[Footnote 902:  Official Records, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 917.]

[Footnote 903:  Boudinot to Davis, January 4, 1864 [Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 920-921].  Boudinot also suggested other things, some good, some bad.  He suggested, for instance, that Indian Territory be attached to Missouri and Price put in command.  Seddon doubted if Price would care for the place [Ibid., 921].]

[Footnote 904:—­Ibid., vol. xxxiv, part ii, 858.]

preference for the two brigade plan.[905] The promotion of Cooper, implicit in the three brigade plan, was not at all pleasing to General Smith; for he thought of it as reflecting upon Steele, whom he loyally described as having “labored conscientiously and faithfully in the discharge of his duties."[906] With Steele removed from the scene[907]—­and he was soon removed for he had been retained in the Indian country only that Maxey might have for a brief season the benefit of his experience[908]—­the case was altered and Boudinot again pressed his point,[909] obtaining, finally, the assurance of the War Department that so soon as the number of Indian regiments justified the organization of three brigades they should be formed.[910]

The formation of brigades was only one of the Indian demands that had emanated from the general council.  Another was, the establishment of Indian Territory as a military department, an arrangement altogether inadvisable and for better reasons than the one reason that Davis offered when he addressed the united nations through their principal chiefs on the twenty-second of February.[911] Davis’s reason was that

[Footnote 905:  Maxey to Smith, January 15, 1864, Official Records, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 875.]

[Footnote 906:—­Ibid., vol. xxii, part ii, 1101-1102.]

[Footnote 907:—­Ibid., vol. xxxiv, part ii, 845, 848.]

[Footnote 908:  So Smith explained [Ibid., 845], when Steele objected to staying in the Indian Territory in a subordinate capacity [Ibid., vol. xxii, part ii, 1108].  Steele was transferred to the District of Texas [Ibid., vol. xxxiv, part ii, 961].  The withdrawal of Steele left Cooper the ranking officer and the person on whom such a command, if created, would fall [Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 968-969].]

[Footnote 909:  Boudinot to Davis, February 11, 1864, Ibid., 968.]

[Footnote 910:  Seddon to Davis, February 22, 1864, Ibid., 968-969.]

[Footnote 911:  Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, vol. i, 477-479; Official Records, vol. xxxiv, part iii, 824-825.  Davis addressed the chiefs and not the delegation that had brought the resolutions [Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 1030-1031].  John Jumper, Seminole principal chief, was a member of the delegation.]

as a separate department Indian Territory could not count upon the protection of the forces belonging to the Trans-Mississippi Department that was assured to her while she remained one of its integral parts.  A distinct military district she should certainly be.