ber 9, the old Department of the West, of which Fremont
had had charge and subsequently Hunter, but for only a brief period,
had been reorganized and divided into two distinct departments, the
Department of Missouri with Halleck in command and the Department of
Kansas with Hunter. Curtis, at the time when he made his memorable
advance movement from Rolla was, therefore, serving under Halleck.

In furtherance of Van Dorn's original plan, General Pike had been
ordered to march with all speed and join forces with the main army.
At the time of the issuance of the order, he seems to have offered no
objections to taking his Indians out of their own territory. Disaster
had not yet overtaken them or him and he had not yet met with the
injustice that was afterwards his regular lot. If his were regarded
as more or less of a puppet command, he was not yet aware of it and,
oblivious of all scorn felt for Indian soldiers, kept his eye single
on the assistance he was to render in the accomplishment of Van Dorn's
object. It was anything but easy, however, for him to move with
dispatch. He had difficulty in getting such of his brigade as was
Indian and as had collected at Cantonment Davis, a Choctaw and
Chickasaw battalion and the First Creek Regiment, to stir. They had
not been paid their money and had not been furnished with arms and
clothing as promised. Pike had the necessary funds with him, but time
would be needed in which to distribute them, and the order had been
for him to move promptly. It was something much more easily said than
done. Nevertheless, he did what he could, paid outright the Choctaws
and Chickasaws, a performance that occupied

[Footnote 51: _Official Records_, vol. liii, supplement, vol.
viii, 462.]

three precious days, and agreed to pay McIntosh's Creek regiment at
the Illinois River. To keep that promise he tarried at Park Hill
one day, expecting there to be overtaken by additional Choctaws and
Chickasaws who had been left behind at Fort Gibson. When they did not
appear, he went forward towards Evansville and upward to Cincinnati, a
small town on the Arkansas side of the Cherokee line. There his Indian
force was augmented by Stand Watie's regiment[52] of Cherokees and at
Smith's Mill by John

[Footnote 52: Watie's regiment of Cherokees was scarcely in either
marching or fighting trim. The following letter from John Ross to
Pike, which is number nine in the John Ross _Papers_ in the
Indian Office, is elu