ough to hide their nakedness, many have died and they
are constantly dying. I should think at a rough guess that from 12 to
15 hundred dead Ponies are laying around in the camp and in the river.
On this account so soon as the weather gets a little warm, a removal
of this camp will be indespensable, there are perhaps now two thousand
Ponies living, they are very poor and many of them must die before
grass comes which we expect here from the first to the 10th of March.
We are issuing a little corn to (cont.)]

time for economy. The inadequacy of the Indian service and the
inefficiency of the Federal never showed up more plainly, to the utter
discredit of the nation, than at this period and in this connection.

Besides getting permission from Secretary Smith to go ahead and supply
the more pressing needs of the refugees, Dole accomplished another
thing greatly to their interest. He secured from the staff of General
Lane a special agent, Dr. William Kile of Illinois,[175] who
had formerly been a business partner of his own[176] and, like
Superintendent Coffin, his more or less intimate friend. Kile's
particular duty as special agent was to be the purchasing of supplies
for the refugees[177] and he at once visited their encampment in order
the better to determine their requirements. His investigations more
than corroborated the earlier accounts of their sufferings and
privations and his appointment under the circumstances seemed fully
justified, notwithstanding that on the surface of things it appeared
very suggestive of a near approach to nepotism, and of nepotism Dole,
Coffin, and many others were unquestionably guilty. They worked into
the service just as many of their own relatives and friends as they
conveniently and safely could. The official pickings were considered
by them as their proper perquisites. "'Twas ever thus" in American
politics, city, county, state, and national.

The Indian encampment upon the occasion of

[Footnote 174: (cont.) the Indians and they are feeding them a
little...." See also Moore, _Rebellion Record_, vol. iv, 30.]

[Footnote 175: Dole was from Illinois also, from Edgar County; Coffin
was from Indiana [Indian Office Miscellaneous Records, no. 8, p.
432].]

[Footnote 176: _Daily Conservative_, February 8, 1862.]

[Footnote 177: Indian Office Consolidated Files, _Southern
Superintendency_, D 576 of 1862; _Letter Book_, no. 67, pp.
450-452.]

Kile's[178] visit was no longer on Fall R