(cont.) the mass of the People are all right in Sentiment for the support of the Treaty of Alliance with the Confederate States. I shall be happy to hear from you—I have the honor to be your ob't Serv't
John Ross, Prin'l Chief, Cherokee Nation.
Footnote 53: (return)
Pike's Report, March 14, 1862, Official Records, vol. viii, 286–292.
Footnote 54: (return)
James McIntosh to S. Cooper, January 4, 1862, ibid., 732; D.H. Cooper to Pike, February 10, 1862, ibid., vol. xiii, 896.
Footnote 55: (return)
—Ibid., 819.
Footnote 56: (return)
—Ibid., vol. viii, 287.
Footnote 57: (return)
—Ibid., 208–215, 304–306.
Leetown on the seventh and that at Elkhorn Tavern58 on the eighth. At Leetown, Pike's Cherokee contingent59 played what he, in somewhat quixotic fashion, perhaps, chose to regard as a very important part. The Indians, then as always, were chiefly pony-mounted, "entirely undisciplined," as the term discipline is usually understood, and "armed very indifferently with common rifles and ordinary shot-guns."60 The ponies, in the end, proved fleet of foot, as was to have been expected, and, at one stage of the game, had to be tethered in the rear while their masters fought from the vantage-ground of trees.61 The Indian's most effective work was done, throughout, under cover of the woods. Indians, as Pike well knew, could never be induced to face shells in the open. It was he who advised their climbing the trees and he did it without discounting, in the slightest, their innate bravery.62 There came a time, too, when he gave countenance to another of their
Footnote 58: (return)
The Elkhorn Tavern engagement is sometimes referred to, and most appropriately, as the Sugar Creek [Phisterer, Statistical Record, 95]. Colonel Eugene A. Carr of the Third Illinois Cavalry, commanding the Fourth Division of Curtis's army, described the tavern itself as "situated on the west side of the Springfield and Fayetteville road, at the head of a gorge known as Cross Timber Hollow (the head of Sugar Creek) … " [Official Records, vol. viii, 258]. "Sugar Creek Hollow," wrote Curtis, "extends for miles, a gorge, with rough precipitate sides … " [ibid., 589]. It was there the closing scenes of the great battle were enacted.
Footnote 59: (return)
The practice, indulged in by both the Federals and the Confederates, of greatly overestimating the size of the enemy force was resorted to even in connection with the Indians. Pike gave the number of his whole command as about a thousand men, Indians and whites together [Official Records, vol. viii, 288; xiii, 820] notwithstanding that he had led Van Dorn to expect that he would have a force of "about 8,000 or 9,000 men and three batteries of artillery" [ibid., vol. viii, 749]. General Curtis surmised that Pike contributed five regiments [ibid., 196] and Wiley Britton, who had excellent opportunity of knowing better because he had access to the records of both sides, put the figures at "three regiments of Indians and two regiments of Texas cavalry" [Civil War on the Border, vol. i, 245].
Footnote 60: (return)
Official Records, vol. xiii, 819.
Footnote 61: (return)
—Ibid., vol. viii, 288.
Footnote 62: (return)
—Ibid.
peculiarities. He allowed Colonel Drew's men to fight in a way that was "their own fashion,"63 with bow and arrow and with tomahawk.64 This, as was only meet it should, called down upon him and them the opprobrium of friends and foes alike.65 The Indian war-whoop was indulged in, of itself enough to terrify. It was hideous.
The service that the Cherokees rendered at different times during the two days action was not, however, to be despised, even though not sufficiently conspicuous to be deemed worthy of comment by Van Dorn.66 At Leetown, with the aid of a few Texans, they managed to get possession of a battery and to hold it against repeated endeavors of the Federals to regain. The death of McCulloch and of McIntosh made Pike the ranking officer in his part of the field. It fell to him to rally
Footnote 63: (return)
Official Records, vol. viii, 289.
Footnote 64: (return)
—Ibid., 195.
Footnote 65: (return)
The northern press took up the matter and the New York Tribune was particularly virulent against Pike. In its issue of March 27, 1862, it published the following in bitter sarcasm:
"The Albert Pike who led the Aboriginal Corps of Tomahawkers and Scalpers at the battle of Pea Ridge, formerly kept school in Fairhaven, Mass., where he was indicted for playing the part of Squeers, and cruelly beating and starving a boy in his family. He escaped by some hocus-pocus law, and emigrated to the West, where the violence of his nature has been admirably enhanced. As his name indicates, he is a ferocious fish, and has fought duels enough to qualify himself to be a leader of savages. We suppose that upon the recent occasion, he got himself up in good style, war-paint, nose-ring, and all. This new Pontiac is also a poet, and wrote 'Hymns to the Gods' in Blackwood; but he has left Jupiter, Juno, and the rest, and betaken himself to the culture of the Great Spirit, or rather of two great spirits, whisky being the second."
Footnote 66: (return)
Van Dorn did not make his detailed official report of this battle until the news had leaked out that the Indians had mangled the bodies of the dead and committed other atrocities. He was probably then desirous of being as silent as he dared be concerning Indian participation, since