[Footnote 567:  Johnson to Dole, May 28, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Delaware, I 667 of 1862.]

[Footnote 568:  Johnson wished to retain his agency and also hold a commission as colonel of volunteers, Department of the Interior, Register of Letters Received, no. 4, pp. 214, 357.  James H. Lane endorsed his request and it was granted.]

[Footnote 569:  The Osages rendered occasionally some good service.  They and the Comanches plundered the Chickasaws very considerably [Holmes Colbert to N.G.  Taylor, April 14, 1868, Indian Office Consolidated Files, Chickasaw, C 716 of 1868.  See also Office letter to Osage treaty commissioners, May 4, 1868].  In October, the Osage force advanced as far as Iola and then retreated [Henning to Blunt, October 11, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 726].  Soon after that they were mustered out and in a very disgruntled condition.  They claimed that the government had used them very badly and had never paid them anything [Henning to Chipman, November 13, 1862, Ibid., 790].  They knew little of the discipline of war and left the army whenever they had a mind to.]

[Footnote 570:  The Osages joined the Indian Expedition only upon condition that their families would be supported during their absence [Coffin to Dole, June 4, 1862, Indian Office Consolidated Files, Neosho, C 1662 of 1862].  The families were soon destitute.  Coffin ordered Elder to minister to them at Leroy; but he seems to have distrusted the southern superintendent and to have preferred to keep aloof from him.  Coffin then appointed a man named John Harris as special Osage agent [Coffin to Dole, July 7, 1862, Ibid., C 1710].  Elder tried to circumvent Coffin’s plans for the distribution of cattle [Coffin to Elder, July 16, 1862, ibid., C 1717] and Coffin lodged a general charge of neglect of duty against him [Coffin to Dole, July 19, 1862, Ibid.].]

[Footnote 571:  The invitation was extended by White Hair and Charles Mograin [Coffin to Dole, November 16, 1862, Ibid., C 1904].  Coffin was anxious for (cont.)]

During the summer the wretched condition of the Indian refugees had, thanks to fresh air, sunlight, and fair weather, been much ameliorated.  Disease had obtained so vast a start that the medical service, had it been first-class, which it certainly was not, would otherwise have proved totally inadequate.  The physicians in attendance claimed to have from five to eight thousand patients,[572] yet one of them, Dr. S.D.  Coffin, found it possible to be often and for relatively long periods absent from his post.  Of this the senior physician, Dr. William Kile, made complaint [573] and that circumstance marked the beginning of a serious estrangement between him and Superintendent Coffin.[574]

In August, General Blunt announced his intention of returning the Indian families to their homes.[575] He was convinced that some of the employees of the Indian Office and of the Interior Department were personally profiting by the distribution of supplies to the refugees and that they were conniving with citizens of Kansas in perpetrating a gigantic fraud against the government.  The circumstances of the refugees had been well aired