The halt at Hudson’s Crossing occupied the better part of two days and then the main body of the Indian Expedition resumed its forward march.  It crossed the Neosho and moved on, down the west side of Grand River, to a fording place, Carey’s Ford, at which point, it passed over to the east side of the river and camped, a short distance from the ford, at Round Grove, on Cowskin Prairie, Cherokee ground, and the scene of Doubleday’s recent encounter with the enemy.  At this

[Footnote 313:  Salomon to Weer, June 30, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 458.]

[Footnote 314:  James A. Phillips to Judson, June 28, 1862 [Official Records, vol. xiii, 456].]

[Footnote 315:  William A. Phillips, a Scotsman by birth, went out to Kansas in the autumn of 1855 as regular staff correspondent of the New York Tribune [Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. v, 100, 102].  He was a personal friend of Dana’s [Britton, Memoirs, 89], became with Lane an active Free State man and later was appointed on Lane’s staff [Daily Conservative, January 24, 31, 1862].  He served as correspondent of the Daily Conservative at the time when that newspaper was most guilty of incendiarism.]

[Footnote 316:  James A. Phillips to Judson, June 28, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 456.]

place it anxiously awaited the return of Lieutenant-colonel Ratliff, who had been despatched to Neosho in response to an urgency call from General E.B.  Brown in charge of the Southwestern Division of the District of Missouri.[317]

The Confederates were still in the vicinity, promiscuously wandering about, perhaps; but, none the less, determined to check, if possible, the Federal further progress; for they knew that only by holding the territorial vantage, which they had secured through gross Federal negligence months before, could they hope to maintain intact the Indian alliance with the Southern States.  Stand Watie’s home farm was in the neighborhood of Weer’s camp and Stand Watie himself was even then scouting in the Spavinaw hills.[318]

In the latter part of May, under directions from General Beauregard[319] but apparently without the avowed knowledge of the Confederate War Department and certainly without its official[320] sanction, Thomas C.

[Footnote 317:  Weer to Moonlight, June 23, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 445, and same to same, July 2, 1862, Ibid., 459-461.]

[Footnote 318:  Anderson, Life of General Stand Watie, 18.]

[Footnote 319:  Official Records, vol. xiii, 28.]

[Footnote 320:  The emphasis should be upon the word, official, since the government must assuredly have acquiesced in Hindman’s appointment.  Hindman declared that the Secretary of War, in communicating on the subject to the House of Representatives, “ignored facts which had been officially communicated to him,” in order to convey the impression that Hindman had undertaken to fill the post of commander in the Trans-Mississippi Department without rightful authority [Hindman to Holmes, February 8, 1863, Ibid., vol. xxii, part 2, p. 785].  The following telegram shows that President Davis had been apprised of Hindman’s selection, and of its tentative character.