[Footnote 617:  And yet it was only a short time previously that Major A.C.  Ellithorpe, commanding the First Regiment Indian Home Guards, had had cause to complain seriously of the Creeks of that regiment.  On November 7, he wrote from Camp Bowen that Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la was enticing the Indians away from the performance of their duties.  “You will now perceive that we are on the border of the Indian country and a very large portion of the Indians are now scouting through their own Territory.  What I now desire is that every man who was enlisted as a soldier shall at once return to his command by the way of Fort Scott unless otherwise ordered by competent authority....” [Indian Office Land Files, Southern Superintendency, 1855-1870, C 1933].  Coffin, as usual, appeared as an apologist for the Indians and attempted to exonerate Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la from all blame [Letter to Dole, December 3, 1862, Ibid.].  He called the aged chief, “that noble old Roman of the Indians,” and the chief himself protested against the injustice and untruth of Ellithrope’s accusation [Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la to Coffin, November 24, 1862, Ibid.].]

[Footnote 618:  Officers for these two regiments were appointed by the president, December 26, 1862, and ordered to report to Blunt, who, in turn ordered them to report to Phillips.  When the officers arrived in Indian Territory, they found no such regiments as the Fourth and Fifth Indian [U.S.  Senate Report, 41st congress, third session, no. 359].  They never did materialize as a matter of fact; but the officers did duty, nevertheless, and were regularly mustered out of the service in 1863.  In 1864, Congress passed an act for the adjudication of their claim for salary [U.S.  Statutes at Large, vol. xiii, 413].  It is rather surprising that the regiments were not organized; inasmuch as many new recruits were constantly presenting themselves.]

[Footnote 619:  Phillips to Blunt, December 25, 1862 [Official Records, vol. xxii, part i, 873-874].]

that Stand Watie and Cooper had been pushed considerably below the Arkansas, that many of the buildings at Fort Davis had been demolished,[620] that one of the Creek regiments was about to retire from the Confederate service, and that the Choctaws, once so deeply committed, were wavering in their allegiance to the South.[621]

[Footnote 620:  The buildings at Fort Davis were burnt, and deliberately, by Phillips’s orders. [See his own admission, Ibid., part ii, 56, 62].]

[Footnote 621:  Blunt to Weed, December 30, 1862, Ibid., part i, 168.]

X. NEGOTIATIONS WITH UNION INDIANS