This was finally done but not for a week for the Choctaws were reluctant. They feared that their action would result in the destruction of the nation. Said Joseph P. Folsom, a member of the council & a graduate of Dartmouth College New Hampshire, "We are choosing in what way we shall die." Judge Wade said to me, "We expect that the Choctaws will be buried. That is what we think will be the end of this." Judge W. is a member of the Senate (for the Choctaw Council is composed of a Senate & lower house chosen by the people in districts & the constitution is modeled very much after those of the states.) & he has been a chief. Others said to me "If the north was here so we could be protected we would stand up for the north but now if we do not go in for the south the Texans will come over here and kill us." Mr. Reid told me a day or two before we left that he had become convinced during a trip for two or three days through the country that the _full bloods_ were strongly for the north. I am sure it _was so then_ & it was the opinion of the missionaries that if we had all taken the position, that we would not leave, some of us had been warned to do so by Texan vigilance committees, we could have raised a thousand men who would have armed in our defence--Our older brethren told us that this would hasten the destruction of the indians as they would be crushed before any help could come.--We thought this would probably be the case and the missionaries who were most strongly union in sentiment left. One of the number Rev. John Edwards had been hiding for his life from Texan & half blood ruffians for two weeks & we at Spencer had had the _honor_ to be visited by a Texas committee searching for arms. I continue my narrative from a letter from one of our teachers who was detained when we left by the illness of his wife & who left Spencer Sept. 5th & the Nation Sept. 9th. He says Col. Coopers regiment was filled up with Texans "The half breeds after involving the full bloods in the war have rather drawn back themselves and but few of them have enlisted & gone to the war." This indicates that the full bloods have at last yielded to the pressure and joined the rebels. The missionaries who remained would generally advise them to do this.