On the ninth of May, the Indians were still further addressed and this time by the citizens of Boonsboro, Arkansas, whose appeal has already been referred to and quoted.[196] The appeal was made through the medium of a letter to John Ross and of him the citizens of Boonsboro inquired where he intended to stand; inasmuch as they much preferred "an open enemy to a doubtful friend." They earnestly hoped, they said, to find in him and his people "true allies and active friends." On the fifteenth of May, J. R. Kannady, lieutenant-colonel, commanding at Fort Smith, also communicated[197] with Ross and on the same subject, his immediate provocation being the report that Senator James H. Lane was busy raising troops in Kansas to be used against Missouri and Arkansas. Of the Kannady letter, John B. Luce was the bearer and, to it, Ross replied[198] on the seventeenth, the very day that he published his great proclamation[199] of neutrality; for the otherwise most sensible John Ross labored under the delusion that the Indians would be allowed to figure as silent witnesses of events. In this respect, he was, however, on slightly firmer ground than were the citizens of such a state as Kentucky; but, none the less, he labored under a delusion as he soon found out to his sorrow. His proclamation of neutrality was intended as a final and conclusive answer[200] to all interrogatories like that from Boonsboro. III. THE CONFEDERACY IN NEGOTIATION WITH THE INDIAN TRIBES The provisional government of the Confederate States showed itself no less anxious and no less prompt than the individual states in its endeavor to secure the Indian country and the Indian alliance. On the twenty-first of February, 1861, the very same day that the law was passed for the establishment of a War Department of which Leroy P. Walker of Alabama took immediate charge, William P. Chilton, member[201] of the Provisional Congress from Alabama, offered in that body a resolution to the effect, that the Committee on Indian Affairs be instructed to inquire into the expediency of opening up negotiations with the Indian tribes of the West in relation to all matters concerning the mutual welfare of said tribes and the people of the Confederate States.[202] The resolution was adopted. Four days later, Edward Sparrow of Louisiana asked that the same committee be instructed to consider the advisability of appointing agents to those same Indian tribes.[203] The Indian committee, at the time, was composed of Jackson Morton of Florida, Lawrence M. Keitt of South Carolina, and Thomas N. Waul of Texas. Robert W. Johnson became a member after Arkansas had seceded and had been admitted to the Confederacy.