iver. Gradually, since first
discovered, the main body of the refugees had moved forward within the
New York Indian Lands to the Verdigris River and had halted in the
neighborhood of Fort Roe, where the government agents had received
them; but smaller or larger groups, chiefly of the sick and their
friends, were scattered all along the way from Walnut Creek.[179] Some
of the very belated exiles were as far westward as the Arkansas, over
a hundred miles distant. Obviously, the thing to do first was to get
them all together in one place. There were reasons why the Verdigris
Valley was a most desirable location for the refugees. Only a very few
white people were settled there and, as they were intruders and had
not a shadow of legal claim to the land upon which they had squatted,
any objections that they might make to the presence of the Indians
could be ignored.[180]

For a few days, therefore, all efforts were directed, at large
expense, towards converting the Verdigris Valley, in the vicinity of
Fort Roe, into a concentration camp; but no precautions were taken
against allowing unhygienic conditions to arise. The Indians
themselves were much diseased. They had few opportunities for personal
cleanliness and less ambition. Some of the food doled out to them was
stuff that the army had condemned and rejected as unfit for use. They
were emaciated, sick, discouraged. Finally, with

[Footnote 178: Indian Office Land Files, 1855-1870, _Southern
Superintendency_, K 107 of 1862.]

[Footnote 179: Some had wandered to the Cottonwood and were camped
there in great destitution. Their chief food was hominy [_Daily
Conservative_, February 14, 1862].]

[Footnote 180: For an account of the controversy over the settlement
of the New York Indian Lands, see Abel, _Indian Reservations in
Kansas and the Extinguishment of their Title_, 13-14.]

the February thaw, came a situation that soon proved intolerable. The
"stench arising from dead ponies, about two hundred of which were
in the stream and throughout the camp,"[181] unburied, made removal
imperatively necessary.

The Neosho Valley around about Leroy presented itself as a likely
place, very convenient for the distributing agents, and was next
selected. Its advantages and disadvantages seemed about equal and had
all been anticipated and commented upon by Captain Turner.[182] It
was near the source of supplies--and that was an item very much to
be considered, since transportation c