only so far, the Creeks
not at all, and the main body of the Choctaws and Chickasaws, into
whose minds some unscrupulous merchants had instilled mercenary
motives and the elements of discord generally, were lingering far in
the background. Pike's white force was, moreover, ridiculously small,
some Texas cavalry, dignified by him as collectively a squadron,
Captain O.G. Welch in command. There had as yet not been even a
pretense of giving him the three regiments of white men earlier asked
for. Toward the close of the afternoon of March 6, Pike "came up with
the rear of McCulloch's division,"[56] which proved to be the very
division he was to follow, but he was one day late for the fray.

The Battle of Pea Ridge, in its preliminary stages, was already being
fought. It was a three day fight, counting the skirmish at Bentonville
on the sixth between General Franz Sigel's detachment and General
Sterling Price's advance guard as the work of the first day.[57] The
real battle comprised the engagement at

[Footnote 52: (cont.) the mass of the People _are all right
in Sentiment for the support of the Treaty of Alliance with the
Confederate States_. I shall be happy to hear from you--I have the
honor to be your ob't Serv't

John Ross, Prin'l Chief, Cherokee Nation.]

[Footnote 53: Pike's Report, March 14, 1862, _Official Records_,
vol. viii, 286-292.]

[Footnote 54: James McIntosh to S. Cooper, January 4, 1862,
Ibid., 732; D.H. Cooper to Pike, February 10, 1862,
Ibid., vol. xiii, 896.]

[Footnote 55:--Ibid., 819.]

[Footnote 56:--Ibid., vol. viii, 287.]

[Footnote 57:--Ibid., 208-215, 304-306.]

Leetown on the seventh and that at Elkhorn Tavern[58] on the eighth.
At Leetown, Pike's Cherokee contingent[59] played what he, in somewhat
quixotic fashion, perhaps, chose to regard as a very important part.
The Indians, then as always, were chiefly pony-mounted, "entirely
undisciplined," as the term discipline is usually understood,
and "armed very indifferently with common rifles and ordinary
shot-guns."[60] The ponies, in the end, proved fleet of foot, as
was to have been expected, and, at one stage of the game, had to
be tethered in the rear while their masters fought from the
vantage-ground of trees.[61] The Indian's most effective work was
done, throughout, under cover of the woods. Indians, as Pike well
knew, could never be induced to face shells in the open. It was he who
advised their climbing the trees and he did