Lincoln and the Indians Civil War Policy and Politics

LINCOLN WAS UNDERSTANDABLY unconcerned about corruption in the Indian System in early 1861. His administration confronted a military showdown in South Carolina. The new Republican leaders barely considered even the potential military role of Indian tribes in any civil conflict.

A few unorthodox Northerners included Indians in their military schemes for defeating the South in a Civil War. These focused their attention on the “Five Civilized Tribes” in the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma). The Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles were numerous. Their geographic location was strategically important. The Indian Territory, controlled by the North, could provide a base for attacks on Arkansas and Texas. Controlled by the Confederacy, it could be used to attack Kansas. The disorganization of the new administration, however, prevented any serious action from being taken on these considerations. Federal policy toward the tribes was consequently weak and contradictory.¹

Southern leaders were not so indecisive. They recognized the Indian Territory’s strategic importance and sought immediately to control it. On 29 January 1861, Gov. Henry Rector of Arkansas appealed directly to Principal Chief John Ross of the Cherokees. Rector searched for common ground with the Indians and found it in the institution of slavery. The Cherokees, he wrote Ross, were “allied to the common brotherhood of the slaveholding states.” Rector envisioned a great development of slave labor in the Indian Territory if Ross joined forces with white Southerners. If he did not do so, Rector predicted Lincoln’s people would find Indian country “ripe for the harvest of abolitionism, freesoilers, and Northern mountebanks.”²

A similar message went to other tribes. Confederates reaped early success with the Choctaws, who announced their determination to join the South. Their justifications included slavery and “the natural affections, education, institutions, and interests of our people, which indissolubly bind us in every way to the destiny of our neighbors and brethren of the Southern states.”³

Northern leaders were not ignorant of Confederate activity in Indian country. The Office of Indian Affairs learned of Rector’s contact with the Cherokees in mid-February 1861. The commissioner under the outgoing Buchanan administration was advised that troops would be necessary to counter these Southern influences, but the federal government failed to act. Following Lincoln’s inauguration, the new secretary of the interior discovered that the Indian agent for the Cherokees was working actively for the Southern cause.⁴

These Confederate attempts to win over the Indians might have had less success had it not been for some serious grievances the tribesmen held against the federal government. Their loyalty to it was diluted by recollections of the government’s forcibly removing them from the southeast a generation earlier. That government had failed to fulfill treaty obligations. The Indians also feared they would lose their slaves and tended to believe Southern arguments that Northerners eventually intended to invade their land. The Lincoln administration did not inspire confidence in Indian country. Some Republican leaders, it was rumored, were openly advocating driving the Natives out of the Indian Territory.⁵

The Lincoln administration made feeble attempts to counter Confederate influences. Commissioner William P. Dole wrote the tribes that “the government would under no circumstances permit the smallest interference with their tribal or domestic institutions.” He said that Southern agents were spreading an “erroneous impression” about government policy on slavery. This comforting message was not delivered to the tribes because of the pro-Southern activities of the Indian agents.⁶ Instead, the slaveholding Indians heard the same words from Lincoln that so disturbed white Southerners, “One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended.”

Lincoln’s other public declarations were not conciliatory. His theory of the Union did not allow secession and “resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary.” Lincoln meant to “hold, occupy, and possess” federal properties. What did such words mean for Indian country? They sounded threatening. White Southerners were saying that Northerners would use war as an excuse to overrun the Indian Territory. That reasoning apparently made sense to the tribal leaders.⁷

The Lincoln government took only minimal actions in Indian country. In April, Lincoln appointed a new superintendent to the Southern Superintendency to replace an official who had declared his allegiance to the Confederacy. On 12 April, the day the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, Sen. J. C. Pomeroy of Kansas urged Commissioner Dole to find some way to fulfill financial obligations due the Indians by treaty. Agent John Crawford pleaded with Dole for action: “The excitement here is at an alarming pitch…. I wish to God those in power would do something.”⁸

Those in power did nothing. In fact, the Lincoln government was preparing to withdraw from Indian country. Military posts were abandoned by the federals by 18 May. This left the tribes with no alternative but to join the South. The Chickasaws did just that on 25 May 1861, proclaiming their concern for “our social and domestic institutions” and predicting that Lincolnian rule would surpass the horrors of the French Revolution. The Choctaws took formal action on 14 June.⁹

Lincoln obviously placed a low priority on holding the Indian Territory at that moment. He was more concerned with the border states and protecting Washington. Commissioner Dole dissented from that policy. He pressed Secretary of Interior Caleb Smith on the “necessity of sending a military force in the Indian country west of Arkansas.” Dole maintained that, although most of the tribes were loyal, they could be lured into war by Southern attentions. Dole wanted two or three thousand men to stabilize the situation. Smith endorsed the request and sent it to the War Department, but nothing was done.¹⁰ The only concession was the authorization of the use of Indian spies in the Southwest where there was some concern over Confederate instigation of “Indian depredations.”¹¹ In July, Commissioner Dole and Secretary Smith requested an armed force for Arizona and New Mexico “as will insure to the loyal citizens of the territory and the officers of this Department therein located, that protection to which they are entitled from the Government of the U. States.”¹²

Concern also surfaced in the Congress. On 22 July, the House of Representatives demanded that the secretary of war tell congressmen “whether the Southern Confederacy … has in their service any Indians; and if so, what number and what tribes.” Simon Cameron reported that he had “no information” on the subject—an inexplicable falsehood. Union officials knew that their own agents had defected and that the Confederacy was negotiating treaties. It is highly probable that they knew that Indian troops were being organized. On 1 August, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was informed that a regiment of “mounted rifles” had been organized among the Choctaws and Chickasaws and was ready for battle.¹³

Abraham Lincoln had abandoned Indian country. Opothleyaholo, a Creek leader, was bitter over the Union betrayal. He wrote Lincoln a long letter recounting the broken promises of many years. The “Great Father” (meaning Lincoln’s predecessors) had promised that “in our new homes, we should be defended from all interference from any people, and that no white people in the whole world should ever molest us unless they came from the sky.” Now, the old chief found that the heavens were producing white men who urged them to fight with the South. He demanded that the president tell him what to do. “We do not hear from you,” he complained. Southern agents told the Creeks that “the Government represented by our Great Father at Washington has turned against us.”¹⁴

The Confederate government had moved quickly to secure the loyalty of the tribes. On the day of Lincoln’s inauguration (4 March), the Confederate Congress sent a special agent to the tribes west of Arkansas. On 15 March, a Bureau of Indian Affairs was established. By May, Albert Pike was commissioned to negotiate treaties with the Indians.¹⁵

Although the Confederates were interested in controlling the Indian Territory to expand their geographical domain, they also wanted manpower. One recommendation called for enlisting two thousand Cherokees and “send[ing] them that they may go and fall suddenly upon the unpeopled prairies and unannounced upon the Northwestern Territories and States.”¹⁶ On 13 May, the Confederate secretary of war ordered the occupation of the Territory and the raising of two regiments of Indian troops. On 17 May, the Confederacy annexed the Indian Territory. That same month, Stand Watie of the Cherokees offered to organize troops and was made a colonel in the Confederate Army.¹⁷

Albert Pike’s efforts in the Indian Territory were soon rewarded with all the tribes except the Cherokees. Among the Cherokees, the former New Englander and longtime friend of Indians attempted to exploit a split between mixed-blood slaveowners and antislavery fullbloods. The superintendent of the Southern Superintendency was informed, “The influence of Capt Pike the Rebel Commissioner is second to no man’s among the Southern Indians & I fear that he may succeed in his intrigues with the other tribes.”¹⁸

The man who resisted Pike’s entreaties the longest was John Ross. Ross rebuffed Pike’s first overtures and many Cherokees were loyal to the old leader, now more than seventy years of age. He had led his people a generation before along the “trail of tears” from Georgia to the Indian Territory.¹⁹ Now another crisis threatened his people.

The inaction of the Lincoln government left Ross with few alternatives. He chose the only policy that could possibly spare people bloodshed—neutrality. Ross’s neutrality was early established. He answered Henry Rector’s letter of 29 January with noncommittal assurances. He announced his neutrality policy publicly in May 1861 and refused to approve the organization of troops for the Confederacy. He told a Northern commander, “We do not wish our soil to become the battle ground between the States and our homes to be rendered desolate and miserable by the horrors of civil war.”²⁰

Commissioner Dole made attempts to reach Ross in his May 1861 messages that went undelivered. These notes assured the Cherokee leader on slavery, accused “bad and unscrupulous men” of misrepresenting the president on that issue, and said Dole had requested troops and weapons for the Indian Territory. Caleb Smith’s accompanying message said, “I have assured the President that he need have no apprehension of trouble with your people.”²¹ Ross never read those words. In any event, federal withdrawal demonstrated what the policy behind the words really was.

Ross continued to hold out. Confederate Gen. Benjamin McCulloch warned his superiors that “John Ross … is only waiting for some favorable opportunity to put himself with the North.”²² Confederate Commissioner of Indian Affairs David Hubbard pressured Ross in June, warning him that Northerners would take Cherokee slaves, land, and default on Cherokee money invested in bonds issued by Southern states if the Union won the war. Actually, McCulloch had Ross militarily surrounded. The Choctaw and Chickasaw regiment was organized to the south, Arkansas was on the east, and McCulloch had forces on the Cherokees’ western border. John Ross had no alternative but to join the Confederacy.

Ross soon realized how untenable his position was. On 21 August, the Cherokees agreed to seek an alliance with the Confederacy. On 31 August, McCulloch reported, “The Cherokees have joined the South, and offered me a regiment.” The alliance was consummated on 9 October and the Cherokees sought to convince Southerners of their sincerity in language denouncing the Lincoln government as a “military despotism” guilty of crimes against the constitution and humanity.²³

The Cherokees had some reason for hopeful results from the new relationship. Albert Pike had promised them a degree of equal treatment they had never enjoyed with the federal government. Indian troops were to select their own field officers. They were promised representation in the Confederate Congress. The Congress, however, diluted this pledge by disallowing voting rights and permitting only one delegate per tribe.²⁴ Nevertheless, these concessions were more satisfactory than any proposal ever offered by the national government.

The Lincoln government learned in late August that the Cherokees had joined the Southern cause. By September, the military was getting worried. Gen. John C. Frémont warned that the Confederates were organizing Indians and “that the frontier is utterly unprotected and that the inhabitants have applied in vain for aid to the State Authorities.” The Indian Territory was in complete control of the Confederacy. C. H. Carruth told James H. Lane that John Ross had joined the Confederacy and “all there is left to do, is to kindle civil war over his head.”²⁵

What worried some Unionists was the apparent intention of the Confederates to do more than merely hold their position in Indian country. General McCulloch ordered Col. Stand Watie “to move into neutral land and Kansas, and destroy everything that might be of service to the enemy.”²⁶ This destruction, especially in the pockets of Indian resistance to the Confederate control, resulted in a flood of refugees into Kansas.

Union leaders could no longer ignore the strategic threat in the Indian Territory. One report warned that the Indian alliances gave Southerners a potential army of sixty-four thousand men in the region covering the Indian Territory westward. These troops, a New Mexican officer informed a superior, would form “an efficient army for operations upon these territories, familiar with this country, and allied to the Georgians, who sympathize with secession, and form a large proportion of our mining population.”²⁷

On 22 November 1861, the Confederacy organized the Indian Territory into a separate military department and designated Albert Pike as commander.²⁸ On 3 December, Abraham Lincoln reported to the Congress, “The Indian country south of Kansas is in possession of insurgents.” He also noted press reports that the Confederates were organizing Indian troops.

Lincoln was forced to change his mind. He had ignored the Indian Territory, withdrawn Union forces, and given leaders like John Ross no place to go but the Confederacy. That was beginning to look like a military blunder. Lincoln told the Congress, “It is believed that upon repossession of the country by the federal forces the Indians will readily cease all hostile demonstrations, and resume their former relations to the government.”²⁹

This meant that the president had decided to retake the Indian Territory. Now, the cost would be far greater than it would have been had it been initiated when Commissioner Dole first urged action in May 1861. The greatest price was being paid by the Indians who, due to the Confederate scorched-earth policy in neutral areas, were being driven into Kansas by the thousands.³⁰

Lincoln’s decision to retake Indian Territory had unexpected ramifications. Because of the shortage of soldiers for the theaters of conflict farther east, it was inevitable that Indian troops would have to be used in Indian Territory. Public opinion was generally opposed to the use of Indian manpower in the army, although the army had utilized Indian scouts and spies. For this reason, Lincoln had already rejected the idea of Indian soldiers. In May 1861, Hole-in-the-Day, a Minnesota Chippewa leader, offered a hundred men to the government. The secretary of war replied, “The President as well as this Department is much pleased,” but turned down the offer. Simon Cameron’s language mirrored the fears of whites, “The nature of our present national troubles, forbids the use of savages.”³¹

William P. Dole had pressed for a military force in Indian country in May, although he did not specify Indian troops. An agent on the scene was more precise, “Let me beg of you that you will lay the matter before the President, and see if possible that some measures are taken to rescue the southern Indians from the rebels.” He specifically suggested “the formation of a brigade of friendly Indians” to combat the Cherokees armed by the Confederates. This agent claimed that all the other agents favored such a plan. He then revealed the probable author of the scheme: “Gen’l Lane is also heartily in favor of it.”³²

More than anyone else, James H. (“Bloody Jim”) Lane was responsible for persuading Abraham Lincoln to use Indian troops. Lane was unscrupulous and unpredictable. He had gone to Kansas from Indiana in 1855, where his political career had been ruined by his escapades. Lane found Kansas the perfect environment for his style of activity. He changed parties (Democrat to Republican) and began the career that made him a folk hero and elevated him to the United States Senate in 1861. Lane’s brigade, composed of drifters, blacks, and Indians, became notorious for missions that frequently plundered Unionist civilians as readily as the Confederates.³³

Lane became a powerful man in Washington, and his influence on Lincoln was remarkable. Military patronage in Kansas was controlled by Lane, not by the governor, as was the normal practice. Lincoln even humiliated Gov. Charles Robinson over this. In August 1862, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton told Lane to report the names of officers selected. Governor Robinson would be asked to commission them. If he refused, Stanton said, “The President will issue commissions.” This was done in no other state.³⁴

Lane’s ability to influence Lincoln came, in part, from his constant badgering of the president. Lincoln appears to have sometimes gone along with Lane just to get rid of him. Lincoln once told a Kansas governor: “He knocks at my door every morning. You know he is a very persistent fellow and hard to put off. I don’t see you very often and have to pay attention to him.”³⁵

Lane offered bodyguards for Lincoln’s trip to Washington for the inauguration. His Jayhawkers slept in the White House hallways following the battle at Fort Sumter. From 18 April to 27 April, fifty of Lane’s men guarded the president against assassination. From the very beginning, Jim Lane was camped by Lincoln’s door.³⁶

Lane embroiled Lincoln in the political quagmire of Kansas. Commissioner Dole accurately warned the president, “In Kansas they are purely political.” When Lincoln entered office, Lane and Gov. Charles Robinson were in the midst of a struggle for power. Before it was over, Lincoln was drawn into the fight.³⁷

Jim Lane’s great obsession was to lead a military expedition against the South to shorten the war by an attack on the exposed flank of the Confederacy in Arkansas and Texas. Indian Office officials supported the scheme. W. G. Coffin, head of the Southern Superintendency, argued that it was workable if Lane could get “the propper [sic] authority from the President.” If appointed brigadier general, Coffin believed that Lane “would be able to organize such a force as would strike terror into the secessionists in Arkansas and Texas.”³⁸

In June 1861 Jim Lane was in Washington agitating for his project. He succeeded in obtaining authorization to raise troops in Kansas—short of commanding an expedition. He was appointed brigadier general over the protest of Governor Robinson and his ally, Fred P. Stanton, who argued that Lane should at least resign his senate seat.³⁹ Lane, however, had secured a blank commission and did not accept the appointment officially. A month later, the adjutant general was still seeking his acceptance. Lane replied that he would accept as soon as the Kansas Brigade was organized. That date passed and Jim Lane kept the War Department dangling. He obviously hoped to keep a hold on both positions until he received assurances that he would command an expedition. Meanwhile, he campaigned to obtain Lincoln’s support.⁴⁰

On 29 August, Lane claimed that he had reports of six thousand Confederates advancing on Kansas. He initiated negotiations with the southern Indians on his own, informing Commissioner Dole a month later. This move came too late to stop the Cherokees from allying with the Confederacy.⁴¹

On 9 October, Lane pressured Lincoln to establish a new military department, “to be composed of Kansas, the Indian country, and so much of Arkansas and the Territories as may be thought advisable to include therein.” Lane wanted ten thousand troops for the new department and he had just the man to command it—Jim Lane. “I will cheerfully accept it, resign my seat in the Senate, and devote all my thoughts and energies to the prosecution of the War,” he proclaimed.⁴²

Lane had vocal allies in Superintendents Coffin and Mark Delahay. They called the Indian Territory “a strategic point of much importance” and pressed Lincoln for a new military department with Lane in command. “He is fearless, active, energetic and untiring in whatever he undertakes,” they told Lincoln, “and has all the skill and experience necessary to constitute a prudent and successful commander.” The two Indian officials blamed Governor Robinson for most of the charges against Lane and his old brigade. They reminded Lincoln that they were political supporters and that he should not be doing favors for their opponents.⁴³

Thus far, Lincoln had refused to bend to the pressure. On 24 October, he told Gen. David Hunter not to worry about attacks from the South until spring. The War Department informed Lane that a request to raise an additional regiment of cavalry was denied. Lincoln did not intend to authorize a great Southern expedition—at least, not yet.⁴⁴

In fact, the president had decided to rely on General Hunter in Kansas. Hunter’s appointment to the Kansas command was one of the few positions Jim Lane had been unable to control. Hunter was an emotional, difficult man from Lincoln’s home state of Illinois. But at this moment, he seemed safer to Lincoln than “Bloody Jim” Lane.⁴⁵

Lincoln wanted Hunter to try diplomacy once more with the southern tribes. “I am directed by the President,” Dole told Hunter on 16 November 1861, “to respectfully request the performance of you of the trusts herein indicated, involving, as you will perceive, some delicate and important matters.” Lincoln was clearly worried about Albert Pike’s recruiting activities. “It is this influence which the President is exceedingly anxious to counteract at once through you.” The mission was to be “promptly done” to prevent the Indians from joining the Confederate forces. Lincoln had concluded that Hunter was “the most suitable person to do this.” Jim Lane, by implication, was not.⁴⁶

Hunter was instructed to deliver letters, including those that had gone undelivered the previous May. He succeeded in seeing some Indian leaders and promised them trips to Washington. It was too little, too late. Lincoln was tying to use words as a substitute for military action. Now, he was forced to take another look at the military option. That meant that Jim Lane’s star was again on the rise.⁴⁷

Jim Lane arrived back in Washington in November, prepared to push for his Southern expedition. He had added to his circle of powerful allies. They included Postmaster General Montgomery Blair; a lobbyist for New England textile interests, Edward Atkinson; and Benjamin F. Butler, commander of the Department of New England. The plan called for a two-pronged attack, with Butler landing on the Texas coast and another army marching southward from Kansas. This expedition lobby, coupled with the failure of Lincoln’s Indian diplomacy, began to push the president toward military action.⁴⁸

David Hunter was the one who suggested employing Indian troops in Kansas. On 27 November, he sought “authority to muster into the service a Brigade of Kansas Indians to assist the Creeks, Seminoles & Chickasaws in adhering to their loyalty.”⁴⁹ This request may have helped convince policymakers that there was substance to Jim Lane’s contention that a military force was needed.

Commissioner Dole also continued to support the use of troops in the Indian Territory. He was always Lincoln’s favored advisor on Indian matters and later took credit for the decision to use Indian troops, much of which he deserved.⁵⁰

The most decisive factor in that decision was the Indians themselves. By December 1861, thousands of Indian refugees were crossing into Kansas. The administration could no longer ignore the Indian Territory because Kansans would not allow it. They wanted to be rid of those extra Indians. Lincoln’s previous decision to retake the Indian Territory coincided with the pressing need to relocate the refugees in their homes. The availability of these refugees as soldiers dovetailed with the need for troops to retake Indian country.

Stories reached Washington of the gallant fight of the refugees against the Confederates. Opothleyaholo appealed directly to Lincoln: “Now, Father, we ask you for all the help you can give us, send me 2 or 3 thousand men if you can spare them.” Opothleyaholo had led four thousand Indians out of the Indian Territory. An agent reported to Dole that the Delawares wanted to help and were asking “why it is their Great Father in Washington delays sending them to assist their southern brethern.” Another agent appealed to Dole, “Hurry up Lane.”⁵¹

Jim Lane needed no hurrying. He had already persuaded Lincoln to authorize a Southern expedition that would utilize Indian troops. On 26 November, David Hunter was ordered to report on his resources for an expedition. On 4 December, General-in-Chief Henry Halleck told Hunter that a final decision had been made. Hunter was not happy. He had wanted an expedition with Indian troops, but he wanted to command it himself. He sensed the hand of Jim Lane in these communications. Hunter protested that an expedition was “altogether impracticable.” He said he had only three thousand men and that the Confederates had ten thousand to the south and twenty thousand men in Missouri. Hunter was assured that sufficient force would be provided.⁵²

Hunter was still upset, and he wrote Lincoln an angry letter. “I am very deeply mortified, humiliated, insulted, and disgraced,” he told the chief executive.⁵³ His words drew an equally angry response from Lincoln. The president told the general that it was difficult to answer “so ugly a letter in good temper.” Hunter was unwittingly playing into Jim Lane’s hands. Lincoln told him:

By 2 January 1862, Lincoln was ready to act. Simon Cameron informed Caleb Smith: “It is desired to receive into the U.S. Service 4,000 Indians from the borders of Kansas and Missouri. It is proposed to give them each a blanket, Army subsistence, and such arms as may be necessary to supply deficiencies.”⁵⁵

A triumphant Jim Lane wired the news to David Hunter on 3 January, “It is the intention of the Government to order me to report to you for an active winter’s campaign…. They have also ordered you, in conjunction with the Indian Department, to organize 4,000 Indians.” Lane and Dole were coming to Kansas to help.⁵⁶

Hunter was furious. He was to “organize” the Indian troops with both Dole and Lane on the scene. This meant he would be a figurehead. Lane would command the soldiers, and Hunter could do little more than sign requisitions. A letter from the secretary of war confirmed this arrangement. It also revealed that Lane had falsely represented to Cameron that he was pursuing Hunter’s wishes and had been authorized to command thirty thousand troops. In fact, Lincoln had never wanted to send more than ten thousand to fifteen thousand men.⁵⁷

Nevertheless, the historic decision was made. Indians would serve in the Union army and would receive pay and benefits equal to that of white troops—“the same pay as other volunteers, whilst the chiefs will receive a higher remuneration.” Death benefits were to be paid to the families of men who died while in service. This might have represented an extraordinary step toward Indian equality, just as the use of black troops in the Union army influenced the movement for citizenship for former slaves. Unfortunately, its great potential was never realized.⁵⁸

1. Sammy David Buice, “The Civil War and the Five Civilized Tribes” (Ph.D. diss.), p. 15.

2. Henry M. Rector to John Ross, 29 January 1861, OR, 1:1, pp. 683–84.

3. Resolution of General Council of the Choctaw Nation, 7 February 1861, OR, 1:1, p. 682.

4. R. T. Corvant to H. B. Greenwood, 13 February 1861, John B. Ogden to the Secretary of the Interior, 4 March 1861, both Roll 99, M234, LR, Cherokee Agency, OIA, RG75, NA.

5. Buice, “Civilized Tribes,” p. 25; Annie H. Abel, The Slaveholding Indians, 1:58–59.

6. William P. Dole to Ross et al., 11 May 1861, AR, CIA, 1861, pp. 650–51.

7. Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 4:253–58.

8. Caleb B. Smith to Dole, 5 April 1861, Roll 835, M234, LR, Southern Superintendency, OIA, RG75, NA; J. C. Pomeroy to Dole, 12 April 1861, Roll 58, M234, LR, Central Superintendency, OIA, RG75, NA; John Crawford to Dole, 21 April 1861, Roll 99, M234, LR, Cherokee Agency, OIA, RG75, NA.

9. S. T. Benning to L. Pope Walker, 14 May 1861, OR, 1:1, p. 653; Resolutions of the Chickasaw Legislature, 25 May 1861, OR, 1:3, p. 585; Proclamation of the Principal Chief of the Choctaw Nation, 14 June 1861, OR, 1:3, p. 593.

10. Dole to Smith, 30 May 1861, AR, CIA, p. 651; Smith to Simon Cameron, 30 May 1861, Roll 3, M606, LS, ID, OSI, RG48, NA.

11. A. L. Anderson to William Chapman, 19 June 1861, pp. 40–41, E. R. S. Canby to the Governor of Colorado, 6 July 1861, pp. 52–54, Canby to the Assistant Adjutant General, 29 July 1861, p. 61, all in OR, 1:4.

12. Smith to Cameron, 19 July 1861, Roll 3, M606, LS, ID, OSI, RG48, NA.

13. Resolution of the House of Representatives, 22 July 1861, OR, 3:1, p. 340; Cameron to Galusha A. Grow, 25 July 1861, OR, 3:1, p. 348; Albert Pike to Jefferson Davis, 1 August 1861, OR, 1:3, p. 625.

14. Opothleyaholo to Abraham Lincoln, 15 August 1861, White Chief et al. to Lincoln, 18 September 1861, both in Roll 59, M574, SF201, OIA, RG75, NA.

15. Buice, “Civilized Tribes,” pp. 10, 26.

16. Felix W. Robertson to Davis, 3 May 1861, OR, 1:53, p. 676.

17. Walker to Benjamin McCulloch, 13 May 1861, OR, 1:3, p. 575; Buice, “Civilized Tribes,” p. 28; J. Frederick Neet, “Stand Watie, Confederate General in the Cherokee Nation,” p. 38.

18. Buice, “Civilized Tribes,” pp. 43–46; E. H. Carruth to W. G. Coffin, 11 July 1861, Roll 835, M234, LR, OIA, RG75, NA.

19. The best account of the removal is still Grant Foreman, Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians.

20. Ross to Elias Rector, 22 February 1861, OR, 1:13, pp. 491–92; Ross to J. R. Kannady, 17 May 1861, OR, 1:13, p. 493; Gary E. Moulton, “Chief John Ross During the Civil War,” p. 315.

21. Dole to Ross, 11 May 1861, Roll 65, M21, LS, OIA, RG75, NA. Also found in AR, CIA, 1861, pp. 650–51; Smith to Ross et al., 11 May 1861, Roll 59, M574, SF201, OIA, RG75, NA; AR, CIA, 1861, p. 627.

22. David Hubbard to Ross, 12 June 1861, Ross to Hubbard, 17 June 1861, OR, 1:13, pp. 497–99; McCulloch to Walker, 22 June 1861, OR, 1:3, p. 595.

23. Resolution of the Cherokee Council, 21 August 1861, OR, 1:13, pp. 499–500; Ross to McCulloch, 24 August 1861, OR, 1:13, p. 673; McCulloch to Walker, OR, 1:13, p. 689; McCulloch to Ross, 1 September 1861, OR, 1:13, p. 690; Message of John Ross to the Cherokee Council, 9 October 1861, Declaration by the Cherokee National Committee, 28 October 1861, OR, 1:13, pp. 500–505; Moulton, “Chief John Ross,” pp. 318–19.

24. Walker to Pike, 24 August 1861, OR, 1:13, p. 671; Resolution by the Confederate Congress, July 1861, OR, 4:1, p. 443; OR, 4:1, pp. 1190–91; Abel, Slaveholding Indians, 1:159.

25. John R. Howard to Charles Robinson, 18 September 1861, Correspondence of the Kansas Governors, 1861–1865; Carruth to James H. Lane, 9 October 1861, Roll 57, M234, LR, Central Superintendency, OIA, RG75, NA.

26. McCulloch to Sterling Price, 22 October 1861, OR, 1:3, p. 721.

27. William Gilpin to Canby, 26 October 1861, OR, I:4, p. 73.

28. Abel, Slaveholding Indians, 1:253.

29. Basler, ed., Collected Works, 5:46.

30. Abel, Slaveholding Indians, 1:259.

31. D. Cooper to Cameron, 1 May 1861, OR, 3:1, p. 140; Cameron to Cooper, 9 May 1861, OR, 3:1, p. 184.

32. Dole to Smith, 30 May 1861, AR, CIA, 1861, p. 651; George Cutler to Dole, 21 October 1861, Roll 28, Abraham Lincoln Papers, LC.

33. Buice, “Civilized Tribes,” p. 64.

34. Edwin M. Stanton to Lane, 23 August 1862, OR, 3:2, p. 444.

35. Edgar Langsdorf, “Jim Lane and the Frontier Guard,” p. 25; Lloyd Lewis, “The Man the Historians Forgot.”

36. Langsdorf, “Jim Lane,” p. 25; Lane to Cameron, 27 April 1861, Mark W. Delahay Papers.

37. Dole to Lincoln, 6 October 1863, Roll 60, Lincoln Papers, LC; Albert Castel, A Frontier State at War: Kansas, 1861–1865, p. 71; article in the Weekly Western Argus, Charles Robinson Papers.

38. Coffin to Dole, 3 June 1861, Roll 22, Lincoln Papers, LC.

39. Fred P. Stanton testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 20 June 1861, Roll 196, M221, LR, SW, RG107, NA.

40. Lorenzo Thomas to Lane, 26 July 1861, Lane to Thomas, 28 June 1861, Roll 24, Lincoln Papers, LC.

41. Lane to Price, 29 August 1861, OR, 1:3, p. 465; Lane to Carruth, 30 August 1861, Roll 835, M234, LR, Southern Superintendency, OIA, RG75, NA.

42. Lane to Lincoln, 9 October 1861, OR, 1:3, pp. 529–30.

43. Coffin to Lincoln, 28 October 1861, Roll 28, Lincoln Papers, LC.

44. Lincoln to David Hunter, 24 October 1861, ibid.; Thomas A. Scott to Lane, 29 October 1861, Roll 46, M6, LS, SW, RG107, NA.

45. Castel, A Frontier State at War, p. 78; Dudley Cornish, The Sable Arm, pp. 80–81.

46. Dole to Hunter, 16 November 1861, Roll 67, M21, LS, OIA, RG75, NA.

47. Dole to White Chief, Bob Deer, 16 November 1861, Dole to Hunter, 17 December 1861, ibid.

48. Castel, A Frontier State at War, p. 81; Ludwell Johnson, The Red River Campaign, pp. 9–11; Buice, “Civilized Tribes,” p. 77.

49. Hunter to Thomas, 27 November 1861, Roll 29, Lincoln Papers, LC.

50. Dole to Smith, 5 June 1862, AR, CIA, 1862, p. 291.

51. T. Johnson to Dole, 31 December 1861, Opothleyaholo to Lincoln, G. W. Cullen [?] to Dole, 2 January 1862, Roll 59, M574, SF201, RG75, NA.

52. Hunter to Thomas, 26 November 1861, OR, 1:8, p. 379; Buice, “Civilized Tribes,” p. 78; Hunter to Lane, 13 February 1862, Roll 32, Lincoln Papers, LC; Hunter to Thomas, 11 December 1861, OR, 1:8, p. 428; George B. McClellan to Hunter, 11 December 1861, OR, 1:8, pp. 428–29.

53. Hunter to Lincoln, 23 December 1861, Roll 30, Lincoln Papers, LC.

54. Lincoln to Hunter, 31 December 1861, OR, 1:53, p. 511.

55. Cameron to Smith, 2 January 1862, Roll 47, M6, LS, SW, RG107, NA; Smith to Dole, 3 January 1862, Roll 59, M574, SF201, OIA, RG75, NA.

56. Lane to Hunter, 3 January 1862, OR, 1:8, p. 482.

57. Cameron to Hunter, 3 January 1862, OR, 1:53, p. 512; Lincoln to the Secretary of War, 31 January 1862, OR, 1:8, p. 538.

58. Dole to W. W. Ross, Dole to H. B. Branch, 6 January 1862, Roll 67, M21, LS, OIA, RG75, NA.

III. Lincoln and the Southern Tribes “Our Great Father at Washington Has Turned Against Us”

III. Lincoln and the Southern Tribes
“Our Great Father at Washington Has Turned Against Us”