By the Treaty with the Seminoles, made on the 1st of August, they agreed to furnish, and I agreed to receive, five companies of mounted volunteers of that Nation.  Two companies, and perhaps more, were raised, and have since been received, I understand, by Col.  Cooper, and with Captain Smith’s company employed in putting down the disaffected party among the Creeks.  Under my appointment, Hugh McDonald has acted as Quartermaster and Commissary for the Seminole companies, and made purchases without funds from the Government.  After I had made the Treaties with the Reserve Indians and Comanches, in August 1861, Fort Cobb being about to be abandoned by the Texan Volunteers who had held it, I authorized M. Leeper, the Wichita agent, to enlist a small force, of twenty or twenty-five men, under a Lieutenant, for the security of the Agency.  He enlisted, (cont.)]

funds from the United to the Confederate States government,[469] the payment of Indian troops and their pensioning.[470] Its disposition to be grateful and generous came out in the honor which it conferred upon John Jumper, the Seminole chief.[471]

A piece of very fundamental work the Provisional Congress did not have time or opportunity to complete.

[Footnote 468:  (cont.) I learn, only some fifteen, and he has had them for some time in the service.

I also appointed a person named McKuska, formerly a soldier, to take charge of what further property remained at Fort Cobb, and employed another person to assist him, agreeing that the former should be paid as Ordnance Sergeant, and the latter as private; and directing the Contractor for the Indians to issue to the former two rations, and to the latter one.

In consequence of the collection of some force of disaffected Creeks and others, and an apprehended attack by them, Col.  Douglas H. Cooper called for troops from all the Nations, and I understand that several companies were organized and marched to join his regiment.  I think they are still in the service.

I am now empowered to receive all the Indians who offer to enter the service.  To induce them to enlist, what is already owing them must be paid; and I earnestly hope that Congress will pass the bill introduced for that purpose.  Respectfully your obedient servant

Albert Pike, Brig.  Genl Commd Dept of Ind.  Terr’y. 
Hon. W. Miles, Chairman Com. on Mil.  Affs.

[War Department, Office of the Adjutant-General, Archives Division, Confederate Records.]]

[Footnote 469:  Journal, vol. i, 650, 743, 761.  The Confederate government took, in the main, a just, reasonable, and even charitable view on the subject of the assumption of United States obligations.  Pike had exceeded his instructions in promising the Indians that monetary obligations would be so assumed.  See his letter to Randolph, June 30, 1862.]

[Footnote 470:  This matter went over into the regular Congress, which began its work, February 18, 1862.  For details of the bill for pensions see Journal, vol. i, 43, 79.]