ith Stand Watie's force on the
twenty-seventh at Bayou Bernard, seven miles, approximately, from the
latter place. The Confederate Cherokees lost considerably in dead
and prisoners.[443] Phillips would have followed up his victory by
pursuing the foe even to the Verdigris had not Cooper, fearing that
his forces might be destroyed in detail, ordered them all south of the
Arkansas and thereby circumvented his enemy's designs. Phillips
then moved northward in the direction of Furnas's main camp on Wolf
Creek.[444]

Pike had his own opinion of Cooper and Watie's daring methods of
fighting and most decidedly disapproved of their attempting to meet
the enemy in the neighborhood of Fort Gibson. That part of the Indian
Territory, according to his view of things, was not capable of
supporting an army. He discounted the ability of his men to conquer,
their equipment being so meagre. He, therefore, persisted in advising
that they should fight only on the defensive. He advised that,
notwithstanding he had a depreciatory[445] regard for the Indian
Expedition, and, both before and after the retrograde movement
of Colonel Salomon, underestimated its size and strength. He Was
confident that Cooper would have inevitably to fall back to the
Canadian, where, as he said, "the defensible country commences." Pike
objected strenuously to the courting of an open battle and, could he
have followed the bent of his own inclinations, "would have sent only

[Footnote 443: Phillips to Furnas, July 27, 1862, _Official
Records_, vol. xiii, 181-182.]

[Footnote 444: Same to same, August 6, 1862, Ibid., 183-184.]

[Footnote 445: Cooper reported that Pike regarded the Indian
Expedition as only a "jayhawking party," and "no credit due" "for
arresting its career" [Cooper to Davis, August 8, 1862, Ibid.,
vol liii, supplement, 821].]

small bodies of mounted Indians and white troops to the
Arkansas."[446]

No doubt it was in repudiation of all responsibility for what Cooper
and Watie might eventually do that he chose soon to bring himself,
through a mistaken notion of justice and honor, into very disagreeable
prominence. Discretion was evidently not Pike's cardinal virtue. At
any rate, he was quite devoid of it when he issued, July 31, his
remarkable circular address[447] "to the Chiefs and People of the
Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, Chickasaws, and Choctaws." In that
address, he notified them that he had resigned his post as department
commander an