[Footnote 527:  “Since leaving the Fugitive Indians on Dry Wood Creek, nothing has occurred of material interest other than you will receive through official Dispatches from the Officers of our Army.  The Indians under Col.  Phillips fought well at the Battle Newtonia, they have at all times stood fire.  The great difficulty of their officers is in keeping them together in a retreat, and should such be necessary on the field in presence of an enemy in their present state of discipline it would be almost impossible to again return them to the attack in good order—­Another Battle was fought at this place in which the enemy were defeated with considerable loss, four of their guns being taken by a charge of the 2d Kansas.

“In this Contest the Indians behaved well, the officers and soldiers of our own regiments now freely acknowledge them to be valuable Allies and in no case have they as yet faltered, untill ordered to retire, the prejudice once existing against them is fast disappearing from our Army and it is now generaly conceded that they will do good service in our border warfare.  This we have never doubted and confident as we have been of their fitness for border warfare we have been content to await, untill they had proven to the country not only their loyalty but their ability to fight.  Since their organization they have been engaged in several battles and in every case successfully, one of us will start in a day or two for Tahlequah and may find something of interest on the march.  We are now in the Cherokee Nation.  An effort is now being made by Gen’l Blunt to punish plundering in the country.  Union People have suffered from this as much as rebels.  We have before called the attention of our Army Officers to this fact; with our Fifteen Hundred Cherokee Warriors in the service of our government—­we feel that every possible protection should be extended to them as a people” [Carruth to Coffin, October 25, 1862, enclosed in Coffin to Dole, November 16, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency 1859-1862].]

[Footnote 528:  Official Records, vol. xiii, 894.]

organization, of which the Indian regiments in the Federal service now formed a part, was Blunt’s division of the Army of the Frontier and it had other objects in view, other tasks to perform, than the simple recovery of Indian Territory.

It is true General Blunt had set his heart upon that particular accomplishment but he was scarcely a free agent in the matter.  Men above him in rank had quite other aims and his, perforce, had to be subordinated to theirs.  In August, Blunt had planned a kind of second Indian Expedition to go south to Fort Gibson and to restore the refugees to their homes.[529] It had started upon its way when the powers higher up interposed.