[Footnote 589:  C.C.  Hutchinson to Dole, August 21, 1863, Indian Office General Files, Ottawa, 1863-1872, D 236.]

spirituous liquors should be brought within the limits of their Reserve under any circumstances whatsoever.[590] The Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws found a lodgment on the Sac and Fox Reservation and the Seminoles fairly close at hand, at Neosho Falls.  That was as far north as they could be induced to go.

Of the Cherokees, more needs to be said for they were not so easily disposed of.  At various times during the past summer, Cherokees, opposed to, not identified with, or not enthusiastic in the Confederate cause, had escaped from Indian Territory and had collected on the Neutral Lands.  Every Confederate reverse or Federal triumph, no matter how slight, had proved a signal for flight.  By October, the Cherokee refugees on the Neutral Lands were reported to be nearly two thousand in number, which, allowing for some exaggeration for the sake of getting a larger portion of relief, was a goodly section of the tribal population.[591] At the end of October, Superintendent Coffin paid them a visit and urged them to remove to the Sac and Fox Agency, whither the majority of their comrades in distress were at that very moment going.[592] The Cherokees refused; for General Blunt had given them his word that, if he were successful in penetrating the Indian Territory, they should at once go home.[593] Not long after Coffin’s departure, their camp on Drywood

[Footnote 590:  J.T.  Jones to Dole, December 30, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Sac and Fox, 1862-1866.  The precautions proved of little value.  Whiskey was procured by both the hosts and their guests and great disorders resulted.  Agent Hutchinson did his best to have the refugees removed, but, in his absence, the Ottawas were prevailed upon by Agent Elder to extend their hospitality for a while longer.]

[Footnote 591:  Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, 137.]

[Footnote 592:—­Ibid., 1863, 175.]

[Footnote 593:  Coffin to Dole, November 10, 1862, enclosing copies of a correspondence between him and a committee of the Cherokee refugees, October 31, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Cherokee, 1859-1865, C 1892.]

Creek, about twelve miles south of Fort Scott, was raided by guerrillas;[594] but even that had no effect upon their determination to remain.  The Neutral Lands, although greatly intruded upon by white people, were legally their own and they declined to budge from them at the instance of Superintendent Coffin.

Arrangements were undertaken for supplying the Cherokee refugees with material relief;[595] but scarcely had anything been done to that end when, to Coffin’s utter surprise, as he said, the military authorities “took forcible possession of them” and had them all conveyed to Neosho, Missouri, presumably out of his reach.  But Coffin would not release his hold and detailed the new Cherokee agent, James Harlan,[596] and Special Agent A.G.  Proctor to follow them there.