and subject to his orders may be roughly placed at four
full regiments and some miscellaneous troops.[43] The dispersion[44]
of Colonel John Drew's Cherokees, when about to attack
Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la, forced a slight reoerganization and that, taken
in connection with the accretions to the command that came in the
interval before the Pea Ridge campaign brought the force approximately
to four full

[Footnote 41: In illustration of this, take the statement of the Creek
Treaty, article xxxvi.]

[Footnote 42: Aside from the early requests for white troops, which
were antecedent to his own appointment as brigadier-general, Pike's
insistence upon the need for the same can be vouched for by reference
to his letter to R.W. Johnson, January 5, 1862 [_Official
Records_, vol. liii, supplement, 795-796].]

[Footnote 43: Pike to Benjamin, November 27, 1861, Ibid, vol.
viii, 697.]

[Footnote 44: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 8, 17-18.]

regiments, two battalions, and some detached companies. The four
regiments were, the First Regiment Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted
Rifles under Colonel Douglas H. Cooper, the First Creek Regiment under
Colonel D.N. McIntosh, the First Regiment Cherokee Mounted Rifles
under Colonel John Drew, and the Second Regiment Cherokee Mounted
Rifles under Colonel Stand Watie. The battalions were, the Choctaw
and Chickasaw and the Creek and Seminole, the latter under
Lieutenant-colonel Chilly McIntosh and Major John Jumper.

Major-general Earl Van Dorn formally assumed command of the newly
created Trans-Mississippi District of Department No. 2, January 29,
1862.[45] He was then at Little Rock, Arkansas. By February 6, he had
moved up to Jacksonport and, a week or so later, to Pocahontas, where
his slowly-assembling army was to rendezvous. His call for troops had
already gone forth and was being promptly answered,[46] requisition
having been made upon all the state units within the district,
Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, also Texas. Indian Territory, through
Pike[47] and his subordinates,[48] was yet to be communicated with;
but Van Dorn had, at the moment, no other plan in view for Indian
troops than to use them to advantage as a means of defence and as a
corps of observation.[49] His immediate object, according to his own
showing and according to the circumstances that had brought about the
formation of the district, was to protect Arkansas[50] against

[Footnote 45: _Official Records_, vol. viii, 745-74