your courts, and your judges. No impressing of your property was allowed. Nowhere in the Confederacy were the person and property of an unarmed man, traveling alone, so safe as in your country. What was needed for the troops was fairly bought at fair prices. Even the wild tribes, the Comanches and the Kiowas, who never before had made peace, signed treaties with me and are entirely friendly.

I regret to hear that some of the Cherokees have been induced to join the plundering bands that lately came down from Kansas. I wonder that they do not know and see that when the war ends, if the North should have obtained possession of the Indians country, it will never forgive you for having made treaties with us. They will use fair words now, but as soon as they have the power the will declare that you have forfeited your lands and the moneys due you by them by making these treaties, and will take your lands, divide them out among their soldiers, declare the debts they owe you confiscated, and put an end to your national existence.

Remain true, I earnestly advise you, to the Confederate States and yourselves. Do not listen to any men who tell you that the Southern States will abandon you. They will not do it. If the enemy has been able to come into the Cherokee country it has not been the fault of the President' and it is but the fortune of war, and what has happened in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and even Arkansas. We have not been able to keep the enemy from our frontier anywhere; but in the interior of our country we can defeat them always.

Be not discouraged, and remember, above all things, that you can have nothing to expect from the enemy. They will have no mercy on you, for they are more merciless than wolves and more rapacious. Defend your country with what help you can get until the President can send you troops. If the enemy ever comes to the Canadian he cannot go far beyond that river. The war must soon end since the recent victories near Richmond, and no treaty of peace will be made that will give up any part of your country to the Northern States. If I am not again in command of your country some other officer will be in whom you can confided. And whatever may be told you about me, you will soon learn that if I have not defended the whole country it was because I had not the troops with which to do it; that I have cared for your interest alone; that I have never made you a promise that I did not expect, and had not a right to expect, to be able to keep, and that I have never broken one intentionally nor except by the fault of others.

ALBERT PIKE.

FORT WASHITA, CHICKASAW NATION,

August 1, 1862. (Received September 20, 1862.)

[President DAVIS:]

Upon giving into other hands the care of the Indian country in endeavoring to secure which to the Confederate States the brigadier-general lately commanding has been engaged for the last fifteen months, he hopes it will not be though impertinent in him briefly to submit for the consideration of the President his views as to the measures necessary to be adopted to secure the safety of the Indian country and the continued loyalty of our allis, both of which are now by wrongful acts and unwise courses put so greatly in jeopardy.

1. It is absolutely indispensable to rescue the Indian country from