nized,[5]
in January, 1862, some faint idea of what it might, peradventure,
accomplish did seem to penetrate,[6] although ever so vaguely, the
minds of those then in authority. It was organized under pressure from
the West as was natural, and under circumstances to which meagre and
tentative reference has already been made in the first volume of this
work.[7] In the main, the circumstances were such as developed out of
the persistent refusal of General McCulloch to cooeperate with General
Price.

There was much to be said in justification of McCulloch's obstinacy.
To understand this it is well to recall that, under the plan, lying
back of this first

[Footnote 4: _Official Records_, vol. liii, supplement, 781-782;
Edwards, _Shelby and His Men_, 105.]

[Footnote 5:--Ibid., vol. viii, 734.]

[Footnote 6: It is doubtful if even this ought to be conceded in view
of the fact that President Davis later admitted that Van Dorn entered
upon the Pea Ridge campaign for the sole purpose of effecting "a
diversion in behalf of General Johnston" [_Rise and Fall of the
Confederate Government_, vol. ii, 51]. Moreover, Van Dorn had
scarcely been assigned to the command of the Trans-Mississippi
District before Beauregard was devising plans for bringing him
east again [Greene, _The Mississippi_, II; Roman, _Military
Operations of General Beauregard_, vol. i, 240-244].]

[Footnote 7: Abel, _American Indian as Slaveholder and
Secessionist_, 225-226 and _footnote_ 522.]

appointment to the Confederate command, was the expectation that he
would secure the Indian Territory. Obviously, the best way to do that
was to occupy it, provided the tribes, whose domicile it was, were
willing. But, if the Cherokees can be taken to have voiced the opinion
of all, they were not willing, notwithstanding that a sensationally
reported[8] Federal activity under Colonel James Montgomery,[9] in the
neighborhood of the frontier posts, Cobb, Arbuckle, and Washita, was
designed to alarm them and had notably influenced, if it had not
actually inspired, the selection and appointment of the Texan
ranger.[10]

Unable, by reason of the Cherokee objection thereto, to enter the
Indian country; because entrance in the face of that objection would
inevitably force the Ross faction of the Cherokees and, possibly
also, Indians of other tribes into the arms of the Union, McCulloch
intrenched himself on its northeast border, in Arkansas, and there
awaited a more favor