The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War. Annie Heloise Abel
17th 1861.
HON.W.P. DOLE, Commissioner of Indian Affairs
Dear Sir: After receiving the cattle and making arrangements for their keeping at Leroy I went and paid a visit to the Ruins of Humboldt which certainly present a gloomy appearance. All the best part of the town was burnt. Thurstons House that I had rented for an office tho near half a mile from town was burnt tho his dwelling and mill near by were spared. All my books and papers that were there were lost. My trunk and what little me and my son had left after the sacking were all burnt including to Land Warrents one 160 acres and one 120. Our Minne Rifle and ammunition Saddle bridle, etc.... About 4 or 5 Hundred Sacks of Whitney's Corn were burnt. As soon as I can I will try to make out a list of the Papers from the Department [that] were burnt. As I had some at Leavenworth I cannot do so til I see what is there. As Mr. Hutchinson is not here I leave this morning for the Kaw Agency to endeavour to carry out your Instructions there and will return here as soon as I get through there. They are building some stone houses here and I am much pleased with the result. The difference in cost is not near so much as we expected but I will write you fully on a careful examination as you requested. Very respectfully your obedient Servant
W.G. COFFIN, Superintendent of Indian Affairs Southern Superintendency
[Indian Office Files, Southern Superintendency, C 1432 of 1861]
110. Official Records, vol. iii, 468-469.
111. —Ibid., 483.
112. —Ibid., 490.
113. —Ibid.
114. —Ibid., 196; vol. liii, supplement, 743; Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, 147-148; Connelley, Quantrill and the Border Wars, 208-209, 295.
115. Official Records, vol. iii, 500.
116. —Ibid., 505-506.
117. —Ibid., 516.
118. Spring, Kansas, 272.
119. Daily Conservative, November 22, 1861.
120. Woodburn, Life of Thaddeus Stevens, 183.
121. Lane's speech at Springfield, November 7, 1861 [Daily Conservative, November 17, 1861].
122. For a full discussion of the progress of the movement, see Abel, American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist, 227 ff.
123. Official Records, vol. iii, 525, 526, 527.
124. —Ibid, 527.
125. Daily Conservative, October 9, 10, 1861.
126. Official Records, vol. iii, 529.
127. Daily Conservative, October 9, 15, 1861.
128. Chief among the papers against Robinson, in the matter of his longstanding feud with Lane, was the Daily Conservative with D.W. Wilder as its editor. Another anti-Robinson paper was the Lawrence Republican. The Cincinnati Gazette was decidedly friendly to Lane.
129. Daily Conservative, October 15, 1861.
130. Official Records, vol. iii, 529-530. Lane outlined his plan for a separate department in his speech in Stockton's Hall [Daily Conservative, October 9, 1861]. Robinson was opposed to the idea [ibid., November 2, 6, 1861].
131. Official Records, vol. iii, 530.
132. Martin, First Two Years of Kansas, 24; Biographical Congressional Directory, 1771-1903.
133. Daily Conservative, November 1, 1861, gives Robinson the credit of inciting Stanton to contest the seat.
134. Daily Conservative, October 30, 1861.
135. Secretary Cameron's reply to Secretary Smith's first request was uncompromising in the extreme and prophetic of his persistent refusal to recognize the obligation resting upon the United States to protect its defenceless "wards." This is Cameron's letter of May 10, 1861:
"In answer to your letter of the 4th instant, I have the honor to state that on the 17th April instructions were issued by this Department to remove the troops stationed at Forts Cobb, Arbuckle, Washita, and Smith, to Fort Leavenworth, leaving it to the discretion of the Commanding Officer to replace them, or not, by Arkansas Volunteers.
"The exigencies of the service will not admit any change in these orders." [Interior Department Files, Bundle no. 1 (1849-1864) War.]
Secretary Smith wrote to Cameron again on the thirtieth [Interior Department Letter Press Book, vol. iii, 125], enclosing Dole's letter of the same date [Interior Department, File Box, January 1 to December 1, 1861; Indian Office Report Book, no. 12, 176], but to no purpose.
136. Indian Office Report Book, no. 12, 218-219.
137. Although his refusal to keep faith with the Indians is not usually cited among the things making for Cameron's unfitness for the office of Secretary of War, it might well and justifiably be. No student of history questions to-day that the appointment of Simon Cameron to the portfolio of war, to which Thaddeus Stevens had aspirations [Woodburn, Life of Thaddeus Stevens, 239], was one of the worst administrative mistakes Lincoln ever made. It was certainly one of the four cabinet appointment errors noted by Weed [Autobiography, 607].
138. Indian Office Report Book no. 12, 225.
139. Dole to Hunter, November 16, 1861, ibid., Letter Book, no. 67, pp. 80-82.