ake Fort Larned, on the Pawnee Fork of the Arkansas,
where are considerable stores and a little garrison. He will go as
soon as their annuity is paid.

The Creeks under Colonel McIntosh are about to make an extended
scout westward. Stand Watie, with his Cherokees, scouts along the
whole northern line of the Cherokee country from Grand Saline to
Marysville, and sends me information continually of every movement
of the enemy in Kansas and Southwestern Missouri.

The Comanches, Kiowas, and Reserve Indians are all peaceable and
quiet. Some 2,000 of the former are encamped about three days'
ride from Fort Cobb, and some of them come in at intervals to
procure provisions. They have sent to me to know

[Footnote 264: Cooper to Van Dorn, May 6, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 823-824.]

[Footnote 265: _Journal of the Congress of the Confederate
States_, vol. v, 285.]

[Footnote 266: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 819-823.]

[Footnote 267: This situation, so eminently satisfactory to John Ross,
did not continue long, however, and on May 10, the Cherokee Principal
Chief had occasion to complain that his country had been practically
divested of a protecting force and, at the very moment, too, when the
Federals were showing unwonted vigor near the northeastern border
[Ross to Davis, May 10, 1862, _Official Records_, vol. xiii,
824-825].]

if they can be allowed to send a strong party and capture any
trains on their way from Kansas to New Mexico, to which I have no
objection. To go on the war-path somewhere else is the best way to
keep them from troubling Texas ...

Stand Watie's scouting had brought him, April 26,[268] into a slight
action with men of the First Battalion First Missouri Cavalry at
Neosho, in the vicinity of which place he lingered many days and where
his men[269] again fought, in conjunction with Colonel Coffee's, May
31.[270] The skirmish of the later date was disastrous to the Federals
under Colonel John M. Richardson of the Fourteenth Missouri State
Militia Cavalry and proved to be a case where the wily and nimble
Indian had taken the Anglo-Saxon completely by surprise.[271] From
Neosho, Stand Watie moved down, by slow and destructive stages,
through Missouri and across into Indian Territory. His next important
engagement was at Cowskin Prairie, June 6.

Meanwhile, the organization of the Indian Expedition, or Indian Home
Guard, as it wa