[Footnote 28: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 734.]

[Footnote 29:--Ibid., 745.]

[Footnote 30:--Ibid., 690.]

superseded by that which later clothed Van Dorn and yet his department
was now to be absorbed by a military district, which was itself merely
a section of another department. The name and organization of the
Department of Indian Territory remained to breed confusion, disorder,
and serious discontent at a slightly subsequent time. Of course, since
the ratification of the treaties of alliance with the tribes, there
was no question to be raised concerning the status of Indian Territory
as definitely a possession of the Southern Confederacy. Indeed, it
had, in a way, been counted as such, actual and prospective, ever
since the enactment of the marque and reprisal law of May 6, 1861.[31]

Albert Pike, having accepted the appointment of department
commander in Indian Territory under somewhat the same kind of a
protest--professed consciousness of unfitness for the post--as he had
accepted the earlier one of commissioner, diplomatic, to the tribes,
lost no time in getting into touch with his new duties. There was much
to be attended to before he could proceed west. His appointment had
come and had been accepted in November. Christmas was now near at hand
and he had yet to render an account of his mission of treaty-making.
In late December, he sent in his official report[32] to President
Davis and, that done, held himself in readiness to respond to any
interpellating call that the Provincial Congress might see fit to
make. The intervals of time, free from devotion to the completion
of the older task, were spent by him in close attention to the
preliminary details of the newer, in securing funds and in purchasing
supplies and equipment

[Footnote 31: Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the
Confederacy_, vol. i, 105.]

[Footnote 32: The official report of Commissioner Pike, in manuscript,
and bearing his signature, is to be found in the Adjutant-general's
office of the U.S. War Department.]

generally, also in selecting a site for his headquarters. By command
of Secretary of War, Judah P. Benjamin, Major N.B. Pearce[33] was
made chief commissary of subsistence for Indian Territory and Western
Arkansas and Major G.W. Clarke,[34] depot quartermaster. In the sequel
of events, both appointments came to be of a significance rather
unusual.

The site chosen for department headquarters was a place situated near
the