Colonel Phillips Commands Indian Brigade
In making the final disposition of his troops General Schofield directed Colonel W. A. Phillips to take command of the Indian Brigade, consisting of the First, Second and Third Indian Regiments, a battalion of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, under Captain John W. Orahood, senior captain, consisting of the companies of Captains Dobyns, Lucas and Rogers, and Captain Hopkins four gun battery, and move to near Maysville on the line of Arkansas and the Cherokee Nation, where he would be in position to afford protection to the loyal Indians of the Territory during the winter. (Page 169) His command left Elm Springs on the 10th of January and arrived at Camp Walker, near Marysville, on the 11th, having marched thirty-five miles, and went into camp for several weeks. In a few days severe winter weather fell upon that section; snow storms and hard freezing kept the troops busy for a while gathering forage for their animals and food and fuel for themselves, and straw for beds in their tents. They were able to keep fairly comfortable through the cold weather; there was plenty of wood and water near at hand, and the Indians were on the border of their own country and knew that only severe winter weather prevented their families from returning to their homes, nearly all of whom were then at Neosho, Missouri, for better housing conditions.
There was a good deal of responsibility placed upon the commander of such a force that required executive ability of a high order. The safety of his troops must be kept constantly in view and vigilance exercised in keeping out scouting detachments to warn of the approach of a hostile force, and the wants of the troops were to be looked after and forage, food and equipment provided; his supply line between that point and Fort Scott must be kept open and his supply train sufficiently guarded to prevent their destruction by guerrilla bands in the western counties of Missouri, who were frequently able to concentrate in consider able force a hundred or so men.
In a short time there were coming to his camp quite a number of loyal Indian and white refugee families, consisting of old men, women and children, for protection, having been robbed of nearly everything they possessed by bandits infesting their neighborhoods, and these people had to be looked after to prevent them from starving or freezing and falling into immoralities that might affect the troops.
Their sanitary condition was an important problem for the Surgeons of the Indian command, and unsanitary conditions were certain to breed disease of some form or other, (Page 170) which would affect the troops as well as the refugees. Families forced to leave their homes with scanty clothing and few of the comforts of life, to seek the protection of the troops, could hardly be expected to keep in a sanitary condition while living in improvised shelters on the borders of the camp with uncertain supplies of food and fuel.
If there was not a member of nearly every refugee family serving as a soldier in that part of the army, there was likely one serving with jsome other division of it, for no man of military age and fit for the military service could safely stay at home no matter which side he sympathized with. The chaplains or some one else generally looked after the most distressing cases.
There had been, since the army moved into Northwestern Arkansas after the Newtonia campaign, about two supply trains a month reaching it from Fort Scott, and as a rule most of the refugee white families coming to it were sent back with the returning trains, and there gradually come to be about Fort Scott quite a large number of refugee families, some of whom were provisioned by the Government until they could find employment. Among these the spotted or typhus fever broke out one winter, 1863, taking off some of those who could not have proper attention by the medical authorities and who had been exposed to unusual hardships after leaving their homes.
Another class of refugee families, refugee Indian families, who had come to Baxter Springs after the withdrawal of the white troops from the Indian expedition, deserves attention. These refugees consisted perhaps of the larger parts of the loyal Indian families of the Cherokee, Creek and Seminole Nations, who had recently been moved from Baxter Springs to Neosho, Newton county, Missouri, on account of the better housing facilities that could be provided for them at the latter place, and that they might be properly protected against the raids of Southern partisan organizations of Livingston and other Southern partisan (Page 171) leaders, a battalion of the Third Indian Regiment, under Major J. A. Foreman, was sent to Neosho to occupy the place during the balance of the winter. In securing forage and supplies for the Indian soldiers and families, scouting detachments were kept out constantly, and killed some of the worst bandit leaders in that section who had been robbing and making life a burden to Union families since early in the war, some of the bandits having in their possession the clothing of women and children whom they had robbed.
The bandits hunted down by the Indians did not deserve the name of partisan rangers, who were perhaps a shade more respectable. The leaders of these bands did not generally have a following of more than three or four men, and when the Southern forces made a raid through that section, mingled freely with them, but when they were driven out by the Federal forces, did not leave with them. They stayed in the country, hiding in the broken, hilly and heavily timbered regions, and when an opportunity was offered, would make a night raid on some unprotected Union family and rob it and sometimes murder a male member if found present.
Major Foreman’s Indian command was the first Federal force to occupy Neosho as a military post since the war, and it gave opportunity to many Union families of that section who had refugeed to Fort Scott and Springfield, to return and rehabilitate themselves in their homes; but the frequent raids of the Southern forces and the lawless operations of Southern partisans and bandits prevented a good many Unionists from returning home until the close of the war.
The Union and Southern families who had remained at home in the country raised good crops, and as the Southern forces were driven out of Southwest Missouri before using very much of the new crops, the Indian command found abundant forage and other supplies for its use and the use (Page 172) of the Indian families at Neosho; the supplies taken from Unionists were paid for in vouchers given by the Post Quartermaster, and the vouchers could be readily cashed by business men who would take them in trade.
The town was well known to the Cherokees, for many of their prominent men had sent their daughters to school there before the war, and they had other business relations with the people. Seasons when their crops failed, they sent teams into Newton county and took their wagons back loaded with corn and flour purchased from the farmers whose crops never failed on the deep-soiled farms of Shoal Creek. The place was also probably well known to the people inhabiting that section from pre-historic times on account of the Big Spring in the western part of it, which pours out of a bluff at an elevation of ten to twelve feet in a descent of twenty feet, affording a fine water power for manufacturing purposes. On calm evenings the water pouring out of the bluff and down the descent may be heard for a distance of a mile or more. The town had four or five other excellent springs of pure water.
While Major Foreman’s Indian Battalion and the Refugee Indian families were at Neosho, there was almost constant communication between them and the main force under Colonel Phillips, operating along the border of the Cherokee Nation, Northwest Arkansas and McDonald county, Missouri, and all were anxiously looking forward to spring when the exiles would return to their homes.
The Indian Brigade had been at Camp Walker, then called Camp Curtis, in honor of the Department Commander, only a short time when, in sending out a foraging expedition the mounted escort to it came into collision with several bandits, and in the action a soldier and a bandit was each killed, and one or two men wounded, showing that although the Southern army had been driven out of Western Arkansas to the south side of the Arkansas River, there were still Southern partisans endeavoring to stay in the rough, (Page 173) hilly timbered region of that section, making it unsafe for small parties of soldiers to be away from their command without the risk of being fired upon from ambush.
To keep advised of and meet such movements of the Southern forces was the function of the Federal commanders in that region, and as early as January 12th, a day or two after taking up his position near Mayville, Colonel Phillips sent out a scout of about one hundred and fifty men under Captain H. S. Anderson, of the Third Indian Regiment, in the direction of Spavina Creek, and came upon a Southern force of about two hundred men under Major T. R. Livingston, of Jasper county, Missouri, and in the action that took place, Captain Anderson reported that not less than twenty-five or thirty of the enemy were killed and wounded; that Captain Fry Smith, of Jasper county, Missouri, was among the killed, and that the broken enemy were pursued until lost in the thick woods.
Information obtained by Captain Anderson indicated that Livingston had collected this force for the purpose of working his way back into Jasper county, his old field of operations, where he would be in a position to attack the Indian soldiers under Major Foreman at Neosho, or menace the Federal supply trains coming down from Fort Scott.
Major Livingston called his force of Missourians “Partisan Rangers.” They knew every foot of the ground in Newton and Jasper counties; after they were driven south with the Southern forces it was impossible to prevent them from filtering back through the Federal lines, and in a few weeks after the action with Captain Anderson, Livingston was back in Jasper county, giving the Federal forces in that region all the trouble in his power, and as no Federal troops or Missouri Militia were yet stationed in Jasper or Barton county, and as most of the farm houses and fences around the farms in those counties had been destroyed, he could march over them almost at will without danger of attack except under conditions which would give him an advantage in numbers and position. (Page 174) There were families of his followers and other Southern sympathizers in the field of his operations in Western Missouri, and even at Fort Scott, who kept him advised of the movements of Federal troops, so that it was difficult to bring him to an engagement with a superior force; but when in that section he was usually kept so well advised of the movements of Federal detachments that he could fall upon and cut to pieces an inferior force that had failed to exercise proper vigilance. On the night of the 3d of March he dashed into Granby with one hundred men where Major Eno of the Eighth Missouri State Militia Cavalry had twenty-five men stationed in a blockhouse, and captured three or four outside of it, and killed two of them, and then left without attacking the men inside of the blockhouse, who were able to beat him off and drive him out of range of their rifle fire.
A few days after the Granby affair, Livingston had a spirited little fight with Captain Theo. Conkey, Third Wisconsin Cavalry, who had been scouting the lower Spring River country with a detachment of about one hundred men of his regiment, and in the affair the honors were about even, several men being wounded and captured on each side.
The operations of Major Livingston in Jasper and Newton counties were becoming so annoying in his attacks on foraging parties and other Federal detachments passing through that section, that the commanding officers of posts and stations were determined to make a co-operative drive that would force him to leave that section, temporarily at least, and about the first of March Major David Mefford with parts of three companies of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, started out on a nine days scout from near Mt. Vernon, and scouted the country thoroughly from Newtonia, Gran by, down Shoal Creek to Neosho, thence north to Diamond Grove, down Turkey Creek to Sherwood in the western (Page 175) part of Jasper county, and found a trail, but darkness coming on he did not deem it expedient to follow it into the thick brush and timber.
He bivouacked near Sherwood and took up the trail the next morning and followed it only a short distance when his advance ran into an enemy picket and in the exchange of shots had one of his men wounded, and also wounded one of the enemy. Searching the woods he soon found Livingston’s camp, which had just been abandoned by a force of about eighty men who had retreated into the thick brush and timber. The Major then moved his command out to the edge of the prairie, and noticing an outpost of several men of the enemy in the open timber a few hundred yards ahead, sent his advance in pursuit and after a chase of half a mile, came upon Livingston’s whole force, and was compelled to fall back pursued, the enemy coming up within one hundred yards of where the Major had dismounted part of his command and formed line to receive them, and after sharp firing of a few minutes they beat a hasty retreat, having two or three men wounded. Having been joined by forty Indians as scouts from the Third Indian Regiment of Captain Spillman’s command at Neosho, Major Mefford took up the trail of the bandits again and pursued them beyond Crawford Seminary, Indian Territory, when it was abandoned and he returned to the headquarters of his regiment, being satisfied that the main part of Livingston’s force had left that section.
After Mefford’s scout there was little heard of Livingston’s activities in Jasper and Newton counties for about two months, when he reported himself leaving the Creek Agency south of the Verdigris River, on the march to South west Missouri, where he arrived about the middle of May. In the meantime a post had been established at Baxter Springs with Colonel James M. Williams, First Kansas Colored Infantry, in command. He had his own regiment, which had been organized the latter part of winter and (Page 176) during the spring, and a section of Blair’s Second Kansas Battery, and this force was there for the protection of the supply trains from Fort Scott to Colonel Phillips Indian troops at Fort Gibson, being near the scene of Livingston’s operations.
On the 18th of May a foraging party of about sixty men, mostly colored soldiers from the Colored regiment, and some eight to ten white soldiers from the section of artillery were sent with five wagons and teams to the vicinity of Sherwood, Missouri, about eight miles distant, and their movements having been observed by Livingston’s scouts and reported to him, he hastily collected upwards of one hundred of his men, surprised and attacked the party, and killed, as he reported 23 colored soldiers and 7 white men, and captured five wagons and teams. The next day Colonel Williams sent out a force of about two hundred men of his regiment and a section of the Battery, to the scene of the disaster, but was unable to draw the guerrillas into action, and as their force was well mounted, and his, infantry, he could not pursue them to advantage, and they disappeared in the thick brush and timber along Center Creek.
In this affair of the foraging party the Federal force suffered the severest loss it had sustained in the many con tests it had with the guerrilla bands of that section. In extending the field of his operations, Livingston soon after wards met his death while making an attack on a detachment of the Missouri Enrolled Militia under Lieutenant W. A. McMinn occupying the Court House at Stockton in Cedar county. Captain Vaughan of Osceola and three others of the guerrilla force were also killed and left on the ground of the Court House square, besides fifteen to twenty men badly wounded and left in the country on the retreat.
The attack was a surprise; the militia were fired upon in town before they knew of the presence of the enemy, and not more than twenty-five men under Lieutenants McMinn and Montgomery were able to get into the Court House (Page 177) where the arms of the men not on duty were left, but which furnished plenty of ammunition for the men inside, who immediately bolted the doors down stairs and commenced firing from every window up and down stairs upon their assailants who were coming close up until their leaders were shot down, which ended the attack and precipitated their immediate retreat.
While the Indian Brigade was at Camp Curtis near Maysville, scouting and foraging and chasing Southern sympathizers and bandits who had such fear of Federal sol diers that they did not stay at home, it was found that some of them during the severe cold of the winter had been living in caves in parties of twos and threes, and in other instances in rude camps far in the depths of the hills, miles from any traveled roads, securing their food and scanty comforts from Southern sympathizers of the neighborhood.
All of those who were living this kind of a life were not bad men. Perhaps most of them were men of almost exemplary conduct, men past the military age and unfit for the military service, but men of decided southern sympathies who had gone off with the Southern army when it was driven out of that section, and had returned clandestinely to be as near their families as practicable, and if they found that they would not be disturbed at home, to go to some military post and take the oath of allegiance to the Government.
In war time it seemed almost natural for any one to run from an enemy, if he did not wish to be taken and there was a fair prospect of getting away, and it seemed equally as natural for the soldier to fire upon an enemy in flight if he did not halt on command, and thus it happened that many innocent men were doubtless killed or wounded, when, if they had offered to surrender on being surprised, they would have been taken and kindly treated by their captors.
In the vicinity of Maysville the forage had been mostly used in the early part of the autumn by the Southern forces (Page 178) of General Cooper, and the Federal forces of General Blunt; but there was some left for the Indian command, and could be had by sending the foraging parties a little farther from camp each time an expedition was sent out to gather up and bring in forage.
Nearly all the small creeks and small streams north of Maysville emptied into Elk River in McDonald county, and had small farms along them, and very few of the Southern families owning them had left their homes. They raised good crops that year; but as the distance increased it become more and more difficult and inconvenient to find and haul the forage to camp. Colonel Phillips decided, after a couple of weeks in camp near Maysville, to move the command to Elk Mills on Elk River where he proposed to operate the mills in making flour and meal for refugee families and his troops, from the wheat and corn he would be able to secure in that vicinity.
Elk River Valley above and below the mills, and the valley of Buffalo Creek that emptied into the river near there, had many good farms and raised good crops that season, and while the Southern forces of General Cooper had used a good deal of the grain in the vicinity during the Newtonia campaign, in making flour and meal and collect ing subsistence for his forces, foraging parties found considerable quantities of wheat, corn and oats, and with some repairing the mills were put into operation again making flour and meal for the Indian troops and refugees.
The mills, however, were not to be depended upon to a very large extent in making flour and meal for the troops, for just before moving his command to that place, Colonel Phillips had sent his first supply train to Fort Scott under an escort of two hundred mounted men, and a few negro refugees who had drifted into camp and were anxious to go north.
Nearly all the negro men fit for the military service who had belonged to the Cherokees and Creeks joined the Indian regiments; but those who had belonged to white men and (Page 179) left them to seek their freedom and had come to the Indian command for protection had not yet found a suitable status for employment. A few might be employed as officers servants, but that would not take care of all who were coming in; there was just beginning to be talk about organizing colored regiments, but the people of the country and the army were divided on that question. In arguments around camp fires of evenings, officers and men declared they would not fight beside negro soldiers; wagon masters would not hire negro men as teamsters because the white teamsters objected to associating with them, and the only thing to do was to send those who had found asylum with the troops to Fort Scott where they would probably have opportunities of securing employment about that post in some capacity or enlisting.
There were a few men in public life and others in humble positions in private life, who had a prophetic vision early in the war that the Rebellion would bring about the end of slavery and in the discussions around the camp fires, every angle of the subject was touched upon, and men who were very conservative about interfering with slavery, and who would have been willing to have returned to their disloyal masters, slaves who had escaped from them and come into the camps of the Federal soldiers for protection, were gradually changing their views and did not wish to be used as slave hunters for the men they were fighting.
It was difficult for men with prejudices of long standing to give them up, but they were doing it. The President’s Proclamation of September 22d, to the country, that he would on January 1st, 1863 issue another Proclamation giving absolute freedom to the slavery of the States then in rebellion, and having issued his second proclamation giv ing them their freedom and stating that freedmen of suit able physical conditions would be received into the armed military service of the United States, for certain specified purposes, at once gave the negro a new status. He was no (Page 180) longer a chattel; he was a human being and must be recognized as such by all law abiding men.
In Kansas there was a general sentiment from the commencement of the war against returning negroes who had escaped from their owners and come into the camps of the Federal troops, to their disloyal masters. There were many officers and men of prominence who were ready to recruit and organize colored men suitable for the military service into companies, and when a sufficient number were enlisted, into a regiment, and recruiting offices were opened at Fort Scott and other places in the State, for that purpose. When this recruiting was set in operation the Indian Brigade was no longer troubled with idle negro refugees. They were sent north with every train to Fort Scott and the men given an opportunity to enlist or secure employment, for which there was a demand.
Captain James M. Williams an officer of the Fifth Kansas Cavalry, had already commenced recruiting colored men in Kansas for the First Kansas Colored Infantry, of which he became Colonel, and performed valiant service with the Indian Brigade later that year, and showed to the country that those who were opposed to making soldiers of colored men, and fond of asserting that “niggers wouldn’t fight,” were mistaken, when colored organizations were properly officered.
It was the purpose of the Indian Brigade to occupy Southwest Missouri and the Cherokee country as far north as Elk River and to keep the troops employed scouting, foraging and providing for their wants until spring, when it was hoped that the command would move into the Cherokee Nation, probably to Tahlequah and Fort Gibson, and be in position to restore the families of the Indian soldiers to their homes and give them adequate protection. The Indian families were patient in their exile, but had an intense longing to be returned to their homes.
At different times since the early part of the war, Cow-skin Prairie near Elk Mills, and Camp Walker near Maysville, (Page 181) had been favorite places for concentration of the Southern forces in that section, and as a corps of observation, it was the intention of the commander of the Indian Brigade to prevent such concentrations the coming spring. The Federal forces had not prior to this time foraged very much from the farms in Elk River Valley and from the farms on the small streams emptying into it, and as most of the families in that region were represented in the Southern army or in the Southern Partisan Rangers, it was felt that they should divide their forage and supplies with the Federal forces, as the Unionists had been dividing their supplies with the Confederate forces without remuneration.
Having exhausted the forage and supplies in the vicinity of Elk Mills, about the middle of February the Indian Brigade moved up Elk River in the direction of Pineville, foraging and marking time and keeping in touch with Major Foreman’s Battalion at Neosho, and with detachments sent into the Indian country for the purpose of keeping the commander informed of the condition of affairs in that region.
There was some fine scenery along this river that will always be attractive to those who love the rougher aspects of nature. Nearly every mile there were, on one side of the river or the other, precipitous bluffs, more than a hundred feet high, and in some instances ledges of solid lime stone that projected far enough over the ground beneath to have sheltered an army of men marching by double platoons for a distance of half a mile or more, and in other places projecting over a considerable part of the stream, which had for ages been cutting out and washing away the strata of clay and rock beneath them.
This river, also locally known as Cowskin, was noted from the first settlement of the country by the whites, for the abundance of game fish found in it, and before the war fishing parties from surrounding counties, with boats, nets and hooks and lines and gigs, visited it nearly every spring for a week or so, fishing, for the water when not discolored (Page 182) by recent freshets, was clear as a crystal, and a fish worth taking could be seen by a man in the boat with the gig, near the bottom of the deep holes.
While the troops of the command gave very little attention to fishing at that season of the year, they became more interested in hunting wild game, which had noticeably increased since the war. With every foraging party sent out, the mounted men of the escort to the wagons were constantly on the lookout for deer, wild turkeys or wild hogs, and they were frequently rewarded with success in bringing in with their other supplies some of this wild game, to the delight of other members of their mess.
Many of the Union families had left their homes in the early part of the war and were refugees at either Fort Scott or Springfield, and on leaving they were unable to take with them their domestic animals, as hogs, sheep and cattle, and where these were not left in the care of neighbors became wild, if they were able to survive the winters, as many did.
The new distribution of the troops of the Army of the Frontier under General Schofield to subordinate commanders who were assigned to the occupation of posts and stations in Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missouri did not mean that the activities of the forces under them would be curtailed, but that instead of fighting the enemy in one large body, they would be employed in fighting him in many detached units.
After the defeat and breaking up of General Hind-man’s Army at Prairie Grove and Van Buren, there were still nearly as many Southern soldiers to fight and who were as aggressive as they were prior to those events, with this difference, that instead of fighting in a single body and in one place, they would be employed in fighting in many detachments and in many places, with the commander of each detachment assigned to a particular field of operation. (Page 183) On the Federal side the operations of the Indian Brigade under Colonel Phillips were confined to Northwest Arkansas, Newton and McDonald counties, Missouri, and the Indian Territory. The operations of the troops at Fayetteville under Colonel Harrison embraced the territory of Western Arkansas to the Arkansas River. Colonel John F. Phillips Seventh Missouri State Militia Cavalry, was temporarily stationed at Elkhorn to keep the telegraph line open from that place to Cassville. Major E. B. Eno, Eighth Missouri State Militia Cavalry, with three companies of that regiment, was stationed at Newtonia, and Colonel W. R. Jud-son, Sixth Kansas Cavalry, commanded a Sub-district in Southwest Missouri, with headquarters at Mt. Vernon.
On the Confederate side, General W. L. Cabell was assigned to the command of the District of Northwestern Arkansas, and General William Steele to the command of the troops in the Indian Territory, with headquarters at Fort Smith, and both commanders endeavored to organize their forces to make them as effective as practicable in contesting with the Federal forces the territory they were occupying since the close of the Prairie Grove campaign. They were constantly sending out from their positions on the Arkansas River detachments of mounted troops to at tack and annoy the Federal occupying forces, and as far as possible make their positions untenable.
Tags: Arkansas, Baxter Springs, Camp Curtis, Camp Walker, Cherokee Nation, Colonel Phillips, Elm Springs, Fort Scott, General Schofield, Marysville, Maysville, Sixth Kansas Cavalry
Source: The Union Indian Brigade in the Civil War, By Wiley Britton, published 1922, Franklin Hudson Publishing Co., Kansas City, Missouri.
