It is not for me to take any part in the controversy between the two portions of the Cherokee People, nor have I any interest that could lead me to side with one in preference to the other. Nor am I much inclined, having none of the rights of a Citizen, to offer to testify in any matter, when my testimony may not be deemed worthy of credit, as that of one not yet restored to respectability and creditability by a pardon. But, as I know it to be contemptible as well as false, for Mr. John Ross and the "loyal" Memorialists to pretend that they did not voluntarily engage themselves by Treaty Stipulations to the Confederate States, and as you have desired my testimony, I have this to say, and I think no man will be bold enough to deny any part of it. In May, 1861, I was requested by Mr. Toombs, Secretary of State of the Confederate States, to visit the Indian Country as Commissioner, and assure the Indians of the friendship of those States. The Convention of the State of Arkansas, anxious to avoid hostilities with the Cherokees, also applied to me to act as such Commissioner. I accordingly proceeded to Fort Smith, where some five or six Cherokees called upon General McCulloch and myself, representing those of the Cherokees who sympathized with the South, in order to ascertain whether the Confederate States would protect them against Mr. Ross and the Pin Indians, if they should organize and take up arms for the South. We learned that some attempts to raise a Secession flag in the Cherokee Country on the Arkansas had been frustrated by the menace of violence; and those who came to meet us represented the Pin Organization to be a Secret Society, established by Evan Jones, a Missionary, and at the service of Mr. John Ross, for the purpose of abolitionizing the Cherokees and putting out of the way all who sympathized with the Southern States. The truth was, as I afterwards learned with certainty, the Secret Organization in question, whose members for a time used as a mark of their membership a _pin_ in the front of the hunting shirt, was really established for the purpose of depriving the half-breeds of all political power, though Mr. Ross, himself a Scotchman and a McDonald by the father and the mother, was shrewd enough to use it for his own ends. At any rate, it was organized and in _full_ operation, long before Secession was thought of. General McCulloch and myself assured those who met us at Fort Smith, that they should be protected; and agreed to meet, at an early day then fixed, at Park Hill, where Mr. Ross resided. Upon that I sent a messenger with letters to five or six prominent members of the Anti-Ross party, inviting them to meet me at the Creek Agency, two days after the day on which General McCulloch and I were to meet at Park Hill.