Weer’s plans were one thing, his embarrassments, another.  Before the middle of June he was back again at Leroy,[303] having left Salomon and Doubleday[304] at Baxter Springs on the west side of Spring River in the Neutral Lands, the former in command.  Weer hoped by his presence at Leroy to hurry the Indians along; for it was high time the expedition was started and he intended to start it, notwithstanding that many officers were absent from their posts and the men of the Second Indian Regiment not yet mustered in.  It was absolutely necessary, if anything were going to be done with Indian aid, to get the braves away from under the influence of their chiefs, who were bent upon delay and determent.  By the sixteenth he had the warriors all ready at Humboldt,[305] their bullet-proof medicine taken, their grand war dance indulged in.  By the twenty-first, the final packing up began,[306] and it was not long thereafter before the Indian Expedition, after having experienced so many vicissitudes, had definitely materialized and was on its way south.  Accompanying Weer were the Reverend Evan Jones, entrusted with

[Footnote 301:  Weer to Moonlight, June 13, 1862.]

[Footnote 302:  Weer to Doubleday, June 6, 1862.]

[Footnote 303:  Weer to Moonlight, June 13, 1862.]

[Footnote 304:  On the twentieth, General Brown requested Salomon to send Doubleday to southwest Missouri [Official Records, vol. xiii, 440] and Salomon so far complied with the request as to post some companies of Doubleday’s regiment, under Lieutenant-colonel Ratliff, at Neosho [Ibid., 445, 459].]

[Footnote 305:—­Ibid., 434.]

[Footnote 306:—­Ibid., 441.]

a confidential message[307] to John Ross, and two special Indian agents, E.H.  Carruth, detailed at the instance of the Indian Office, and H.W.  Martin, sent on Coffin’s own responsibility, their particular task being to look out for the interests and welfare of the Indians and, when once within the Indian Territory, to take careful stock of conditions there, both political and economic.[308] The Indians were in fine spirits and, although looking

[Footnote 307:  The message, addressed to “Mutual Friend,” was an assurance of the continued interest of the United States government in the inhabitants of Indian Territory and of its determination to protect them [Coffin to Ross, June 16, 1862, Indian Office General Files, Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862, C 1684].]

[Footnote 308:  “...  You will assure all loyal Indians in the Indian Territory of the disposition and the ability of the Government of the United States to protect them in all their rights, and that there is no disposition on the part of said government to shrink from any of its Treaty Obligations with all such of the Indian Tribes, who have been, are now, and remaining loyal to the same.  Also that the government will, at the earliest practicable period, which is believed not to be distant, restore to all loyal Indians the rights, privileges, and immunities, that they have enjoyed previous to the present unfortunate rebellion.