The November operations of the Federals in northeastern Arkansas were directed toward arresting Hindman’s progress, if progress were contemplated.  Meanwhile, Phillips with detachments of his Indian brigade was continuing his reconnoissances and, when word came that Stand Watie had ventured north of the Arkansas, Blunt sent him to compel a recrossing.[613] Stand Watie’s exploit was undoubtedly a preliminary to a general Confederate plan for the recovery of northwestern Arkansas and the Indian Territory, a plan, which Blunt, vigorous and aggressive, was determined to circumvent.  In the action at Cane Hill,[614] the latter part of November, and in the Battle of Prairie Grove,[615] December seventh, the mettle of the Federals was put to a severe test which it stood successfully and Blunt’s cardinal purpose was fully accomplished.[616] In both engagements, the Indians played a part and played it

[Footnote 612:  These Indians must have been the ones referred to in Richard C. Vaughn’s letter to Colonel W.D.  Wood, December i, 1862 [Official Records, vol. xxii, part i, 796].]

[Footnote 613:  Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, p. 382.]

[Footnote 614:—­Ibid., vol. i, chapter xxix.]

[Footnote 615:—­Ibid., vol. i, chapter xxx; Official Records, vol. xxii, part i, 66-82, 82-158, vol. liii, supplement, 458-461, 866, 867; Livermore, The Story of the Civil War, part iii, bk. 1, 84-85.]

[Footnote 616:  One opinion is to the effect that the result of the Battle of Prairie Grove, Fayetteville, or Illinois Creek, was virtually to end the war north of the Arkansas River [Ibid., p. 85; Official Records, vol. xxii, part i, 82]. (cont.)]

conspicuously and well, the northern regiments so well,[617] indeed, that shortly afterwards two additional ones, the Fourth and the Fifth, were projected.[618] Towards the end of the year, Phillips, whom Blunt had sent upon another excursion into Indian Territory,[619] could report

[Footnote 616:  (cont.) Bishop wrote, “After the battle of Prairie Grove, and the gradual retrogression of the Army of the Frontier into Missouri, Fayetteville was still held as a military post, and those of us who remained there were given to understand that the place would not be abandoned ...  The demoralized enemy had fallen back to Little Rock, with the exception of weak nomadic forces that, like Stygian ghosts, wandered up and down the Arkansas from Dardanelle to Fort Smith....” [Loyalty on the Frontier, 205].  Schofield was of the opinion, however, that the Battle of Prairie Grove was a hard-won victory.  “Blunt and Herron were badly beaten in detail, and owed their escape to a false report of my arrival with re-enforcements.” [Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, p. 6].]