[Footnote 272:  (cont.) any other position which I am strongly in hopes I may be, I hope you will exercise your influence to transfer him to my place, this will be agreable to all the officers of the 1st. regiment and desirable on his part.

The condition of the Indians here at the present writing is very favorable, sickness is abating and their spirits are reviving.  I think I have fully settled the fact of the Indians capability and susceptibility to arive at a good state of military disipline.  You would be surprised to see our Regt. move.  They accomplish the feat of regular time step equal to any white soldier, they form in line with dispatch and with great precission; and what is more they now manifest a great desire to learn the entire white man’s disiplin in military matters.  That they will make brave and ambitious soldiers I have no doubt.  Our country may well feel proud that these red men have at last fell into the ranks to fight for our flag, and aid in crushing treason.  Much honor is due them.  I am sorry that Dr. Kile did not accept the appointment of Quartermaster but owing to some misunderstanding with Col.  Ritchie he declines.

You will please remember me to Gen’l Lane and say that I have not heard from him since I left Washington.—­A.C.  ELITHORPE to Dole, June 9, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862, C 1661.

(c).

The Indian Brigade, consisting of about one thousand Creeks and Seminoles, sixty Quapaws, sixty Cherokees and full companies of wild Delawares, Kechees, Ironeyes, Cadoes, and Kickapoos, left this place (Leroy) yesterday for Humboldt, at which place I suppose they will join the so much talked of Indian expedition.  Although I have not as yet fully ascertained the exact number of each Tribe, represented in said Brigade, but they may be estimated at about Fifteen Hundred, all of the Southern Refugee Indians who have been fed here by the Government, besides sixty Delawares from the Delaware Reservation, and about two Hundred Osages, the latter of which I have been assured will be increased to about four or five hundred, ere they get through the Osage Nation ...

The news from the Cherokee Nation is very cheering and encouraging; it has been reported that nearly Two Thousand Cherokees will be ready to join the expedition on its approach into that country....—­Coffin to Dole, June 15, 1862, Ibid., C 1684.]

[Footnote 273:  Coffin to Dole, June 4, 1862, Ibid., Neosho, C 1662 of 1862.  See also Carruth to Coffin, September 19, 1862, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, 164-166.]