as to the issue of the war. The agents who hold Commissions from Mr. Lincoln & go to Montgomery to have Jeff. Davis endorse them, show a faith in the issue, that is not lost upon the Indians. A Capt. Brown of the Chickasaw tribe was commanding at Arbuckle, in the absence of Col. McKing who was at Tishimingo where the legislature was in session. He informed me that the Texans would not come over until the Choctaws & Chickasaws had given them to understand that "it would be all right"--At the time these nations did not wish to invite them, it would have been too palpable a violation of treaties, tho' they took command of the Fort, whether under their national authorities, or the "Confederate" I do not know which. Letters now in possession of the Seminole Chief will prove much herein stated. I told the chief to preserve those letters & all others which he might receive of a like nature....--General Files, _Southern Superintendency, 1859-1862_, C1348. [123] _Official Records_, first ser., vol. i, 513. [124] --_Ibid._, 515-516. [125] The order was one of the many, dictated by the policy of "no coercion," that issued in the last days of Buchanan's administration and the first of Lincoln's. A few of them, affecting or designed to affect the frontier, may as well be listed in chronological order. On the thirteenth of February, an abandonment of Fort Smith was ordered [_Official Records_, first ser., vol. i, 654]. The citizens protested and the order was countermanded [_ibid._, 655]. On the fifteenth of the same month, General Scott ordered, in the event of secession, all United States troops from Texas, via Fort Belknap and the Indian country, to Fort Leavenworth [_ibid._, 589]. On the eighteenth of March, a similar abandonment of Arkansas and the Indian country was arranged for [_ibid._, 667]. [126] _Official Records_, first ser., vol. liii, supplement, pp. 626, 628, 629. [127] General Twiggs was then waiting to be relieved of his command, having personally requested to be relieved, his sense of embarrassment being strong and his unwillingness to take responsibility, extreme. Robert E. Lee, brevet colonel, Second United States Cavalry, was relieved from duty in Texas and ordered to repair to Washington, by orders of February 4, 1861 [_Official Records_, first ser., vol. i, 586]. [128] Commissioners of some sort had been sent to the Indians even before this. They do not seem to have been, in any sense, agents of Texas, indeed, the ones particularly in mind were from Arkansas; but Texas may have taken her cue from their appointment. Their presence in the Indian country is sufficiently attested by the following correspondence: