Chapter D: N. Cooley Esq, Commissioner of Ind. Aff

[229] In writing this letter, Pike most certainly addressed himself to Toombs officially and with the idea in mind that he was holding his commission under the Confederate State Department. That he was serving under that department and that he did not get his appointment until May seem scarcely to admit of a doubt, notwithstanding the fact that Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of War later in the year, December [14?], 1861, in reporting to President Davis, could make the following statement:

At the first session of the Congress an act was passed providing for
the sending of a commissioner to the Indian tribes north of Texas and
west of Arkansas, with the view of making such arrangements for an
alliance with and the protection of the Indians as were rendered
necessary by the disruption of the Union and our natural succession to
the rights and duties of the United States, so far as these Indians
were concerned. The supervision of this important branch of
administrative duty was confided to the State Department, by which
Brig.-Gen. Albert Pike was selected as commissioner. At a later period
of the same session a Bureau of Indian Affairs was created by law and
attached to this Department, charged with the management of our
relations with the Indian tribes....--_Official Records_, fourth ser.,
vol. i, 792.

Now, if Benjamin was correct in his chronology, the appointment of Pike must have antedated that of Hubbard, a very unlikely state of affairs unless, indeed, the Confederate government from the start, taking cognizance of the very advanced condition of the Indians under discussion and of the very extreme delicacy of the situation, concluded it would be wisest to act upon the assumption that the great tribes were independent enough to be dealt with almost as foreign powers and so left everything to the discretion of the State Department.

In November, 1861, the Provisional Congress considered the advisability of transferring the whole Indian Bureau to the Department of State [_Journal_, November 28, 1861, vol. i, 489]. The transfer was probably suggested by the fact that the relations to date of the Confederate States with the Indians had been conducted altogether upon a basis of diplomacy. An added reason might have been, that the ordinary business of the War Department was sufficiently onerous without the details of Indian complications being made a part of it. Yet the transfer was never made.

[230] _Official Records_, first ser., vol. iii, 576-578.

[231] Hubbard's ill-health, however, seems to have made it incumbent upon Pike to assume much the larger share of official responsibility and practically to do Hubbard's work as well as his own; that is, so much of it as was not transacted in Richmond.

[232] Adjutant and Inspector-General S. Cooper to McCulloch, May 13, 1861 [_Official Records_, first ser., vol. iii, 575-576].

[233] Hubbard to Walker, June 2, 1861 [_ibid._, 589-590].

[234] _Official Records_, first ser., vol. xiii, 497-498; General Files, _Cherokee, 1859-1865_, C515.

[235] Rhodes, _op. cit._, vol. iii, 237-238; also _Report_ of the Select Committee to Investigate the Abstraction of Bonds Held by the United States Government in Trust for Indian Tribes, being House _Report_, 36th congress, second session, no. 78. Dole, in his _Annual Report_ for 1861, p. 27, urged that the government make the loss good to the Indians and also appropriate money "to meet the unpaid interest on those trust bonds of the revolted States yet in custody of the Secretary of the Interior." There ought never, either from the standpoint of national faith or of that of political expediency, to have been any hesitation in the matter.

[236] The entire letter is to be found in _Official Records_, first ser., vol. xiii, 498-499; also in General Files, _Cherokee, 1850-1865_, C515.

[237]

WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. ARMY, MONTGOMERY, May 13, 1861.

MAJOR DOUGLAS H. COOPER, Choctaw Nation:

Sir: The desire of this Government is to cultivate the most friendly
relations and the closest alliance with the Choctaw Nation and all the
Indian tribes west of Arkansas and south of Kansas. Appreciating your
sympathies with these tribes, and their reciprocal regard for you, we
have thought it advisable to enlist your services in the line of this
desire. From information in possession of the Government it is deemed
expedient to take measures to secure the protection of these tribes in
their present country from the agrarian rapacity of the North, that,
unless opposed, must soon drive them from their homes and supplant
them in their possessions, as, indeed, would have been the case with
the entire South but for our present efforts at resistance. It is well
known that with these unjust designs against the Indian country the
Northern movement for several years has had its emissaries scheming
among the tribes for their ultimate destruction. Their destiny has
thus become our own, and common with that of all the Southern States
entering this Confederation.

Entertaining these views and feelings, and with these objects before
us, we have commissioned General Ben. McCulloch, with three regiments
under his command, from the States of Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana,
to take charge of the military district embracing the Indian country,
and I now empower you to raise among the Choctaws and Chickasaws a
mounted regiment, to be commanded by yourself, in co-operation with
General McCulloch. It is designed also to raise two other similar
regiments among the Creeks, Cherokees, Seminoles, and other friendly
tribes for the same purpose. This combined force of six regiments will
be ample to secure the frontiers upon Kansas and the interests of the
Indians, while to the south of the Red River three regiments from
Texas, under a different command, have been already assigned to the
Rio Grande and western border.

It will thus appear, I trust, that the resources of this Government
are adequate to its ends, and assured to the friendly Indians. We have
our agents actively engaged in the manufacture of ammunition and in
the purchase of arms, and when your regiment has been reported
organized in ten companies, ranging from 64 to 100 men each, and
enrolled for twelve months, if possible, it will be received into the
Confederate service, and supplied with arms and ammunition. Such will
be the course pursued also in relation to the two other regiments I
have indicated.

The arms we are purchasing for the Indians are rifles, and they will
be forwarded to Fort Smith. Respectfully,