Lincoln Looks West: From the Mississippi to the Pacific

9. Lincoln and the Indians

 210 9 ➢ Lincoln and the Indians David A. Nichols The date was August 21, 1862. The news came at the worst possible moment in the war for the Union. Abraham Lincoln’s armies were desperate for manpower, and it appeared that Lincoln might even have difficulty defending Washington against Confederate attack. The telegram from the governor of Minnesota read: “The Sioux Indians on our western border have risen and are murdering men, women and children.” Possibly five hundred whites had died. When Gov. Alexander Ramsey demanded that President Lincoln extend the draft deadline for Minnesota’s quota of 5,360 men, Lincoln’s response was harsh: “Attend to the Indians. If the draft can not proceed, of course it will not proceed. Necessity knows no law. The government cannot extend the time.”1 Two arenas of conflict, the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma) and Minnesota , drew Lincoln directly into Indian affairs during his first two years in office. When Lincoln entered office, he was understandably preoccupied with the showdown with the Confederacy taking place in South Carolina. There were those around him who argued that the Indian Territory, inhabited by the “five civilized tribes,” was strategically important. Held by the North, it could be a base for attacks on Arkansas and Texas. Controlled by the Confederacy, it could be employed to threaten Kansas. However, Lincoln initially chose to abandon the Indian Territory, even though his commissioner of Indian affairs, William P. Dole, dissented from the move. Indian leaders protested to Lincoln that Confederate agents were telling their people that “the Government represented by our Great Father at From Gabor S. Boritt and Norman O. Furness, eds., The Historian’s Lincoln: Pseudohistory, Psychohistory, and History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 149–69. ➢ Lincoln and the Indians 211 Washington has turned against us.”2 The success of those southern agents, more than anything, probably persuaded Lincoln to reverse his decision. On November 22, 1861, the Confederacy organized the Indian Territory into a separate military department. Abandonment began to look like a blunder. On December 3, Lincoln informed the Congress, “The Indian country south of Kansas is in possession of the insurgents,” and he noted press reports that the Confederates were organizing Indian troops. Lincoln communicated his new decision: “It is believed that upon repossession of the country by the federal forces the Indians will readily cease all hostile demonstrations, and resume their former relations to the government.”3 Beyond Commissioner Dole, the man most responsible for persuading Lincoln to retake the Indian Territory was Senator James H. (“Bloody Jim”) Lane of Kansas. Lane was a colorful, unscrupulous character whose tricolored brigade, composed of blacks, Indians, and drifters, was alleged to have plundered Unionist civilians as readily as they plundered Confederate civilians . Lane’s great obsession was to lead an expedition designed to shorten the war by attacking the exposed flank of the Confederacy in Arkansas and Texas via the Indian Territory. But it was a flood of Indian refugees from the Indian Territory into Kansas that appears to have pushed Lincoln into approving a southern expedition. Kansans did not want hungry, dependent Indians in their midst. The refugee problem dovetailed with the need for troops to retake the Indian country from the Confederacy. In early December , the decision was made to receive 4,000 Indians into the army. They would receive pay and benefits equal to that of white troops. Lincoln, with Dole’s help, negotiated a bargain concerning the command of the so-called Lane Expedition. Lane would command the troops but be subject to the overall authority of Gen. David Hunter. Lincoln may have thought he could appease the politically popular senator, make military gains in the West, and still keep Lane’s excesses under control. Hunter had no liking for Lincoln’s arrangement, however. With Lane commanding the expedition, the general believed he would become a mere figurehead. Hunter angrily wrote Lincoln that he was “very deeply mortified, humiliated , insulted and disgraced.” Lincoln replied that it was difficult to answer “so ugly a letter in good temper” and warned his old friend, “You are adopting the best possible way to ruin yourself.”4 However, the adjutant general confirmed Hunter’s authority and that Lane would be subordinate to him: “If you deem it proper you may yourself command the expedition.”5 Lincoln’s bargain began to unravel. Commissioner Dole, on the scene, had assumed that Hunter would be content with a superior command but let Lane [3.131.13...