[Footnote 454:  Official Records, vol. xiii, 970.]

[Footnote 455:  This is inferred from the very peculiar General Orders that issued from Fort McCulloch that selfsame day.  They were sarcastic in the extreme.  No general in his right senses would have issued them.  They are to be found, Ibid., 970-973.]

[Footnote 456:—­Ibid., 973, 974.]

[Footnote 457:—­Ib id., 973.]

[Footnote 458:  Pike to Hindman, July 31, 1862, Ibid., 973.]

soon as he had, the whole situation changed.  He had deliberately put himself in the wrong and into the hands of his enemies.  The address was, in some respects, the last act of a desperate[459] man.  And there is no doubt that General Pike was desperate.  Reports were spreading in Texas that he was a defaulter to the government and, as he himself in great bitterness of spirit said, “The incredible villainy of a slander so monstrous, and so without even any ground for suspicion,” was “enough to warn every honest man not to endeavor to serve his country."[460]

Not until August 6 did General Pike’s circular address reach Colonel D.H.  Cooper, who was then at Cantonment Davis.  Cooper wisely suppressed all the copies he could procure and then, believing Pike to be either insane or a traitor, ordered his arrest,[461] sending out an armed force for its accomplishment.  Hindman, as soon as notified, “indorsed and approved” his action.[462] This is his own account of what he did: 

...  I approved his action, and ordered General Pike sent to Little Rock in custody.  I also forwarded Colonel Cooper’s letter to Richmond, with an indorsement, asking to withdraw my approval of General Pike’s resignation, that I might bring him before a court-martial on charges of falsehood, cowardice, and treason.  He was also liable to the penalties prescribed by section 29 of the act of Congress regulating intercourse with the Indians and to preserve peace on the frontiers, approved April 8, 1862....

    But his resignation had been accepted....[463]

[Footnote 459:  And yet, August 1, 1862, Pike wrote to Davis one of the sanest papers he ever prepared.  It was full of sage advice as to the policy that ought to be pursued in Indian Territory [Official Records, vol. xiii, 871-874].]

[Footnote 460:  Pike to S. Cooper, August 3, 1862, Ibid., 975.  See also Pike to Newton, August 3, 1862, Ibid., 976.]

[Footnote 461:  D.H.  Cooper to Hindman, August 7, 1862, ibid., 977.]

[Footnote 462:  Pike to Anderson, October 26, 1862, Ibid., 903.]

[Footnote 463:  Hindman’s Report, Ibid., 41.]

VII.  ORGANIZATION OF THE ARKANSAS AND RED RIVER SUPERINTENDENCY