Up to about that time, the neutral policy of John Ross seems to have received the endorsement of a majority of the Cherokee people. In the last days of June, the Executive Council had been called together and had, after a session of several days, publicly and officially approved[431] of the stand the principal chief had taken to date. But events were already under way that were to make this executive action in no sense a true index to popular feeling. The secessionists were secretly organizing themselves, ready to seize the first opportunity that might appear. The full-bloods, or non-secessionists, were also organized and, under the name of "Pins," were holding meetings of mutual encouragement among the hills. Encounters between the two factions were not infrequent and the half-breeds resorted to all sorts of expedients for persuading, or that failing, of frightening the full-bloods into a compliance with their wishes. They told them that the Kansas people had designs upon their lands (which was not altogether untrue), and that the Federal government would free their slaves and otherwise dispossess, degrade, and humiliate them. Such arguments had their effect and there was little at hand to counteract it, none in the memory of the past, none in the neglect and embarrassment of the present, none in the prospect of the future. There were no Federal troops, no new Federal assurances of protection. Agent Crawford, who was the only agent within reach, added his threats and his Confederate promises to those of the half-breeds. Then came the Battle of Wilson's Creek with its disastrous Federal showing, and the exhausted resisting power of the Pins went down before the renewed secessionist ardor. A meeting of the Cherokee Executive Council had been called for August first, and John Ross, Joseph Vann, James Brown, John Drew, and William P. Ross, all prominent non-secessionists, had attended it. On this occasion, a general, or mass, meeting of the Cherokee people was arranged for, in response to a public appeal, and the date for it was fixed for the twentieth of August.[432] In the interval came the news from Springfield and another communication from Albert Pike.[433]