[Footnote 18:  Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 816-817.]

[Footnote 19:  Ibid., 762.]

[Footnote 20:—­Ibid., vol. viii, 725.]

[Footnote 21:—­Ibid., 701.]

[Footnote 22:  Wright, General Officers of the Confederate Army, 33, 67.]

[Footnote 23:  Official Records, vol. viii, 702.]

[Footnote 24:  Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States, vol. i, 637.]

[Footnote 25:  Formby, American Civil War, 129.]

time it was made, to put an end to all local disputes and to give Missouri the attention she craved.  The ordnance department of the Confederacy had awakened to a sense of the value of the lead mines[26] at Granby and Van Dorn was instructed especially to protect them.[27] His appointment, moreover, anticipated an early encounter with the Federals in Missouri.  In preparation for the struggle that all knew was impending, it was of transcendent importance that one mind and one interest should control, absolutely.

The Trans-Mississippi District would appear to have been constituted and its limits to have been defined without adequate reference to existing arrangements.  The limits were, “That part of the State of Louisiana north of Red River, the Indian Territory west of Arkansas, and the States of Arkansas and Missouri, excepting therefrom the tract of country east of the Saint Francis, bordering on the Mississippi River, from the mouth of the Saint Francis to Scott County, Missouri...."[28] Van Dorn, in assuming command of the district, January 29, 1862, issued orders in such form that Indian Territory was listed last among the limits[29] and it was a previous arrangement affecting Indian Territory that was most ignored in the whole scheme of organization.

It will be remembered that, in November of the preceding year, the Department of Indian Territory had been created and Brigadier-general Albert Pike assigned to the same.[30] His authority was not explicitly

[Footnote 26:  Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 767, 774.]

[Footnote 27:  Van Dora’s protection, if given, was given to little purpose; for the mines were soon abandoned [Britton, Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border, 1863, 120].]

[Footnote 28:  Official Records, vol. viii, 734.]

[Footnote 29:—­Ibid., 745.]

[Footnote 30:—­Ibid., 690.]

superseded by that which later clothed Van Dorn and yet his department was now to be absorbed by a military district, which was itself merely a section of another department.  The name and organization of the Department of Indian Territory remained to breed confusion, disorder, and serious discontent at a slightly subsequent time.  Of course, since the ratification of the treaties of alliance with the tribes, there was no question to be raised concerning the status of Indian Territory as definitely a possession of the Southern Confederacy.  Indeed, it had, in a way, been counted as such, actual and prospective, ever since the enactment of the marque and reprisal law of May 6, 1861.[31]