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The Civil War and Reconstruction in Indian Territory
By Bradley R. Clampitt UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
Copyright © 2015 Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8032-7887-5
CHAPTER 1
Bitter Legacy
The Battle Front
Richard B. McCaslin
Abraham Lincoln never read Clausewitz, but if he had, he would have found much that sounded quite familiar. The embattled president pursued a Clausewitzian strategy during the Civil War that blended political with military objectives. His four steps to a Union victory became to secure the border states, isolate the Confederacy diplomatically, defeat the Confederate armies, and eliminate the South's will to resist. In order to win, he had to do this throughout the Confederacy, which included Indian Territory. As long as Confederate forces operated there, threatening the adjacent border states, undermining Lincoln's diplomatic claims of military primacy, and encouraging violent resistance to Federal authority, the Civil War would continue. Confederates seized the initiative from the Federals several times in Indian Territory, but they lacked effective leaders and military resources. By the war's end, Federals occupied much of the territory, and Indians, Unionist and Confederate alike, had yet another bitter legacy to contemplate.
For Indians who remained loyal to the Union, life became complicated when the U.S. Army in 1861 abandoned its three active forts in Indian Territory — Arbuckle, Washita, and Cobb — and withdrew north into Kansas. These outposts were occupied by Texans under the command of Col. William C. Young, who advanced slowly in May. His entry into the territory was facilitated by the efforts of commissioners sent by the Texas secession convention to meet with the Five Nations. The governor of the Chickasaws, Cyrus Harris, readily cooperated, and the envoys were welcomed by Choctaw leaders as well. Cherokee leader John Ross did not welcome the agents, but at a council in April with Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, and others, the commissioners were told that all those present would support the Confederacy.
The Texas commissioners were soon joined by an official agent of the Confederacy. Albert Pike was a former captain in the U.S. Army who had settled in Arkansas as a lawyer and an Indian agent. He was known to be eccentric, but Confederate authorities chose him as their commissioner to secure alliances with the Five Nations. Pike expected to work with Ben McCulloch, a Texas Ranger who was appointed as a brigadier general and told to organize Confederate forces in the territory. McCulloch had been promised a regiment from each of three adjacent states — Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana — and was also expected to raise several regiments of Indians with Pike's help.
Both sides wanted the support of the powerful Cherokees. McCulloch and Pike together went to Ross's home near Tahlequah, but Ross refused to muster even a home guard. He was in a difficult position. His supporters were deeply divided, with reasons to support either faction in the national conflict. At the same time he was opposed by Cherokees led by Stand Watie, who quickly recruited a mounted regiment and was appointed as a Confederate colonel by McCulloch. Ross subsequently convened his executive council in August 1861 and signed an alliance with the Confederacy. He then authorized the muster of a second regiment of Cherokee cavalry led by John T. Drew, who had friends among the followers of both Watie and Ross. In October 1861, with two regiments of Cherokee troopers already in the field, Pike signed alliances with Ross, Watie, Drew, and other Cherokee leaders.
While Pike and McCulloch mustered the Cherokees, Pike also organized other Confederate forces within the Five Nations. He found the Creeks split into hostile factions like the Cherokees. Opothleyahola and his allies remained loyal to the Union, while his opponents did not. Prominent among the latter were Daniel N. and Chilly McIntosh, half-brothers whose father, William, had been killed by Opothleyahola's followers. Pike during July 1861 signed a treaty with the McIntosh brothers, promising them that they would serve only in Indian Territory. Pike's meeting with the Choctaws and Chickasaws went more smoothly thanks to Col. Douglas H. Cooper, who convinced both groups to support the Confederacy before Pike arrived. Cooper also enlisted a mounted regiment, which Pike again pledged would stay in the territory. The Seminoles divided as well over supporting the Confederacy, but John Jumper convinced some to fight for the South, and Pike agreed that they would serve with the McIntosh brothers.
Pike's diplomatic efforts sparked bloody clashes. When the Creeks quarreled, Pike ordered Cooper to use his Choctaws and Chickasaws to crush the Unionists. Many who opposed the pro-Confederate Creeks fled to Kansas, along with pro-Union Cherokee refugees, but many others joined Opothleyahola. When the latter led his group, about two-thirds of which were noncombatants, north toward Kansas, Cooper attacked. He struck first at Round Mountain on November 16, 1861, but his command, which included the McIntosh brothers and Jumper as well as Texas cavalry, was repulsed. Opothleyahola retreated that night, so Cooper claimed a victory. Drew joined Cooper with his Cherokees, but in a clash at Bird Creek on December 9 the new arrivals refused to fight, and the Creeks again bested their pursuers. Cooper begged for reinforcements to replace Drew's unreliable men and received almost 1,400 troops from Arkansas and Texas, including Young's command. Cooper hit the Creek camp at Chustenahlah, near the site of the Bird Creek battle, on December 26. Texas troopers dismounted and drove the Creeks, along with some Seminoles, from a steep, rocky ridge. The retreating warriors were joined by panic-stricken women and children, and Confederate riders killed many.
Chustanahlah marked a gloomy end to the first year of the war for pro-Union Indians. Watie arrived late in the fighting and led the pursuit the next day, when many more Unionists were killed and others were captured. When Watie tired of the chase, Cooper continued to hunt stragglers, who had no food, or shelter from snow and sleet. Several thousand sad survivors, including Opothleyahola, stumbled into Kansas, where they and other Indian refugees starved in makeshift shelters through a bitter winter. Lucky ones settled near military outposts, where some officers provided supplies on their own initiative.
The Indians' plight complicated Federal efforts to press the Confederates in the territory as well as elsewhere in the far west. Lincoln, to improve his prospects, assigned Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck to command the new Department of Missouri and sent Maj. Gen. David H. Hunter to direct the new Department of Kansas, where Hunter worked hard to support the refugees. On the Confederate side, Pike became a brigadier general in the late fall of 1861 and took command of all Indian troops. Concerned like his Federal counterparts about the failure of his superiors to support Indian allies, by February 1862 Pike established a headquarters at Fort Davis, on the southern side of the Arkansas River near Fort Gibson, abandoned since 1857. There he continued to bicker with Confederate authorities.
Seeking like Lincoln to improve his prospects in the far west, Jefferson Davis sent Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn to command the Trans-Mississippi District. Van Dorn was eager to regain Missouri, so he merged the forces of Pike, McCulloch, and Brig. Gen. Sterling Price, the former governor of Missouri, for a campaign. Union troops had driven Price out of Missouri in February 1862, and McCulloch settled with him in northern Arkansas, along with Van Dorn. Pike was told to join them with most of his Indian units, including troops from all of the Five Nations. He struggled to supply his men and convince them to fight outside Indian Territory despite his earlier promises. In the end he marched with only the two Cherokee regiments led by Watie and Drew; the McIntosh brothers lagged behind to locate Cooper, and all three arrived too late for the fighting at Pea Ridge. At that place Van Dorn fought a battle on March 7 and 8, 1862, but he did not win the victory he sought.
The engagement at Pea Ridge began with a clash between Pike's Cherokees and Union cavalry. The Federal troopers were shocked by the fierce appearance of their enemy, and a Missouri regiment balked when ordered to charge. The Indians, joined by Texans, swarmed over a three-gun battery and threw the Federals into a panicked retreat. Rallying Union troops drove back Pike's men but failed to recover the guns. The fight degenerated into a melee, with Cherokees sniping from the woods while Texas cavalry and infantry from Arkansas and Louisiana engaged other Federals. Union reinforcements flanked the Confederates, McCulloch was killed, and the Southern attack collapsed. Pike led some of his Cherokees to the Confederate far left, where he arrived after nightfall. Others straggled in later, but Drew's men actually left for home. Both sides reorganized during the night, and Van Dorn put Pike's Indians (Watie's regiment and some newly arrived Creeks) in his lines. After an artillery duel, during which most of the Confederate guns ran out of ammunition or were disabled, the Federals advanced on the morning of March 8. The Southern lines broke, and Van Dorn ordered a withdrawal that became a rout, with Confederates being chased deep into the Arkansas hills while a freezing rain fell.
After Pea Ridge, reports of Indian atrocities surfaced. Brig. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, the commander of the Union army at Pea Ridge, accused Pike's Indians of scalping Federal dead and wounded. Others said the mutilated bodies numbered as high as forty, and the culprits were said to be Drew's Cherokees. Pike denounced the behavior of his Cherokees, and he forbade them to kill any wounded soldiers or take scalps. What was not commonly reported was that Indian prisoners were killed by Federals while allegedly trying to escape and that the Indian dead, unlike the bodies of white Confederates, were left unburied on the field. Pvt. William H. Marsh of the Thirteenth Illinois Infantry observed that "a pile of dead Indians" lay "in a hollow near the ridge," where he assumed they had been "overlooked when the dead were buried." In other words, Indians became unwelcome in Confederate armies, while their own experiences on battlefields dominated by white men discouraged many from seeking further service outside their own lands.
Pike left Pea Ridge alone and found his men on the border of Indian Territory. Both Cherokee regiments were there, as well as Cooper's Choctaws and Chickasaws and a detachment of Daniel N. McIntosh's Creeks, who had arrived too late to fight. Watie's Cherokees served as the rearguard as Pike retreated to within a day's ride of the Red River. There Pike established a headquarters, Fort Ben McCulloch, on the Texas Road, the main path from Kansas through Indian Territory into Texas. Pike resented broken promises of supplies and reinforcements, as well as having to bring Indians out of their homelands in violation of formal agreements. He was further infuriated when Van Dorn went east of the Mississippi River, where his men were needed after the Confederate defeat at Shiloh. This left the Indians virtually alone against Federals, again in contradiction to promises of protection. Furthermore, Van Dorn took with him materials intended for the Indians, and he did not defend Pike against charges that Pike's Cherokees had committed atrocities. In a foul mood, Pike ignored instructions to defend Arkansas and instead furloughed many of his men.
Pvt. Edward H. Ingraham of the Thirty-Third Illinois Infantry wrote from Arkansas in May 1862, "No further bloodshed is expected here except occasional skirmishes with the wandering half civilized hordes in the south west." Confederate operations during that summer in Indian Territory were primarily left to Watie and Drew, who led a few hundred men in guerilla raids within the Cherokee Nation. Senator James M. Lane of Kansas, an abolitionist veteran of the violence that wracked his state before the war, pressed for decisive action to quash Indian support for the Confederacy. He provided an example of what he wanted by raiding Missouri, killing many people and bringing back freed slaves and wagons filled with loot. He also pushed hard to change the military commanders in Kansas, and Lincoln replaced Hunter with Brig. Gen. James G. Blunt during May 1862. Blunt was another Kansas abolitionist and had commanded some of Lane's irregulars, but his objectives differed from those Lane advocated. Blunt intended to eliminate Confederate raiders in the territory, pressure the Confederates in Arkansas, and return Unionist Indians to their lands, where they would be protected in part by Indian regiments.
When Federals marched down the Texas Road into Indian Territory in June 1862, Blunt stayed behind, giving command of the advance to Col. William Weer, another of Lane's Jayhawkers. Weer had a pair of Indian regiments, Cherokees and Creeks; two regiments of white infantry; three regiments of white cavalry; and two artillery batteries. Confederate Cherokees called for help, but Pike sent just a few companies under Cooper, while a single Missouri battalion came from Arkansas. Federals scattered Watie's men and surprised the Missourians, most of whom became prisoners. Drew's Cherokees defected; so many joined Weer that he organized an Indian regiment led by Maj. William A. Phillips, an abolitionist newspaper reporter who declined a lucrative job offer from Horace Greeley to remain in the west as an officer. A Federal detachment visited Ross, presenting him with a dilemma. He wanted to ally with the Union, but Confederates expected him to honor his treaty with them. The Federals solved the riddle by arresting Ross, making it impossible for him to obey Confederate orders. He was sent to Fort Leavenworth, whence he traveled to Washington to meet Lincoln.
Cooper struggled to organize an effective resistance, but the Federals beat themselves. Weer camped for days, apparently trying to decide what to do while abusing his subordinates and drinking. Morale dwindled until Col. Frederick C. Salomon, a former Prussian officer, arrested Weer and took charge. Salomon told Blunt that Weer "was either insane, premeditated treachery to his troops, or perhaps that his grossly intemperate habits long continued had produced idiocy or monomania."10 Weer in fact was a notorious alcoholic, and Blunt had ignored that. Salomon then led most of his troops north, leaving behind the three Indian regiments under the command of Col. Robert W. Furnas. Some of Furnas's troopers, led by Phillips, routed a Confederate force near Fort Gibson in July 1862. But Salomon's withdrawal into Kansas forced Furnas to move his headquarters to Baxter Springs. Furnas was followed by thousands of miserable refugees from among the Unionist Cherokees.
Weer's collapse did not save Pike's military career. Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman returned to Arkansas, for which he had previously served as a U.S. congressman, in the summer of 1862 as the Confederate commander of the Trans-Mississippi. He labored to restore order, but his harsh measures generated many protests. Pike accused Hindman of stealing supplies meant for Indians, while Hindman fumed because Pike would not join in campaigns from Arkansas into Missouri. To mollify protesters, Davis in July 1862 appointed Maj. Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes to supersede Hindman, but Holmes let Hindman remain in command of Arkansas, Missouri, and Indian Territory. Pike submitted such a hostile letter of resignation that Cooper called for his arrest. Pike then picked a fight with Holmes and disappeared into Texas. When Pike resurfaced Holmes had him arrested and then let him resign. As Holmes explained to Davis, "Genl. Pike has ruined us in the Indian Country, and I fear it will be long before we can reestablish the confidence he has destroyed." Holmes added, "Please accept Pike's resignation as he has head enough to do us great injury with the Indians but has not judgment enough to do us good anywhere."
Similar command tangles hindered Union efforts to expand upon Weer's meager success. A furious Blunt met Salomon at Fort Scott, declined to hold a court martial, and then appointed Salomon and Weer as brigadier generals. But Union plans to return to Indian Territory had to be postponed when Blunt's command became a district in the new Department of Missouri. Most important, Blunt was made subordinate to Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield, whose principal concern was Missouri. In the fall of 1862 Schofield ordered Blunt to support his operations there.
Ironically, Blunt's troops encountered some old foes in Missouri. After Pike left, Cooper brought about two thousand Texans and Indians — including his own Choctaws and Chickasaws and Watie's Cherokees — to northern Arkansas. Hindman added Missouri cavalry led by Col. Joseph O. Shelby to Cooper's command and then ordered him north to forage around Newtonia. Blunt sent Weer and Salomon to scout, but when they met the Confederates, the outnumbered Union troops had to withdraw. Schofield reinforced and struck again on October 4, routing the Southerners. Cooper led his Indians back to Indian Territory, chased by Blunt, while Schofield rode east in pursuit of the primary Confederate force. Blunt attacked Cooper once more on October 22 in the Cherokee Nation, driving the Confederates and taking their artillery. Cooper retreated to Fort Davis, thus conceding control of the territory north of the Arkansas River.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Civil War and Reconstruction in Indian Territory by Bradley R. Clampitt. Copyright © 2015 Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
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