254    The Indian as Participant in the Civil War
it during the winter; because his superior officers wished him to protect, before anything else, western Arkansas. Schofield and, after Schofield's withdrawal from the command of southwestern Missouri, Curtis had insisted upon that, while Blunt, to whom Phillips, after a time, was made immediately accountable, was guardedly of another way of thinking and, although not very explicit, seemed to encourage Phillips in planning an advance.
Phillips's inability to progress far in the matter of occupancy of Indian Territory did not preclude his keeping a close tab on Indian affairs therein, such a tab, in fact, as amounted to fomenting an intrigue. It will be recalled that on the occasion of his making the excursion into the Cherokee Nation, which had resulted in his incendiary destruction of Fort Davis, he had gained intimations of a rather wide-spread Indian willingness to desert the Confederate service. He had sounded Creeks and Choctaws and had found them surprisingly responsive to his machinations. They were nothing loath to confess that they were thoroughly disgusted with the southern alliance. It had netted them nothing but unutterable woe. Among those that Phillips approached, although not personally, was Colonel Mcintosh, who communicated with Phillips through two intimate friends. Mcintosh was persuaded to attempt no immediate demonstration in favor of the North; for that would be premature, foolhardy; but to bide the time, which could not be far distant, when the Federal troops would be in a position to support him."1 The psychological moment was not yet. Blunt called Phillips back for operations outside of Indian Terri-
721 Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, 61-62.