William McMichael in a letter to General Ulysses S. Grant dated January 10, 1862 wrote that Carpenter was "admirably adapted for the dangerous services in which he engages.
During his leadership of the Boomer effort, Carpenter was described as a striking character who affected long Custer-like hair and fringed buckskin,[3] and was characterized as either "a scalawag of the worst type, a burly, swaggering, reckless character"[2] or as a Moses leading his people to the Promised Land,[3] depending on whether the describer agreed with his politics, or not.
Carpenter issued a statement announcing that "All parties and colonists wishing to join my expedition to the Indian Territory will concentrate at Independence, Kansas, between May 5th and 7th," from which location he instructed the Boomers to move into Oklahoma and rendezvous at his general headquarters at Carpenter's City, eighteen miles west of the Sac and Fox Nation Agency, "where the general headquarters of the Governor of the Territory will be established," implying that he was to be the future governor.
When the Boomers set out for the Unassigned Lands, Carpenter remained in Montgomery County, Kansas, where Inspector John McNeil of the U.S. Indian Service was sent to order him to cease his activities.
"[13] Anticipating the Boomers' move, U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes had issued a proclamation on April 26, 1879 forbidding homestead entry of the Oklahoma lands.