Raising the Regiment 25 



the history of the Cherokees and Chickasaws during 

 the eighteenth century, when they lived east of the 

 Mississippi. Early in that century various traders, 

 chiefly Scotchmen, settled among them, and the half- 

 breed descendants of one named Colbert became the 

 most noted chiefs of the Chickasaws. I summoned 

 the applicant before me, and found that he was an 

 excellent man, and, as I had supposed, a descendant 

 of the old Chickasaw chiefs. 



He brought into the regiment, by the way, his 

 "partner," a white man. The two had been insep- 

 arable companions for some years, and continued so 

 in the regiment. Every man who has lived in the 

 West knows that, vindictive though the hatred be- 

 tween the white man and the Indian is when they 

 stand against one another in what may be called 

 their tribal relations, yet that men of Indian blood, 

 when adopted into white communities, are usually 

 treated precisely like any one else. 



Colbert was not the only Indian whose name I 

 recognized. There was a Cherokee named Adair, 

 who, upon inquiry, I found to be descended from 

 the man who, a century and a half ago, wrote a 

 ponderous folio, to this day of great interest, about 

 the Cherokees, with whom he had spent the best 

 years of his life as a trader and agent. 



I don't know that I ever came across a man with 

 a really sweeter nature than another Cherokee 

 VOL. XL B 



