d then, anticipatory perhaps to greater
changes, it was detached from the main column and given the liberty
of moving independently down the Missouri line to the Cherokee
country.[134]

Lane's efforts towards securing Indian enlistment did not stop with
soliciting the Kansas tribes. Thoroughly aware, since the time of his
sojourn at Fort Scott, if not before, of the delicate situation
in Indian Territory, of the divided allegiance there, and of the
despairing cry for help that had gone forth from the Union element to
Washington, he conceived it eminently fitting and practicable that
that same Union element should have its loyalty put to good uses and
be itself induced to take up arms in behalf of the cause it affected
so ardently to endorse. To an ex-teacher among the Seminoles, E.H.
Carruth, was entrusted the task of recruiting.

The situation in Indian Territory was more than

[Footnote 130: (cont.) Robinson was opposed to the idea [Ibid.,
November 2, 6, 1861].]

[Footnote 131: _Official Records_, vol. iii, 530.]

[Footnote 132: Martin, _First Two Years of Kansas_, 24;
_Biographical Congressional Directory_, 1771-1903.]

[Footnote 133: _Daily Conservative_, November 1, 1861, gives
Robinson the credit of inciting Stanton to contest the seat.]

[Footnote 134: _Daily Conservative_, October 30, 1861.]

delicate. It was precarious and had been so almost from the beginning.
The withdrawal of troops from the frontier posts had left the
Territory absolutely destitute of the protection solemnly guaranteed
its inhabitants by treaty with the United States government.
Appeal[135] to the War Department for a restoration of what was a
sacred obligation had been without effect all the summer. Southern
emissaries had had, therefore, an entirely free hand to accomplish
whatever purpose they might have in mind with the tribes. In
September,[136] the Indian Office through Charles E. Mix, acting
commissioner of Indian affairs in the absence of William P. Dole, who
was then away on a mission to the Kansas tribes, again begged the War
Department[137] to look into matters so extremely urgent. National
honor would of itself have dictated a policy of intervention before

[Footnote 135: Secretary Cameron's reply to Secretary Smith's first
request was uncompromising in the extreme and prophetic of his
persistent refusal to recognize the obligation resting upon the United
States to protect its defenceless "wards." This is Cameron's le