Today in History:

943 Series I Volume XIII- Serial 19 - Missouri - Arkansas Campaign

Page 943 Chapter XXV. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE.

out my plans. If I remain under your command, I beg you to leave, as General Van Dorn promised he would do, this country to my entire control. You have a field wide enough without it, and I hope, general, you will pardon me for saying that, giving orders at a distance, you are more likely to do harm than good. If you can send me back my guns and help me to get ammunition, I can take dare of the rest. Even if I were left here with no troops but the Indians, I should be reluctant to resign, but it would be wiser and better for me to do so if the singular course adopted by General Van Dorn in stripping me of supplies, without notice or apology, were to be continued. It was a contemptuous indignity to me, personally, and, I think, equally unwarranted by law and justice.

I am, very respectfully and truly, yours,

ALBERT PIKE,

Brigadier-General, Commanding Department of Indian Territory.

[Inclosure.]

GENERAL ORDERS, HDQRS. DEPT. OF INDIAN TERRITORY, Numbers --.
Fort McCulloch, June 8, 1862.

I. In pursuance of orders this day received from Major General T. C. Hindman, commanding the Trans-Mississippi District, Colonel Dawson's infantry regiment, and the two companies attached to it, will march, as soon as possible, to Little Rock, and report to the major-general commanding. Colonel Dawson will take with him subsistence for thirty days, and reach Little Rock in that time after his departure. He will take 100 rounds of ammunition per man for 500 men,* which ammunition will be transported in wagons, and not one cartridge will be used on the journey. He will recall all his men absent on furlough and officers absent on leave, and order them to join him at Little Rock by the time of his arrival there.

II. Captain William E. Woodruff, jr., will march, as soon as possible, with one six-gun battery and 120 men, with 150 rounds of ammunition to each gun, if so much can possibly be transported. He will also take subsistence for thirty days, and report to Major-General Hindman at the end of that time.

By order of brigadier-general commanding:

O. F. RUSSELL,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTER DEPARTMENT OF INDIAN TERRITORY,

Fort McCulloch, June 9, 1862.

GENERAL: I forward to your chief of staff, by private hand, a return of the troops in division,+ as far as reports have been received from the different commands, as all the stationery and most of the blanks procured for this command in Richmond were stopped on the way somewhere, and appropriated by some one unknown, including much of the private property of the brigadier-general commanding. The Indian regiments have for the most part no paper on which to make reports or returns. What little stationery we have has been picked up in Texas, and we are printing our own blanks.

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*NOTE ON ORIGINAL.-The amount of ammunition to be taken changed, by subsequent order, to 100 rounds for each man marching with the command.-A. P.

+Not found.

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Page 943 Chapter XXV. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE.