[Footnote 915:  S.A.  Roberts to Maxey, February 1, 1864, Official Records, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 936-937.]

[Footnote 916:  Seddon to Scott, January 6, 1864, Ibid., 828-829.]

[Footnote 917:  Moty Kanard, late principal chief of the Creek Nation, spoke of it as a noble address and begged for a copy [Ibid., 960].]

[Footnote 918:  Vore to Maxey, January 29, 1864, Ibid., 928; Maxey to Anderson, February 9, 1864, Ibid., 958; same to same, February 7, 1864, Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 963-966.]

[Footnote 919:  Inasmuch as the alliance with the Indians of the Plains was never fully consummated and inasmuch as these Indians harassed and devastated the frontier states for reasons quite foreign to the causes of the Civil War, the subject of their depredations and outrages is not considered as within the scope of the present volume.]

and Cooper was forced, so he said, to “put the members of the grand council to work on” him.[920] It was Cooper’s wish, evidently, that the council would “insist under the Indian compact that all Choctaw troops shall be put at once in the field as regular Confederate troops for the redemption and defense of the whole Indian Territory.”  The obstinacy of the Choctaw principal chief had to be overcome in order “to bring out the Third Choctaw Regiment speedily and on the proper basis.”  In general, the council reiterated its recommendations of November previous and so Boudinot informed President Davis,[921] it being with him the opportunity he coveted of urging, as already noted, the promotion of Cooper to a major-generalship.

In January and so anterior to most of the foregoing incidents, the shaking of the political dice in Washington, D.C., had brought again into existence the old Department of Kansas, Curtis in command.[922] Its limits were peculiar for they included Indian Territory[923] and the military post of Fort Smith as well as Kansas and the territories of Nebraska and Colorado.  The status of Fort Smith was a question for the future to decide; but, in the meantime, it was to be a bone of contention between Curtis and his colleague, Frederick Steele, in command of the sister Department of

[Footnote 920:  Cooper to Maxey, February, 1864, Official Records, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 959.  The report reached Phillips that the Choctaws wanted a confederacy quite independent of the southern [Ibid., part i, 107].]

[Footnote 921:  Although Davis’s address of February 22 could well, in point of chronology, have been an answer to the applications and recommendations of the second session of the general council, it has been dealt with in connection with those of the first session, notwithstanding that Boudinot made his appeal less than a fortnight before Davis wrote.  In his address, Davis specifically mentioned the work of the first session and made no reference whatsoever to that of the second.]

[Footnote 922:  Official Records, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 10.]