In compliance with your request, I herewith submit a statement of matters relating to the Cherokee people. The history of military operations in this country and in the State of Arkansas, directly affecting the interests of our people, gives just cause for complaint. The Indian troops who have been true to the South from the very first have been treated in many instances as though it were immaterial whether or not they were paid as promptly and equipped as thoroughly as other soldiers. Money specially obtained for them has more than once been appropriated to the use of other commands. Clothing, procured at great trouble and expense, to cover the nakedness of Indian troops, has on several occasions been distributed among less necessitous soldiers. Notwithstanding this treatment has been such as to test to the utmost their fidelity, they have remained true as steel. I can point to my command, and show less desertions than in any of like size in the service. I am glad to be able to say that of late my command has been better provided for than formerly. In April last a small force of hostile Indians, negroes, and one battalion of Kansas troops, in all about 2,000 men, took possession of Fort Gibson, in the Cherokee country. They have held this place, and consequently the Cherokee Nation, ever since, almost unmolested. There have been no vigorous efforts made to dislodge them, and they have at leisure strengthened and fortified their position. This mongrel force has laid waste our country, driven the women and children from their homes, and kept the other Nations, which have yet escaped invasion, in a continual state of alarm.

"I cannot understand the soundness of the policy which allows  p104 a vastly inferior force of the enemy to ravage the land with impunity. The hardihood of our enemies in penetrating 200 miles from their base of supplies, and from all support from other troops, when it is well known we have a force at least three times as large, is only equaled by the lack of spirit, inactivity, and apparent cowardice with which they have been met. It was my opinion ten weeks ago that by a concentration of our available forces we could overwhelm and utterly destroy our foes. I wrote my convictions to Brigadier General Steele, who, unfortunately, was not cognizant of the true condition of affairs here, and to Lieutenant General Holmes. The former paid no attention to my suggestions; the latter assured me if General Steele did not think himself strong enough to move against the enemy he would make him do so in three weeks. Since then, although strengthened by infantry and artillery, the same lethargy and procrastination prevail, and our prospects look more gloomy than ever. These delays and novel movements around and about, but never against, a much inferior force have produced universal dissatisfaction and despondency. The most favorable time for repelling the invader has passed, but a little energy may yet retrieve our misfortunes.

"Nearly every able-bodied man among the Cherokees is doing service in the army. In a majority of instances their families have been robbed of everything, leaving them utterly destitute and only too glad to escape with their lives. They are scattered over the Creek and Choctaw Nations and in the State of Texas. A census will soon be made out of their numbers. I think it will not fall short of 6,000. It is proposed to colonize these families at some point convenient to the provision market of Texas. Some arrangement will have to be made to provide them with shelter and clothing. The Cherokees have, by an ordinance recently adopted by their convention, undertaken to provide for their own destitute people. Their agents, appointed for this purpose, can accomplish but little good without money. I suggest that the annuities due the Cherokees be turned over as soon as possible. There can be no question that such annuities are due from the States of the Confederacy. The difficulty of collecting them is another matter. The Confederate States have promised us full protection against our enemies. I have ever made due allowance for the many embarrassments and difficulties the Government  p105 has experienced in maintaining her own rights and fulfilling her engagements with the Indians, but I have always discouraged those who complain of neglect, and have done all in my power to maintain confidence in the ability and certainty in the intentions of the Government. Shall I continue to encourage them, or shall I at once unveil to them the dread truth that our country is to be hopelessly abandoned, and that they are to receive the reward of poverty and ruin for their unswerving fidelity to the Southern cause? . . ."

"I wish, through you, to present to the people of your country a few thoughts, which the present condition and future prospects of the Indians have brought to my mind. I have entertained the confident, but delusive, hope for the last year that ordinary energy and activity would take the place of sluggishness and delay in the military movements in this country, and that a proper use of the means in our power would enable us to regain that portion of our territory which has been overrun by our enemies. Relief and protection, so often cheeringly promised, has not been afforded us; but our strength has been frittered away without accomplishing any good. Every day drives the conviction to my mind that we, the Indians true to the South, must place small reliance upon the promises of assistance from abroad; indeed, I am of opinion that we should cast behind us all expectation of adequate aid from the Confederate Government, and test our whole strength to defend our homes alone. An insignificant force of the enemy has been allowed to hold the Cherokee Nation for five months, and every day's delay renders it more difficult to repel them. I do not think all is lost because officers in control here will make no effort to regain the country. We have suffered much, and I fear, are destined to suffer more, by reason of their culpable delay. If we are still to be the victims of incapable and slothful leaders, and our whole country devastated by a ruthless foe, we may have one consolation in knowing that, by a united and unyielding opposition of our Indian forces alone, we can make our fair country an unpleasant, if not an untenable, home for our enemies. The gallant Seminoles have shown what folly it is to try to subjugate and destroy a people determined to defend  p106 their rights. The bravery of the Choctaw and Chickasaw troops in this war has not been excelled by any troops in the service, and, by a proper understanding among ourselves, the country may yet be saved, despite the inertness and criminal delays of those who have promised to protect us. It is a mistake that the occupation by the enemy of the Cherokee country is of small personal consequence to the Choctaw people. If the Cherokee Nation is abandoned to the enemy, the Creek country falls the next victim, and, in speedy turn, your own country will share the same fate.

"I shall be glad to hear from you on this subject, and receive any suggestions as to the course most proper to pursue in the present discouraging state of affairs . . ."

"The condition of affairs in the Indian country inclines me to address you upon the subject of paramount importance to Creeks as well as Cherokees, viz.,  the prospect of adequate assistance from the Confederate States against our enemies, and the ability of the Indians, unassisted, to maintain their rights and defend their homes. It is now more than a year whence our foes invaded in force the Cherokee Nation. They have desolated the land and robbed the people, until scarcely a Southern family is left east and north of the Arkansas River. The friends of the South have almost as one man taken up arms in the Southern cause, and have, with their brothers of the other Nations, struck many blows upon their enemies. The promised protection of the Confederate Government, owing, I am compelled to say, to the glaring inefficiency of its subordinate agents, has accomplished nothing; it has been a useless and expensive pageant; an object for the success of our enemies and the shame of our friends. I fear we can reasonably look for no change for the better, but that the Indians will have at last to rely upon themselves alone in the defense of their country. I believe it is in the power of the Indians unassisted, but united and determined, to hold their country. We cannot expect to do this without serious losses and many trials and privations; but if we possess the spirit of our fathers, and are resolved never to be enslaved by an inferior race, and trodden under the feet of an ignorant and insolent foe, we, the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Cherokees, never can be conquered by the Kansas jayhawkers,  p107 renegade Indians, and runaway negroes. It requires at this time, and will as long as the war shall last, all the Yankee forces of Missouri to hold that State against the friends of the South within her limits. The multitude of soldiers that the North has now, or may yet bring into the field, will have abundant occupation elsewhere, so that the only expectation of the North to conquer the Indian Nation is in the traitors that have deserted us, the negroes they have stolen from us, and a few Kansas jayhawkers they can spare from that detestable region. Shall we suffer ourselves to be subjugated and enslaved by such a class! Never!

"I have written to Lieut. Gen. E. Kirby-Smith and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs upon these matters. I hope soon to know positively whether we are to receive effective assistance from the Confederate Government, or whether the Indians must defend themselves alone and unaided . . ."

"Dear Father: It was customary under the old Government for the Indians to address the President as their father, and if there were ties and relations which made it necessary in the old, it must be so in the new, where ties and relations are so much stronger. Then, in thus addressing you, we feel all we say; and presenting our wants to one we love, we have the utmost confidence that they will be respected and satisfied.

"In the late treaty concluded between the Confederate States and our Nation, it was stipulated that in the appointment of an agent for this tribe our wishes and preference in his appointment should be consulted, and a due deference paid to them in such selection. Believing it to be our right so to do, this preference as to a choice was expressed more than a year ago and forwarded to Your Excellency; but from some cause we have received no expression from yourself in regard to this choice, until the Commissioner of Indian Affairs came out here last winter, when the same choice was expressed to him. He assured us that the man of our choice, Israel G. Vore, should be appointed our agent in due time, as provided for by treaty, but from some cause unknown to us he received no appointment  p108 until the Commissioner came this time, when it was a gate promised that I. G. Vore should be appointed our agent. Since we made this choice we have seen no cause for a change in choice; therefore urge it as a right, for since we made this selection, which was from a perfect knowledge of the man, we have seen no cause to change; hence urge and insist upon his appointment.

"And, again, in the same treaty it was promised that our country should be defended and protected and in order to do this most effectually, this people agreed to raise a regiment of men for the Confederate States, to be used only within the limits of the Indian country and for its defense. Since that time we have turned out another regiment of Creeks and several detached companies. Recently we have passed a conscript act, taking into the army all the men in the country between the ages of eighteen and fifty. The soldiers raised by us were to be furnished as white soldiers in the States. As to how they are furnished we know not; but our soldiers, until recently, were, with few exceptions, unarmed, most of the time without ammunition; bareheaded, barefooted, without bread, and body in rags. The most of the time we were hard pressed by the enemy, and no force near to aid and assist us, the forces under Brigadier General Pike having fallen back of our country some hundred miles. Under these great privations, which try the souls of men, a few of our people ran off from the country and joined the enemy, who were stationed in the Cherokee country just across our line.

"Since Brig. Gen. D. H. Cooper had had command in part, we have been assisted to some extent — as much, perhaps, as his unequal forces could give; and at this time (except the battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Wells) there is not a soldier within our limits except our own, while the enemy is stationed but a short distance from us, with a large and heavy force. Is there no remedy for our distressed condition? Will not our father, the President, aid and effectually assist his distressed and sinking children? We know he will. General Cooper has done all he can for the protection and defense of our country. We know he feels a deep interest in our welfare, and were the proper means placed in his hands, our country would be ably defended beyond a doubt; and as to a commander for this department, he is decidedly our choice and preference. This much we have thought  p109 proper to transmit to our father, the President, with entire confidence that our wants in the premises thus sent will meet his approbation, and be completely met and satisfied . . ."

"Nave attempted to escape [from his house] by running through a field at the back of his place, but while getting over a rail fence . . . Richard Fields shot him with a double-barrelled shotgun loaded with buckshot. The charge struck Nave in the back and he died hanging across the fence. Mrs. Nave would never allow the land upon which her husband met his death to be cultivated . . ."

"I received yesterday the order relieving me from command in the Indian country, complimentary in terms, but the effect of which is utterly destroyed by the accompanying letter, putting me in a subordinate position in the same command from which I have asked to be relieved. The slanders that have been industriously circulated through the Indian country and Northern Texas not only make it extremely disagreeable for me to serve here, but it impairs my usefulness. I think it only justice to me that I should not be required to serve in this region until I am cleared of the imputations referred to, particularly as serving in a subordinate capacity where I have been in command carries the idea that I have not given satisfaction, and have been superseded in consequence. The order relieving me will be seen by few, the fact that I am superseded will be patent to everyone. The belief expressed that General Cooper will be found to be the senior is an additional reason for wishing to quit the country. I cannot serve under him, as I may be required at any time to do. You have doubtless seen the article in the Houston Telegraph of the 5th instant, referring to matters here, and intimating that there has been complicity with the enemy. I have written to the editor for the name of the writer, with a view to a trial. This letter purports to come from the troops I am to be assigned to, and makes another reason why I should not take this command at present. I think I have lost enough already by accepting a command from a sense of duty, after it had been declined by several officers to whom it had been offered before me. Notwithstanding  p112 the fact that all the property I owned at the beginning of the war was at the North, and that I resigned from the army and cast my lot with the South, I am looked upon with suspicion as a Yankee, and am told that people will not believe that I am not a brother of the Federal general of the same name, that being one of the reports circulated. I had hoped to be able to quit this country and to have a short time to arrange the records of the district in such a manner that they would have formed my defense."

"I have the honor to report that, in compliance with your instructions, I marched from Fort Gibson at 3:30 P.M., December 17, with a force of about 290 infantry, consisting of details from the First, Second, and Third Indian Regiments, and one howitzer. I took the Park Hill road, and, passing that place, went into camp at the crossing of the Illinois, at midnight. By inquiry at Park Hill, I learned that Col. S. Watie's force, variously estimated at from 500 to 800 men, after plundering Murrell's house and burning the negro cabins at Chief Ross' place, had moved during the afternoon toward the Illinois River, stating their intention to camp in the Illinois bottom that night. Morning came, and I was still ignorant of the exact whereabouts of the rebels, though satisfied that their camp was not far distant. I moved out of camp between 7 and 8 o'clock in the morning, taking the road leading up to the Barren Fork. During the morning two small parties of rebels, one of 10 and another of 5 men, approached our  p113 columns, mistaking us for their own men. They were fired upon, and 1 was killed; but not having mounted men to pursue them, the remainder escaped. I now became satisfied that we were in close proximity to the rebel force. The road lay first on one and then on the other side of Barren Fork, the valley of which was narrow, and covered with thick timber and underbrush, and walled in on either side by precipitous hills. I proceeded to the front, and discerned, through the thick undergrowth of brush, their line, formed in a heavily timbered ravine, of dismounted men, the right resting upon the road, and the left reaching up the ravine into the hill on the right of the road. I immediately brought forward the howitzer, supported by 95 men of the First Indian Regiment, under command of Captain Willets, placed it in position on the right of the road, and deployed the Cherokees, under command of Lieutenant (L. F.) Parsons, Third Indian Regiment, still farther to the right, between the gun and the foot of the hill.

"These preparations were not completed when the enemy opened on us a heavy fire from small-arms. This was replied to by our men with promptness and spirit. As soon as the howitzer opened upon the rebels, their line was completely broken, and they retreated in some confusion up the ravine, to the top of the hill. The Cherokees, under command of Lieutenant Parsons, followed them, and drove them about a quarter of a mile beyond the crest of the hill, where they again formed, and were a second time routed by our men. The road being now clear in front, I ordered the men back, and moved on about a quarter of a mile to take a better position, where there was higher ground and several log buildings, for the protection of our infantry. We had no sooner taken this position than the rebels, rallying, renewed the attack. A few discharges of canister and shell from the howitzer drove them out of the valley and they took possession of the adjoining hill, which was heavily timbered. Sheltering themselves here behind trees and rocks, the rebels opened a fire at long range upon our men, who replied from the cover of the log-houses. The fighting here lasted for more than two hours, without any decided advantage to either party. I saw that to drive the enemy from the crest of the hill by a charge would be  p114 difficult and hazardous. I also knew that if they came over the hill into the valley to fight, we had decidedly the advantage of them. Thinking to draw them out, I ordered the command forward on the road, as if to abandon the position. It had the desired effect. The enemy supposing, doubtless, that we were retreating, came over the hill, all dismounted, and in larger numbers than they had before shown themselves, and advanced toward the houses we were leaving. Our men were immediately rallied, and returned to their former position on the double-quick. The howitzer was quickly brought up, and opened fire upon the advancing enemy, who withstood the shock but one moment, and then turned and fled. Our men pursued them, driving them over the hill and beyond it nearly a mile. The rout of the rebels was now complete; they did not again make the least attempt to rally. Our casualties during the engagement were comparatively light. I regret that I must record the loss of Captain Willets, First Indian Regiment, who fell, mortally wounded, while gallantly leading his men in the early part of the engagement; Private Arch Benner, Company H, Third Indian Regiment, and –––––––––, Company F, First Indian Regiment, received severe, but, it is thought, not fatal, wounds. Two of the howitzer horses were wounded, one so badly that it had to be abandoned on the road; also 2 mules, belonging to the six-mule team, were wounded, one of which had to be abandoned."