Lane's efforts towards securing Indian enlistment did not stop with soliciting the Kansas tribes. Thoroughly aware, since the time of his sojourn at Fort Scott, if not before, of the delicate situation in Indian Territory, of the divided allegiance there, and of the despairing cry for help that had gone forth from the Union element to Washington, he conceived it eminently fitting and practicable that that same Union element should have its loyalty put to good uses and be itself induced to take up arms in behalf of the cause it affected so ardently to endorse. To an ex-teacher among the Seminoles, E.H. Carruth, was entrusted the task of recruiting.
The situation in Indian Territory was more than delicate. It was precarious and had been so almost from the beginning. The withdrawal of troops from the frontier posts had left the Territory absolutely destitute of the protection solemnly guaranteed its inhabitants by treaty with the United States government. Appeal135 to the War Department for a restoration of what was a sacred obligation had been without effect all the summer. Southern emissaries had had, therefore, an entirely free hand to accomplish whatever purpose they might have in mind with the tribes. In September,136 the Indian Office through Charles E. Mix, acting commissioner of Indian affairs in the absence of William P. Dole, who was then away on a mission to the Kansas tribes, again begged the War Department137 to look into matters so extremely urgent. National honor would of itself have dictated a policy of intervention before the poor neglected Indians had been driven to the last desperate straits. The next month, October, nothing at all having been done in the interval, Dole submitted138 to Secretary Smith new evidence of a most alarmingly serious state of affairs and asked that the president's attention be at once elicited. The apparent result was that about the middle of November, Dole was able to write with confidence—and he was writing at the request of the president—that the United States was prepared to maintain itself in its authority over the Indians at all hazards.139
Boastful words those were and not to be made good until many precious months had elapsed and many sad regrettable scenes enacted. In early November occurred the reorganization of the Department of the West which meant the formation of a Department of Kansas separate and distinct from a Department of Missouri, an arrangement that afforded ample opportunity for a closer attention to local exigencies in both states than had heretofore been possible or than, upon trial, was subsequently to be deemed altogether desirable. It necessarily increased the chances for local patronage and exposed military matters to the grave danger of becoming hopelessly entangled with political.
The need for change of some sort was, however, very evident and the demand for it, insistent. If the southern Indians were not soon secured, they were bound to menace, not only Kansas, but Colorado140 and to help materially in blocking the way to Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Their own domestic affairs had now reached a supremely critical stage.141 It was high time for the Federal government to do something to attest its own competency. There was need for it to do that, moreover, on recognizably loyal ground, causes for dissatisfaction among Kansas emigrant tribes to be removed and drastic measures taken with the indigenous of the plains.
The appointment of Hunter to the command of the Department of Kansas was open to certain objections, no doubt; but, to Lane, whose forceful personality had impressed itself, for good or ill, upon the trans-Missouri region, it was, to say the least, somewhat disconcerting, not because Lane was hostile to Hunter personally—the two men had long had a friendly acquaintance with each other142—but because he had had great hopes of receiving the post himself.143 The time was now drawing near for him to repair to Washington to resume his senatorial duties since Congress was to convene the second of December.
To further his scheme for Indian enlistment, Lane had projected an inter-tribal council to be held at his own headquarters. E.H. Carruth worked especially to that end. The man in charge of the Southern Superintendency, W.G. Coffin, had a similar plan in mind for less specific reasons. His idea was to confer with the representatives of the southern tribes with reference to Indian Territory conditions generally. It was part of the duty appertaining to his office. Humboldt144 was the place selected by him for the meeting; but Leroy, being better protected and more accessible, was soon substituted. The sessions commenced the sixteenth145 of November and were still continuing on the twenty-third.146 It had not been possible to hold them earlier because of the disturbed state of the country and the consequent difficulty of getting into touch with the Indians.
Upon assuming command of the Department of Kansas, General Hunter took full cognizance of the many things making for disquietude and turmoil in the country now under his jurisdiction. Indian relations became, of necessity, matters of prime concern. Three things bear witness to this fact, Hunter's plans for an inter-tribal council at Fort Leavenworth, his own headquarters; his advocacy of Indian enlistment, especially from among the southern Indians; and his intention, early avowed, of bringing Brigadier-general James W. Denver into military prominence and of entrusting to him the supervisory command in Kansas. In some respects, no man could have been found equal to Denver in conspicuous fitness for such a position. He had served as commissioner of Indian affairs147 under Buchanan and, although a Virginian by birth, had had a large experience with frontier life—in Missouri, in the Southwest during the Mexican War, and in California. He had also measured swords with Lane. It was in squatter-sovereignty days when, first as secretary and then as governor of Kansas Territory, he had been in a position to become intimately acquainted with the intricacies of Lane's true character and had had both occasion and opportunity to oppose some of that worthy's autocratic and thoroughly lawless maneuvers.148 As events turned out, this very acquaintance with Lane constituted his political unfitness for the control that Hunter,149 in December, and Halleck,150 in the following March, designed to give him. With