn to Price, February 7, 1862 [Official Records, first ser., vol. viii, 749].

[578] Cooper to Pike, February 10, 1862 [ibid., vol. xiii, 896].

[579] Walker to Cooper, May 13, 1861 [Official Records, first ser., vol. iii, 574-575].

[580] Report of Albert Pike, dated Fort McCulloch, May 4, 1862 [ibid., vol. xiii, 819].

[581] Van Dorn, Report to Bragg, March 27, 1862 [Official Records, first ser., vol. viii, 283].

[582] Van Dorn to Mackall, February 27, 1862 [ibid., 755].

[583] Maury to Pike, March 3, 1862 [ibid., 763-764].

[584] Maury to Pike, March 3, 1862 [ibid., 764].

[585] Maury to Drew, McIntosh, and Stand Watie, March 3, 1862 [Official Records, first ser., vol. viii, 764].

[586] This will be discussed fully in a later volume.

[587] Journal, vol. i, 640, 743; vol. ii, 19, 20, 51, 52; vol. v, 47, 115, 116, 151, 167, 210.

[588] The act was passed April 8, 1862 [Confederate Statutes at Large (edition of 1864), 11-25].

[589] The writer of this letter was evidently Elias Rector, although the document from which this copy was made is in the handwriting of Albert Pike.

[590] The history of the collection that I have designated for convenience of reference, the Leeper Papers, is outlined in the following letter from F. Johnson, Delaware Indian Agent, to Dole, January 20, 1863 [Indian Office, General Files, Wichita, 1862-1871, J62].

On or about the first of September last a company of Delaware & Shawnee Indians numbering ninety-six, seventy Delawares and twenty-six Shawnees, left Kansas on an expedition southwest from Kansas under the leadership of Ben Simon a Delaware Indian.

He reports that the expedition traveled to the Neosho River in southern Kansas where they halted a few days. From thence they marched in a southwest direction seventeen days to the leased district in Texas, they then traveled up the Wichita River, one day to the neighbourhood of the Wichita Agency. Simon then sent Spies and Scouts to the Agency who reported two hundred Indians well armed at the Agency in the Service of the Southern Confederacy. On receiving this intelligence the Delawares & Shawnees immediately proceded to the Agency which they reached about sundown. On arriving at the Agency they surrounded the buildings when the Agent a man large sized with black hair came out of the house and asked them what was wanting. Simon replied to him that he was his prisoner. At the same instant the Indians rushed into the house when one of the Delawares was shot dead and a Shawnee wounded—there was four white men at the Agency; when the Indians saw their comrades killed and wounded they killed the three men in the House and Agent Leeper who Simon had hold of at the door—the Indians then took possession of the Property and papers belonging to the Agency and burned the buildings. On the next morning they found the trail of the Indians who had escaped from the Agency and followed it to a grove of timber and found as they supposed about one hundred & fifty Indians a part of whom was women and children whom they attacked and report they killed about one hundred the Ballance making their escape. The Delawares and Shawnees then turned homewards with their Booty which consisted of about One hundred Ponies, Twelve hundred Dollars in Confederate Money, the papers correspondence etc. which is wrapped in a rebel Flag taken at the Agency Among the papers taken I would respectfully call your attention to the treaties in manuscript entered into between Albert Pike Commissioner on the part of the Confederate States and the diferent Tribes of Southern Indians as also the commission of Mathew Leeper Indian Agent from James Buchanan President of the United States dated 1st of February 1861.

These Indians few in numbers marching upon a point more than five hundred miles distant furnishing their own transportation forage and provisions without cost to the Government certainly exhibits a great degree of Loyalty daring and hardihood.

[591] J. J. Stürm, commissary for the Indians of the Leased District [Rector to Stürm, July 1, 1861]. On Oct. 3, 1861, Stürm reported to Leeper:

I arrived here over a week ago, and have been waiting for Maj. Rector, who is absent making a Treaty with the Cherokees, and other Tribes at Telequa.... No talk of anything but war here. Price has taken Lexington, Mo., he took and killed over four thousand of Abe’s men, with a great deal of war material....

[592] These two brief communications have a bearing upon Leeper’s case:

You are hereby ordered to remain at Fort Smith Arkansas from 10th. January 1862 untill further ordered by the undersigned, as a witness in the case of the Confederate States of America against M. Leeper, Ind. Agt. on certain charges preferred.—James P. Spring, commissioner, to J. J. Stürm; dated Fort Smith, Ark., December 22, 1861.

Spring may not be able to begin on Leeper’s case before Jan. 20—Is obliged to leave city. If Leeper wants while Spring is away, [to go] to Fayetteville, he may & Spring will telegraph him upon his return.—Spring to Leeper, dated Fort Smith, Ark., December 23, 1861.

[593] William Quesenbury to Leeper, dated Fort Gibson, C. N., Nov. 28, 1861.

[594] H. P. Jones, late lieutenant-commanding to Brigadier-general A. Pike, commanding Indian Territory, dated Washita Agency L. D., May 8, 1862.

[595] H. P. Jones to Pike, dated Washita Agency, May 8, 1862.

[596] Indian Office, Land Files, Upper Arkansas, 1855-1865, C1749.

[597] James Deshler to Leeper, dated Little Rock, Sept. 28, 1862.