tter of
May 10, 1861:

"In answer to your letter of the 4th instant, I have the honor
to state that on the 17th April instructions were issued by this
Department to remove the troops stationed at Forts Cobb, Arbuckle,
Washita, and Smith, to Fort Leavenworth, leaving it to the discretion
of the Commanding Officer to replace them, or not, by Arkansas
Volunteers.

"The exigencies of the service will not admit any change in these
orders." [Interior Department Files, _Bundle no. 1 (1849-1864)
War_.]

Secretary Smith wrote to Cameron again on the thirtieth [Interior
Department _Letter Press Book_, vol. iii, 125], enclosing Dole's
letter of the same date [Interior Department, _File Box, January 1
to December 1, 1861_; Indian Office _Report Book_, no. 12,
176], but to no purpose.]

[Footnote 136: Indian Office _Report Book_, no. 12, 218-219.]

[Footnote 137: Although his refusal to keep faith with the Indians is
not usually cited among the things making for Cameron's unfitness for
the office of Secretary of War, it might well and justifiably be. No
student of history questions to-day that the appointment of Simon
Cameron to the portfolio of war, to which Thaddeus Stevens had
aspirations [Woodburn, _Life of Thaddeus Stevens_, 239], was
one of the worst administrative mistakes Lincoln ever made. It was
certainly one of the four cabinet appointment errors noted by Weed
[_Autobiography_, 607].]

the poor neglected Indians had been driven to the last desperate
straits. The next month, October, nothing at all having been done in
the interval, Dole submitted[138] to Secretary Smith new evidence of
a most alarmingly serious state of affairs and asked that the
president's attention be at once elicited. The apparent result was
that about the middle of November, Dole was able to write with
confidence--and he was writing at the request of the president--that
the United States was prepared to maintain itself in its authority
over the Indians at all hazards.[139]

Boastful words those were and not to be made good until many precious
months had elapsed and many sad regrettable scenes enacted. In early
November occurred the reorganization of the Department of the West
which meant the formation of a Department of Kansas separate and
distinct from a Department of Missouri, an arrangement that afforded
ample opportunity for a closer attention to local exigencies in both
states than had heretofore been possible or than, upon trial, was