With the departure of Salomon and subordinate commanders in sympathy with his retrograde movement, Robert W. Furnas, colonel of the First Indian, became the ranking officer in the field.  Consequently it was his duty to direct the movements of the troops that remained.  The troops were those of the three Indian regiments, the third of which had not yet been formally recognized and accepted by the government.  Not all of these troops were in camp when the arrest of Weer took place.  One of the last official acts of Weer as

[Footnote 372:  Carruth and Martin to Blunt, July 19, 1862.]

[Footnote 373:  Blocki, by order of Salomon, July 18, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 477.]

[Footnote 374:  Carruth and Martin to Coffin, August 2, 1862.]

commander of the Indian Expedition had been to order the First Indian to proceed to the Verdigris River and to take position “in the vicinity of Vann’s Ford.”  Only a detachment of about two hundred men had as yet gone there, however, and they were there in charge of Lieutenant A.C.  Ellithorpe.  A like detachment of the Third Indian, under John A. Foreman, major, had been posted at Fort Gibson.[375] Salomon’s pronunciamento and his order, placing the Indian regiments as a corps of observation on the Verdigris and Grand Rivers, were not communicated to the regimental commanders of the Indian Home Guard until July 22;[376] but they had already met, had conferred among themselves, and had decided that it would be bad policy to take the Indians out of the Territory.[377] They, therefore agreed to consolidate the three regiments into a brigade, Furnas in command, and to establish camp and headquarters on the Verdigris, about twelve miles directly west of the old camp on the Grand.[378]

The brigading took place as agreed upon and Furnas, brigade commander, retained his colonelcy of the First Indian, while Lieutenant-colonel David B. Corwin took command of the Second and Colonel William A. Phillips of the Third.  Colonel Ritchie had, prior to recent happenings, been detached from his command in order to conduct a party of prisoners to Fort Leavenworth, also to arrange for the mustering in of Indian recruits.[379] But two days’ rations were on hand, so jerked beef was accepted as the chief article of diet until other supplies could be obtained.[380] There was likely to be plenty of

[Footnote 375:  Furnas to Blunt, July 25, 1862, Official Records, vol. xiii, 512.]

[Footnote 376:—­Ibid., 512.]

[Footnote 377:  Britton, Civil War on the border, vol. i, 309.]

[Footnote 378:  Official Records, vol. xii, 512; Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, 163.]

[Footnote 379:  Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, 163-164.]

[Footnote 380:  Carruth and Martin to Coffin, July 25, 1862, Ibid., 160.]

that; for, as Weer had once reported, cattle were a drug on the market in the Cherokee country, the prairies “covered with thousands of them."[381] The encampment on the Verdigris was made forthwith; but it was a failure from the start.