[Footnote 597:  (cont.) [Ibid., R 14 of 1863] and requested that transportation from Leavenworth and supplies be furnished them [Indian Office General Files, Cherokee, R 13 of 1863].  Dole informed Coffin that the request should be granted [see Office letter of January 6, 1863] and continued forwarding to John Ross his share of the former remittance [Indian Office Letter Book, no. 69, 503].  To make the monetary allowance to John Ross, Cherokee chief, the Chickasaw funds were drawn upon [Second Auditor, E.B.  Trench, to Dole, June 19, 1863, Ibid., General Files, Cherokee, A 202 of 1863; Office letter of June 20, 1863].]

[Footnote 598:  Ross and others to Dole, July 29, 1864 [Ibid., General Files, Cherokee, 1859-1865, R 360]; Secretary of the Interior to Ross, August 25, 1864 [Ibid., I 651]; John Ross and Evan Jones to Dole, August 26, 1864 [Ibid., R 378]; Office letter of October 14, 1864; Coffin’s letter of July 8, 1864.]

[Footnote 599:  Blunt to Smith, November 21, 1862.]

of the land.  Lincoln’s sympathies and sense of justice were immediately aroused and he inquired of General Curtis, in the field, as to the practicability of occupying “the Cherokee country consistently with the public service."[600] Curtis evaded the direct issue, which was the Federal obligation to protect its wards, by boasting that he had just driven the enemy into the Indian Territory “and beyond” and by doubting “the expediency of occupying ground so remote from supplies."[601]

General Blunt’s force continued to hold the northeastern part of the Cherokee country until the end of October when it fell back, crossed the line, and moved along the Bentonville road in order to meet its supply train from Fort Scott.[602] Blunt’s division finally took its stand on Prairie Creek[603] and, on the twelfth of November, made its main camp on Lindsay’s prairie, near the Indian boundary.[604] The rout of Cooper at Fort Wayne had shaken the faith of many Indians in the invincibility of the Confederate arms.  They had disbanded and gone home, declaring “their purpose to join the Federal troops the first opportunity” that presented itself.[605] To secure them and to reconnoitre once more, Colonel Phillips had started out near the beginning of November and, from the third to the fifth, had made his way down through the Cherokee Nation, by way of Tahlequah and Park Hill, to Webber’s Falls on the Arkansas.[606] His return was by

[Footnote 600:  Lincoln to Curtis, October 10, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 723.]

[Footnote 601:  Curtis to Lincoln, October 10, 1862, Ibid.]

[Footnote 602:  Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, 376-377.]

[Footnote 603:—­Ibid., 379.]

[Footnote 604:—­Ibid., 380; Bishop, Loyalty on the Frontier, 56.]

[Footnote 605:  Blunt to Schofield, November 9, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 785.]