brought up betimes within convenient distance of Fort Smith[771] and with whom, in April, Phillips’s men had two successful encounters, on the fourteenth[772] and the twenty-fifth.  The one of the twenty-fifth was at Webber’s Falls and especially noteworthy, since, as a Federal victory, it prevented a convening of the secessionist Cherokee Council,[773] for which, so important did he deem it, Steele had planned an extra protection.[774] The completeness of the Federal victory was marred by the loss of Dr. Gillpatrick,[775] who had so excellently served the ends of diplomacy between the Indian Expedition and John Ross.

Through May and June, engagements, petty in themselves but contributing each its mite to ultimate success or failure, occupied detachments of the opposing Indian forces with considerable frequency.[776] Two, devised by Cooper, those of the fourteenth[777] and twentieth[778] of May may be said to characterize the entire

[Footnote 771:  “You will order Colonel Stand Watie to move his command down the Ark.  River to some point in the vicinity of Fort Smith.”—­CROSBY to Cooper, February 14, 1863, Ibid., p. 90.]

[Footnote 772:  Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. ii, 37.]

[Footnote 773:  Phillips to Curtis, April 26, 1863, Official Records, vol. xxii, part i, 314-315; Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. ii, 40-41.  Mrs. Anderson, in her Life of General Stand Watie, denies categorically that the meeting of the council was interrupted on this occasion [p. 22] and cites the recollections of “living veterans” in proof.]

[Footnote 774:  “I am directed by the General Com’dg to say that he deems it advisable that you should move your Hd.  Qrs. higher up the river, say in the vicinity of Webber’s Falls or Pheasant Bluff.  He is desirous that you should be somewhere near the Council when that body meets, so that any attempt of the enemy to interfere with their deliberations may be thwarted by you.”—­DUVAL to Cooper, April 22, 1863, Confederate Records, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 209.]

[Footnote 775:  Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. ii, 42.]

[Footnote 776:—­Ibid., vol. ii, chapters vi and vii.]

[Footnote 777:  Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 469.]

[Footnote 778:—­Ibid., vol. xxii, part i, 337-338; Confederate Records, chap. 2, no. 268, p. 34.]

series and were nothing but fruitless demonstrations to seize the Federal grazing herds.  A brilliant cavalry raid, undertaken by Stand Watie and for the same purpose, a little later, was slightly more successful;[779] but even its fair showing was reversed in the subsequent skirmish at Greenleaf Prairie, June 16.[780] To the northward, something more serious was happening, since actions, having their impetus in Arkansas,[781] were endangering Phillips’s line of communication with Fort Scott, his base and his depot of supplies.  In reality, Phillips was hard pressed and no one knew better than he how precarious his situation was.  Among his minor troubles was the refusal of his Creeks to charge in the engagement of May 20.