[Footnote 828:  Duval to Cabell, August 17, 1863, Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii 969-970.]

contagion among the Indians, his troops were moved to more and more isolated camps[829] across the Canadian[830] and, finally, back in the direction of Fort Smith.  Ostensibly they were moved to the Arkansas line to protect Fort Smith; for Steele knew well that his present hold upon that place was of the frailest.  It might be threatened at any moment from the direction of Cassville and Morgan had been instructed, in the event of an attack in prospect, to cross the boundary line and proceed along the Boggy road towards Riddle’s station.[831] Steele was evidently not going to make any desperate effort to hold the place that for so long had been the seat of the Confederate control over the Southern Indians.

All this time, General Blunt had been patrolling the Arkansas for some thirty miles or so of its course[832] and had been thoroughly well aware of the assembling of Steele’s forces, likewise of the disaffection of the Indians, with which, by the way, he had had quite a little to do.  Not knowing exactly what Steele’s intentions might be but surmising that he was meditating an attack, he resolved to assume the offensive himself.[833] The full significance of his resolution can be fully appreciated only by the noting of the fact that, subsequent to the Battle of Honey Springs, he had been instructed by General Schofield, his superior officer, not only not to advance but to fall back.  To obey the order was inconceivable and Blunt had deliberately disobeyed it.[834] It was now his determination to do more.  Fortunately, Schofield had recently changed his mind; for word had

[Footnote 829:  Confederate Military History, vol. x, 202.]

[Footnote 830:  Steele to Scott, August 7, 1863, Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, 957.]

[Footnote 831:  Steele to Morgan, August, 1863, Ibid., 951; August 8, 1863, Ibid., 957.]

[Footnote 832:  Steele to Blair, August 7, 1863, Ibid., 956.]

[Footnote 833:  Blunt to Schofield, July 30, 1863, Ibid., 411.]

[Footnote 834:  Blunt to Lincoln, September 24, 1863, Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 572.]

come to him that Congress had decided to relieve Kansas of her Indian encumbrance by compassing the removal of all her tribes, indigenous and immigrant, to Indian Territory.  It mattered not that the former had a title to their present holdings by ancient occupation and long continued possession and the latter a title in perpetuity, guaranteed by the treaty-making power under the United States constitution.  All the tribes were to be ousted from the soil of the state that had been saved to freedom; but it would be first necessary to secure the Indian Territory and the men of the Kansas tribes were to be organized as soldiers to secure it.  It is difficult to imagine a more ironical proceeding.  The Indians were to be induced to fight for the recovery of a section of the country that would make possible their own banishment.  Blunt strenuously objected, not because he was averse to ridding Kansas of the Indians, but because he had no faith in an Indian soldiery.  Said he,