tended to enlist or not, would try to
secure guns. Nothing had yet been said about their pay and nothing
heard of an auxiliary force[237]. Again the question was, what,

[Footnote 231: Dole to Steele, March 21, 1862, Indian Office _Letter
Book_, no. 67, 508-509.]

[Footnote 232: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 665.]

[Footnote 233: Dole's name might well be added to this list; for he
had never lost his interest or relaxed his efforts. On the fifth of
April, he communicated to Secretary Smith the intelligence that he
had issued instructions to "the officers appointed to command the two
Regiments of Indians to be raised as Home Guard to report at Fort
Leavenworth to be mustered into service ... "--Indian Office _Report
Book_, no. 12, 357.]

[Footnote 234: Steele to Dole, April 7, 1862 [Ibid., General
Files, _Southern Superintendency_, 1859-1862, S 538 of 1862].]

[Footnote 235: Denver to Halleck, April 8, 1862 [_Official
Records_, vol. viii, 679].]

[Footnote 236: Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862,
148.]

[Footnote 237: "... I fear we shall have trouble in regard to the guns
as many will take guns that will not go and whether they will give up
their arms is doubtful. I had a long talk with Opothly-Oholo on that
point and told (cont.)]

in the event of its not appearing, should the Indian agents do?[238]

The time was propitious for starting the expedition; for not the
shadow of an enemy had been lately seen in the West, unless count be
taken of Indians returning home or small roving bands of possible
marauders that the people of all parties detested[239]. But the order
for the supplanting of Denver by Sturgis had already been issued,
April sixth[240], and Sturgis's policy was not yet

[Footnote 237: (cont.) him you could only get 2000 guns and you wanted
every one to go and an Indian with it and that if any of them got guns
that did not go they must give up their guns to those that would go
but I know enough of the Indian character to know that it will be next
thing to an impossibility to get a gun away from one when he once gets
it and I shall put off the distribution of the guns till the last
moment and it would be best to send them on a day or two before being
distributed but that would make them mad and they would not go at all
and how we are to know how many to look out for from others than those
we have here I am not able to see but we will do all that we can but
you may look out for dificul