[Footnote 638; On the entire subject of negotiations with the Indians of Kansas, see Abel, Indian Reservations in Kansas and the Extinguishment of Their Titles.  The house-building project is fully narrated there.]

[Footnote 639:  For additional information about Stevens, see Daily Conservative, February 11, 12, 13, 28, 1862.  Senator Lane denounced him as a defaulter to the government in the house-building project.  See Lane to Dole, April 22, 1862; Smith to Dole, May 13 1862; Dole to Lane, May 5, 1862, Daily Conservative, May 21, 1862.  In July, Lane, hearing that certificates of indebtedness were about to be issued to Stevens on his building contract for the Sacs and Foxes, entered a “solemn protest against such action” and requested that the Department would let the matter lie over until the assembling of Congress [Interior Department, Register of Letters Received, January 2, 1862 to December 27, 1865, “Indians,” no. 4].  Governor Robinson’s enemies regarded him as the partner of Stevens [Daily Conservative, November 22, 1861] in the matter of some other affairs, and that fact may help to explain Senator Lane’s bitter animosity.  The names of Robinson and Stevens were connected in the bond difficulty, which lay at the bottom of Robinson’s impeachment.]

[Footnote 640:  Dickey’s interest in the house-building is seen in the following:  Dickey to Greenwood, February 26, 1861, Indian Office General Files, Kansas, 1855-1862, D250; same to same, March 1, 1861, Ibid., D 251.]

[Footnote 641:  Stevens to Mix, August 24, 1861, Indian Office Special Files, no. 201, Sac and Fox, S439 of 1861.]

policy.  His conclusions were right, his premises, necessarily unrevealed, were false.  Wattles became involved in the emigration movement, if he did not initiate it, and, subsequent to making his report upon the house-building, received a private communication from Dole, asking his opinion “of a plan for confederating the various Indian tribes, in Kansas and Nebraska, into one, and giving them a Territory and a Territorial Government with political privileges."[642] This was in 1861, long before any scheme that Lane or Pomeroy had devised would have matured.  Wattles started upon a tour of observation and inquiry among the Kansas tribes and discovered that, with few exceptions, they were all willing and even anxious to exchange their present homes for homes in Indian Territory.  Some had already discussed the matter tentatively and on their own account with the Creeks and Cherokees.  On his way east, after completing his investigations, Wattles stopped in New York and “consulted with our political friends” there “concerning this movement, and they not only gave it their approbation, but were anxious that this administration should have the credit of originating and carrying out so wise and so noble a scheme for civilizing and perpetuating the Indian race.”  Would Wattles and his friends have said the same had they been fully cognizant of the conditions under which the emigrant tribes had been placed in the West?