Albert Pike, having accepted the appointment of department
commander in Indian Territory under somewhat the same kind of a
protest--professed consciousness of unfitness for the post--as he had
accepted the earlier one of commissioner, diplomatic, to the tribes,
lost no time in getting into touch with his new duties. There was much
to be attended to before he could proceed west. His appointment had
come and had been accepted in November. Christmas was now near at hand
and he had yet to render an account of his mission of treaty-making.
In late December, he sent in his official report[32] to President
Davis and, that done, held himself in readiness to respond to any
interpellating call that the Provincial Congress might see fit to
make. The intervals of time, free from devotion to the completion
of the older task, were spent by him in close attention to the
preliminary details of the newer, in securing funds and in purchasing
supplies and equipment

[Footnote 31: Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the
Confederacy_, vol. i, 105.]

[Footnote 32: The official report of Commissioner Pike, in manuscript,
and bearing his signature, is to be found in the Adjutant-general's
office of the U.S. War Department.]

generally, also in selecting a site for his headquarters. By command
of Secretary of War, Judah P. Benjamin, Major N.B. Pearce[33] was
made chief commissary of subsistence for Indian Territory and Western
Arkansas and Major G.W. Clarke,[34] depot quartermaster. In the sequel
of events, both appointments came to be of a significance rather
unusual.