The two Cherokee regiments are near the Kansas line, operating on that frontier.  Col.  Stand Watie has recently had a skirmish there, in which, as always, he and his men fought gallantly, and were successful.  Col.  D.N.  McIntosh’s Creek Regiment is under orders to advance up the Verdigris, toward the Santa Fe road.  Lieut.  Col.  Chilly McIntosh’s Creek Battalion, Lieut.  Col.  John Jumper’s Seminole Battalion, and Lieut.  Col.  J.D.  Harris’ Chickasaw Battalion are under orders, and part of them now in motion toward the Salt Plains, to take Fort Larned, the post at Walnut Creek, and perhaps Fort Wise, and intercept trains going to New Mexico.  The First Choctaw (new)[407] Regiment, of Col.  Sampson Folsom, and the Choctaw Battalion (three companies), of Maj.  Simpson (N.) Folsom, are at Middle Boggy, 23 miles northeast of this point.  They were under orders to march northward to

[Footnote 404:  Official Records, vol. xiii, 943-945.]

[Footnote 405:  For tabulated showing of Pike’s brigade, see Ibid., 831.]

[Footnote 406:  Compare Russell’s statement with Hindman’s [Ibid., 30].  See also Maury to Price, March 22, 1862 [Ibid., vol. viii, 798].]

[Footnote 407:  The parentheses appear here as in the original.]

the Salt Plains and Santa Fe road; but the withdrawal of Colonel Dawson’s regiment prevents that, and the regiment is now ordered to take position here, and the battalion to march to and take position at Camp McIntosh, 17 miles this side of Fort Cobb, where, with Hart’s Spies, 40 in number, it will send out parties to the Wichita Mountains and up the False Wichita, and prevent, if possible, depredations on the frontier of Texas.

The First Choctaw and Chickasaw Regiment, of Col.  Douglas H. Cooper, goes out of service on the 25th and 26th of July.  It is now encamped 11 miles east of here....  The country to the westward is quiet, all the Comanches this side of the Staked Plains being friendly, and the Kiowas[408] having made peace, and selected a home to live at on Elk Creek, not far from the site of Camp Radziwintski, south of the Wichita Mountains.

The Indian troops have been instructed, if the enemy[409] invades the country, to harass him, and impede his progress by every possible means, and, falling back here as he advances, to assist in holding this position against him.

Included in Russell’s report there might well have been much interesting data respecting the condition of the troops that Pike was parting with; for it can scarcely be said that he manifested any generosity in sending them forth.  He obeyed the letter of his order and ignored its spirit.  He permitted no guns to be taken out of the Territory that had been paid for with money that he had furnished.  Dawson’s regiment had not its full quota of men, but that was scarcely Pike’s fault.  Neither was it his fault that its equipment was so sadly below par that it could make but very slow progress on the nine hundred mile march between Fort McCulloch and Little Rock.  Moreover, the health of the