[Footnote 806:  Arkansas betrayed similar selfishness.  President Davis’s rejoinder to a protest from Flanagin against a tendency to ignore the claims of the West struck a singularly high note.  Admitting certain errors of the past, he prayed for the generous cooeperation of the future; for “it is to the future, not to the past, that we must address ourselves, and I wish to assure you, though I hope it is unnecessary, that no effort shall be spared to promote the defense of the Trans-Mississippi Department, and to develop its resources so as to meet the exigencies of the present struggle” [Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, 932].  Five days afterwards, Governor Reynolds, in commending Secretary Seddon for a very able ministry, expressed confidence that his gubernatorial colleagues in Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana would, with himself, “act in no sectional or separatist spirit.”  It was saying a good deal, considering how strong the drift of popular opinion had been and was to be in the contrary direction.  However, in August, the four governors appealed collectively to their constituents and to “the Allied Indian Nations,” proving, if proof were needed, that they personally were sincere [Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 892-894; Moore’s Rebellion Record, vol. vii, 406-407].]

[Footnote 807:  Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, 922.]

[Footnote 808:  The plans for such concerted action were made as early as July 8 [Steele to Cooper, July 8, 1863, Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, 911-912].  Cabell was instructed to take position between Webber’s Falls and Fort Gibson [Duval to Cabell, July 10, 1863, Ibid., 916-917] and more specifically, two days before the battle, “within 15 or 20 miles of Gibson and this side of where Gen. Cooper is now encamped on Elk Creek” [Steele to Cabell, July 15, 1863, Confederate Records, chap. 2, no. 268, p. 145].]

[Footnote 809:  Steele knew of the deficiencies in their equipment, however, and of their exhausted state (cont.)]

scouts out in all directions and with spies in the very camps of his foes, soon obtained an inkling of the Confederate plan and resolved to dispose of Cooper before Cabell could arrive from Arkansas.[810] Cooper’s position was on Elk Creek, not far from present Muskogee,[811] and near Honey Springs on the seventeenth of July the two armies met, Blunt forcing the engagement, having made a night march in order to do it.  The Indians of both sides[812] were on hand, in force, the First and Second Home Guards, being dismounted as infantry and thus fighting for once as they had been mustered in.  Of the Confederate, or Cooper, brigade Stand Watie, the ever reliable, commanded the First and Second Cherokee, D.N.  McIntosh, the First and Second Creek, and Tandy Walker, the regiment of Choctaws and Chickasaws.  The odds were all against Cooper from the start and, in ways that Steele had not specified, the material equipment proved itself inadequate indeed.  Much of the ammunition was worthless.[813] Nevertheless, Cooper stubbornly contested every inch of the ground and finally gave way only when large numbers of his Indians, knowing their guns to be absolutely useless to them, became disheartened and then demoralized.  In confusion, they led the van in