o the
Confederate Indian alliance. For the second time since the war began,
Colonel John Drew's enlisted men defected from their own ranks[337]
and, with the exception of a small body under Captain Pickens
Benge,[338] went boldly over to the enemy. The result was, that the
Second Indian Home Guard, Ritchie's regiment, which had not previously
been filled up, had soon the requisite number of men[339] and there
were more to spare. Indeed, during the days that followed, so many
recruits came in, nearly all of them Cherokees, that lists were opened
for starting a third regiment of Indian Home Guards.[340] It was not
long before it was organized, accepted by Blunt, and W.A. Phillips
commissioned as its colonel.[341] The regular mustering in of the new
recruits had to be done at Fort Scott and thither Ritchie sent the
men, intended for his regiment, immediately.

The Indian Expedition had started out with a very definite preliminary
programme respecting the

[Footnote 337: _Official Records_, vol. xiii, 138.]

[Footnote 338: Hindman's Report, Ibid., 40.]

[Footnote 339: Ritchie to Blunt, July 5, 1862, Ibid., 463-464.]

[Footnote 340: Weer to Moonlight, July 12, 1862, Ibid., 488.]

[Footnote 341: Blunt to Salomon, August 3, 1862, Ibid., 532;
Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. i, 304.]

management of Indian affairs, particularly as those affairs might
be concerned with the future attitude of the Cherokee Nation. The
programme comprised instructions that emanated from both civil and
military sources. The special Indian agents, Carruth and Martin, had
been given suitable tasks to perform and the instructions handed them
have already been commented upon. Personally, these two men were very
much disposed to magnify the importance of their own position and
to resent anything that looked like interference on the part of the
military. As a matter of fact, the military men treated them with
scant courtesy and made little or no provision for their comfort and
convenience.[342] Colonel Weer seems to have ignored, at times, their
very existence. On more than one occasion, for instance, he deplored
the absence of some official, accredited by the Indian Office, to take
charge of what he contemptuously called "this Indian business,"[343]
which business, he felt, greatly complicated all military
undertakings[344] and was decidedly beyond the bounds of his peculiar
province.[345]

[Footnote 342: Pretty good evidence of this app