Pike had his own opinion of Cooper and Watie’s daring methods of fighting and most decidedly disapproved of their attempting to meet the enemy in the neighborhood of Fort Gibson.  That part of the Indian Territory, according to his view of things, was not capable of supporting an army.  He discounted the ability of his men to conquer, their equipment being so meagre.  He, therefore, persisted in advising that they should fight only on the defensive.  He advised that, notwithstanding he had a depreciatory[445] regard for the Indian Expedition, and, both before and after the retrograde movement of Colonel Salomon, underestimated its size and strength.  He Was confident that Cooper would have inevitably to fall back to the Canadian, where, as he said, “the defensible country commences.”  Pike objected strenuously to the courting of an open battle and, could he have followed the bent of his own inclinations, “would have sent only

[Footnote 443:  Phillips to Furnas, July 27, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 181-182.]

[Footnote 444:  Same to same, August 6, 1862, Ibid., 183-184.]

[Footnote 445:  Cooper reported that Pike regarded the Indian Expedition as only a “jayhawking party,” and “no credit due” “for arresting its career” [Cooper to Davis, August 8, 1862, Ibid., vol liii, supplement, 821].]

small bodies of mounted Indians and white troops to the Arkansas."[446]

No doubt it was in repudiation of all responsibility for what Cooper and Watie might eventually do that he chose soon to bring himself, through a mistaken notion of justice and honor, into very disagreeable prominence.  Discretion was evidently not Pike’s cardinal virtue.  At any rate, he was quite devoid of it when he issued, July 31, his remarkable circular address[447] “to the Chiefs and People of the Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, Chickasaws, and Choctaws.”  In that address, he notified them that he had resigned his post as department commander and dilated upon the causes that had moved him to action.  He shifted all blame for failure to keep faith with the Indian nations from himself and from the Confederate government to the men upon whom he steadfastly believed it ought to rest.  He deprecated the plundering that would bring its own retribution and begged the red men to be patient and to keep themselves true to the noble cause they had espoused.

Remain true, I earnestly advise you, to the Confederate States and yourselves.  Do not listen to any men who tell you that the Southern States will abandon you.  They will not do it.  If the enemy has been able to come into the Cherokee country it has not been the fault of the President; and it is but the fortune of war, and what has happened in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and even Arkansas.  We have not been able to keep the enemy from our frontier anywhere; but in the interior of our country we can defeat them always.

Be not discouraged, and remember, above all things, that you can have nothing to expect from the enemy.  They will have no mercy on you, for they are more merciless than wolves and more rapacious.  Defend your country with what help you

[Footnote 446:  Pike to the Secretary of War, July 20, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 859-860.]