Lane, conjecturing rightly that Price, moving northwestward from Springfield, which place he had left on the twenty-sixth of August, would threaten, if he did not actually attempt, an invasion of Kansas at the point of its greatest vulnerability, the extreme southeast, hastened his preparations for the defence and at the very end of the month appeared in person at Fort Scott, where all the forces he could muster, many of them refugee Missourians, had been rendezvousing.  On the second of September, the two armies, if such be not too dignified a name for them, came into initiatory action at Dry Wood Creek,[104] Missouri, a reconnoitering party of the Federals, in a venture across the line, having

[Footnote 103:  (cont.) would soon repair thither and so quell the rebellion as to render my stay here no longer necessary.  But as yet the Union forces have not penetrated that far south, and Jackson with a large force is quartered within 20 or 25 miles of the Agency—­I was informed by Mr. Killebrew on the 23d inst. that everything at the Agency was safe—­but the house and roads were guarded—­Hence I have assumed the responsibility of establishing my office here temporarily until I can hear from the department.

And I most sincerely hope the course I have thus been compelled to pursue will receive the approval of the department.

I desire instructions relative to the papers and a valuable safe (being the only moveables there of value) which can only be moved at present under the protection of a guard.  And also instructions as to the course I am to pursue relative to the locality of the Agency.

I feel confident that the difficulty now attending the locality at Crawford Seminary will not continue long—­if not then I shall move directly there unless instructions arrive of a different character.

All mail matter should be directed to Fort Scott for the Mail Carrier has been repeatedly arrested and the mails may be robbed—­Very respectfully your Obedient Servant

PETER P. ELDER, U.S.  Neosho Agent.

H.B.  BRANCH Esq, Superintendent of Ind.  Affairs C.S. 
  St. Joseph, Mo.
[Indian Office Files, Neosho, B 719 of 1861].]

[Footnote 104:  For additional information about the Dry Wood Creek affair and about the events leading up to and succeeding it, see Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 436; Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, chapter x; Connelley, Quantrill and the Border Wars, 199.]

fallen in with the advance of the Confederates and, being numerically outmatched, having been compelled to beat a retreat.  In its later stages, Lane personally conducted that retreat, which, taken as a whole, did not end even with the recrossing of the state boundary, although the pursuit did not continue beyond it.  Confident that Price would follow up his victory and attack Fort Scott, Lane resolved to abandon the place, leaving a detachment to collect