and
Indians, appropriately armed. To expedite matters and to obviate any
difficulties that might otherwise beset the carrying out of the plan,
a semi-confidential agent, on detail from the Indian Office, was sent
west with despatches[224] to Halleck and with an order[225] from the
Ordnance Department for the delivery, at Fort Leavenworth, of the
requisite arms. The messenger was Judge James Steele, who, upon
reaching St. Louis, had already discouraging news to report to Dole.
He had interviewed Halleck and had found him in anything but a helpful
mood, notwithstanding that he must, by that time, have received and
reflected upon the following communication from the War Department:

WAR DEPARTMENT,

WASHINGTON CITY, D. C, March 19, 1862.
MAJ. GEN.H.W. HALLECK,

Commanding the Department of Mississippi:

General: It is the desire of the President, on the application of the
Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, that
you should detail two regiments to act in the Indian country, with a
view to open the way for the friendly Indians who are now refugees in
Southern Kansas to return to their homes and to protect them there.
Five thousand friendly Indians will also be armed to aid in their
own protection, and you will please furnish them with necessary
subsistence.

Please report your action in the premises to this Department. Prompt
action is necessary.

By order of the Secretary of War:

L. THOMAS, Adjutant-general[226]

[Footnote 223: Two thousand was most certainly the number, although
the communication from the War Department gives it as five.]

[Footnote 224: Dole to Halleck, March 21, 1862 [Indian Office
_Letter Book_, no. 67, 516-517].]

[Footnote 225:--Ibid., 517-518.]

[Footnote 226: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 624-625.]

Steele inferred from what passed at the interview with Halleck that
the commanding general was decidedly opposed to arming Indians. Steele
found him also non-committal as to when the auxiliary force would be
available.[227] Dole's letter, with its seeming dictation as to
the choice of a commander for the expedition, may not have been to
Halleck's liking. He was himself at the moment most interested in the
suppression of guerrillas and jayhawkers, against whom sentence of
outlawry had just been passed. As it happened, that was the work in
which Dole's nominee, Colonel Robert B. Mitchell,[228] was to render
such signal service[229] and, anticipating as much,