he men would be restored were they
to be more widely distributed and their physical conditions improved,
Colonel Furnas concluded to break camp on the Verdigris and return to
the Grand. He accordingly marched the Third Indian to Pryor Creek[384]
but had scarcely done so when orders came from Salomon, under cover of
his usurped authority as commander of the Indian Expedition, for
him to cross the Grand and advance northeastward to Horse Creek and
vicinity, there to pitch his tents. The new camp was christened Camp
Wattles. It extended from Horse to Wolf Creek and constituted a point
from which the component parts of the Indian Brigade did

[Footnote 381: Weer to Moonlight, July 12, 1862.]

[Footnote 382: Furnas to Blunt, July 25, 1862.]

[Footnote 383: Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1862,
160-161.]

[Footnote 384: Named in honor of Nathaniel Pryor of the Lewis and
Clark expedition and of general frontier fame, and, therefore,
incorrectly called Prior Creek in Furnas's report.]

extensive scouting for another brief period. In reality, Furnas was
endeavoring to hold the whole of the Indian country north of the
Arkansas and south of the border.[385]

Meanwhile, Salomon had established himself in the neighborhood of
Hudson's Crossing, at what he called, Camp Quapaw. The camp was on
Quapaw land. His idea was, and he so communicated to Blunt, that he
had selected "the most commanding point in this (the trans-Missouri)
country not only from a military view as a key to the valleys of
Spring River, Shoal Creek, Neosho, and Grand River, but also as the
only point in this country now where an army could be sustained with a
limited supply of forage and subsistence, offering ample grazing[386]
and good water."[387] No regular investigation into his conduct
touching the retrograde movement, such as justice to Weer would seem
to have demanded, was made.[388] He submitted the facts to Blunt and
Blunt, at first alarmed[389] lest a complete abandonment of Indian
Territory would result, acquiesced[390] when, he found that the Indian
regiments were holding their own there.[391] Salomon, indeed, so far
strengthened Furnas's hand as to supply him with ten days rations and
a section of Allen's battery.

[Footnote 385: For accounts of the movements of the Indian Expedition
after the occurrence of Salomon's retrograde movement, see the
_Daily Conservative_, August 16, 21, 26, 1862.]

[Footnote 386: On the subject of grazing,