This volume is the first of a series of three dealing with the slaveholding Indians as secessionists, as participants in the Civil War, and as victims under reconstruction. The series deals with a phase of American Civil War history which has heretofore been almost entirely neglected or, where dealt with, either misunderstood or misinterpreted. Perhaps the third and last volume will to many people be the most interesting because it will show, in great detail, the enormous price that the unfortun

Veterans of the Confederate service who saw action along the Missouri-Arkansas frontier have frequently complained, in recent years, that military operations in and around Virginia during the War between the States receive historically so much attention that, as a consequence, the steady, stubborn fighting west of the Mississippi River is either totally ignored or, at best, cast into dim obscurity. There is much of truth in the criticism but it applies in fullest measure only when the Indians ar

For the participation of the southern Indians in the American Civil War, the states of Texas and Arkansas were more than measurably responsible. Indian Territory, or that part of the Indian country that was historically known as such, lay between them. Its southern frontage was along the Red River; and that stream, flowing with only slight sinuosity downward to its junction with the Mississippi, gave to Indian Territory a long diagonal, controlled, as far as situation went, entirely by Texas. Te

The provisional government of the Confederate States showed itself no less anxious and no less prompt than the individual states in its endeavor to secure the Indian country and the Indian alliance. On the twenty-first of February, 1861, the very same day that the law was passed for the establishment of a War Department of which Leroy P. Walker of Alabama took immediate charge, William P. Chilton, member [201] of the Provisional Congress from Alabama, offered in that body a resolution to the eff

The work of soliciting the military support of the Indians and, to a large extent, that of securing it, antedated very considerably the formal negotiation of treaties with their constituted authorities. Whether it be true or not, that Douglas H. Cooper, United States agent for the Choctaws and the Chickasaws, did, as early as April, 1861, begin to enroll his Indians for the service of the Confederate States, it is indisputable that, immediately upon receiving Secretary Walker’s communication [40

Copy Tahlequah , January 9th 1857. Sir :—Some time since I received a letter from you calling for information in reference to the white intruders who were settling upon the Cherokee Neutral Land. I have been creditably (credibly) informed that there are several white families living upon the Neutral Land, some of them are making improvements, others are in the employment of Cherokee Citizens, living on the Neutral Land, from the best information that I can get, most of the intruders are good cit

Office Supt. Indian Affairs , Fort Smith, Oct. 12th, 1861. Sir : I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 15th inst. by Expressman Sturm [591] at Tahlequah C. N. while on public business at that place on the 2nd inst and in answer must say. Your requisition for Medicine I cannot comply with. I have no Medicines on hand for the Indian Service. Neither have I been instructed to furnish either Medicines or Medical assistance to the Indians, and if I were disposed to take the responsibili

I. GENERAL ACCOUNT OF DOCUMENTARY SOURCES. The material for this book has been drawn almost entirely from documentary sources and, in a very large measure, from unpublished documentary sources; namely, the manuscript records of the United States Indian Office. Those records to-day are in a very disorganized state, largely due to change of system and to the many removals to which they have been subjected within the last few years. At the time when they were examined for the purposes of the presen