ike, although, of course, the very
seriousness and desperateness of Hindman's situation would have
impelled him to turn to the only place where ready help was to be had.
Three days prior to the time that Hindman had been assigned to the
Trans-Mississippi Department, Roane, an old antagonist of Pike[396]
and the commander to whose immediate care Van Dorn had confided
Arkansas,[397] had asked of Pike at Van Dorn's suggestion[398] all the
white forces he could spare, Roane having practically none of his own.
Pike had refused the request, if request it was, and in refusing it,
had represented how insufficient his forces actually were for purposes
of his own department and how exceedingly difficult had been the task,
which was his and his alone, of getting them together. At the time of
writing he had not a single dollar of public money for his army and
only a very limited amount of ammunition and other supplies.[399]

Pike received Hindman's communication of May 31 late in the afternoon
of June 8 and he replied to it that same evening immediately after
he had made arrangements[400] for complying in part with its
requirements.

The reply[401] as it stands in the records today is a strong
indictment of the Confederate management of Indian

[Footnote 396: Pike had fought a duel with Roane, Roane having
challenged him because he had dared to criticize his conduct in
the Mexican War [Hallura, _Biographical and Pictorial History of
Arkansas_, vol. i, 229; _Confederate Military History_, vol.
x, 99].]

[Footnote 397: Maury to Roane, May 11, 1862, _Official Records_,
vol. xiii, 827.]

[Footnote 398: Maury to Pike, May 19, 1862, Ibid.]

[Footnote 399: Pike to Roane, June 1, 1862, Ibid., 935-936.]

[Footnote 400: General Orders, June 8, 1862, Ibid., 943.]

[Footnote 401: Pike to Hindman, June 8, 1862, Ibid., 936-943.]

affairs in the West and should be dealt with analytically, yet also as
a whole; since no paraphrase, no mere synopsis of contents could ever
do the subject justice. From the facts presented, it is only too
evident that very little had been attempted or done by the Richmond
authorities for the Indian regiments. Neither officers nor men had
been regularly or fully paid. And not all the good intentions, few as
they were, of the central government had been allowed realization.
They had been checkmated by the men in control west of the
Mississippi. In fact, the army men in Arkansas had virtually exploited
Pike's