[Footnote 923:  Ewing wanted the command of Indian Territory, Ibid., 89.]

Arkansas; for Steele had control over all Federal forces within the political and geographical boundaries of the state that gave the name to his department except the Fort Smith garrison.[924] The termination of Schofield’s career in Missouri[925] was another result of political dice-throwing, so also was the call for Blunt to repair to the national capital for a conference.[926]

But politics had nothing whatever to do with an event more notable still.  With the first of February began one of the most remarkable expeditions that had yet been undertaken in the Indian country.  It was an expedition conducted by Colonel William A. Phillips and it was remarkable because, while it professed to have for its object the cleaning out of Indian Territory,[927] its incidents were as much diplomatic and pacific as military.  Its course was only feebly obstructed and might have been extended into northern Texas had Moonlight of the Fourteenth Kansas Cavalry chosen to cooeperate.[928] As it was, the course was southward almost to Fort Washita.  Phillips carried with him copies of President Lincoln’s Amnesty Proclamation[929] and he distributed them freely.  His interpretation of the proclamation was his own and perhaps not strictly warranted by the phraseology but justice and generosity debarred his seeing why magnanimity and forgiveness should not be extended betimes to the poor deluded red man as much as to the deliberately rebellious white.  To various prominent chiefs

[Footnote 924:  Official Records, vol. xxxiv, part ii, 167, 187.]

[Footnote 925:—­Ibid., 188.]

[Footnote 926:  Lane, Wilder, and Dole, requested that Blunt be summoned to Washington [Ibid., 52].]

[Footnote 927:  See Phillips’s address to his soldiers, January 30, 1864, Ibid., 190.]

[Footnote 928:  Phillips to Curtis, February 16, 1864, Ibid., part i, 106-108.]

[Footnote 929:  Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. vi, 213-215.]

of secessionist persuasion he sent messages of encouragement and good-will.[930] More sanguine than circumstances really justified, he returned to report that, for some of the tribes at least, the war was virtually over.[931] What his peace mission may have accomplished, the future would reveal; but there was no doubting what his raid had done.  It had produced consternation among the weaker elements.  The Creeks, the Seminoles, and the Chickasaws had widely dispersed, some into the fastnesses of the mountains.  Only the Choctaws continued obdurate and defiant.  It was strange that Phillips should have arrived at conclusions so sweeping; for his course[932] had led him within hearing range of the general council in session at Armstrong Academy and there the division of sentiment was not so much along tribal lines as along individual.  Strong personalities triumphed; for, as Maxey so truly