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previous: Chapter 13 This webpage reproduces a chapter of General Stand Watie's Confederate Indians by Frank Cunningham published by The Naylor Company San Antonio, Texas 1959 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know!

 p201  Chapter 14

Fifteen thousand Confederate Indians were cast adrift with the end of the War between the States. Disconsolately some of them may have remembered lines from Cherokee Rose Buds, published by the students of the Female Academy at Park Hill:

There was one in Stand Watie's family who did not live to see his father's army fall: Cumiskey, who died in Texas in 1863 when he was around fifteen years of age. But though Watie had  p202 lost Cumiskey, his prayers were answered when Saladin survived riding with his father on daring raids. Too, along with the girls, there was his youngest son, Watica, who someday could help rebuild the shattered Watie fortunes.

Applicable equally to the former Confederate Indian Nations as to the old Confederate States was this summing up of conditions at the end of the struggle by General Richard Taylor in his book Destruction and Reconstruction:

After his surrender, Watie left immediately to visit Sarah in Texas and to confer with Elias C. Boudinot as to plans to obtain as favorable a peace as possible with the United States. He appointed six delegates to go to Fort Gibson in an effort to establish tribal harmony with the Union Indians.

To make it clear that this was no show of weakness on his part, General Watie provided his delegates with an escort of fifty armed men. Colonel John A. Garrett, of the Fortieth Iowa, who commanded at Fort Gibson, was amazed to see armed Rebel Indians arrive for the conference about July 8. Military authorities reported that the Southern Indians were "armed in the street and defiant." Efforts at reconciliation were a failure.

In the meantime, Watie had established his Executive Office for the Cherokee Nation in the Choctaw Nation, and he had ordered Colonels W. P. Adair and James M. Bell to Shreveport where they were to make whatever arrangements were practical with the military commander for the benefit of the Cherokees. These former Confederate officers were received with respect at  p203 the Headquarters of the Northern Division of Louisiana. Brigadier General James C. Veatch, commanding, advised General Watie as "Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation," that Colonel Bell had been sent on to the Major General commanding the Department of the Gulf and Colonel Adair was being sent back to him with answers to the questions which the commissioners had laid before the military authorities.

It must be kept in mind that there were two Cherokee governments operating. In fact, there were rival governments in the whole Indian Territory. The Union Indians had re-established their governments in the former Rebel nations, but the Southern Indians — the Six Nations and their allies — had formed a United Indian Nations government completely in control of Stand Watie and his former Secesh officers.

On July 14 at Tahlequah, the National Council, under Lewis Downing, Acting Principal Chief in John Ross' absence, issued a pardon and amnesty "to all citizens of the Cherokee Nation who participated in the Rebellion against the United States of America, and against the existing Government of the Cherokee Nation . . . and invite all such citizens to return to the Cherokee Nation . . ."

There were some exceptions. Among them were all who had been in the military offices in the Rebel service above the rank of captain since the first of March, 1865, and all persons who "held the pretended office of Principal Chief and Assistant Principal Chief, Treasurer, and members of the National Council, in opposition to the existing Government of the Cherokee Nation."

Even as Colonel Phillips' offers as Northern Indian commander in wartime, for peace and amnesty to the Rebel chiefs had fallen on unresponsive ears, so did the efforts of the re-established Ross faction Cherokee government. At Armstrong Academy, the United Indian Nations headquarters in the Choctaw Nation, one would have never known these were the Indians who had surrendered!

Both the Southern Cherokee government at Armstrong Academy and the Tahlequah government agreed to meet with the Indian Peace Commission at Fort Smith which was to be comprised of Dennis N. Cooley, Commissioner of Indian Affairs; Elijah Sells, in charge of the Southern Superintendency; General  p204 William S. Harney, Colonel Ely S. Parker and Thomas Wistar.

Present at the Peace Council which convened at Fort Smith in September were the still proud and completely confident former Confederate Indian leaders.

These warriors and diplomats had carefully mapped their strategy at their own conference held September 6 at Armstrong Academy. So when they moved out from the Choctaw Nation to meet the United States delegation, they were determined to maintain an aggressive action for what they considered their rights.

Southern Indian leaders of the various nations and tribes were Israel Folsom, President of the Grand Council of the United Indian Nations; John Jumper, Chief of the Seminoles; Clermont, Osage Chief; Co-not-sa-sonne, Comanche Chief; George Washington, Chief of the Caddoes; Luck-a-o-tse, Chief Arapahoes; Winchester Colbert, Governor of the Chickasaw Nation; Stand Watie, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation; Samuel Checote, Principal Chief of the Creek Nation; P. P. Pitchlynn, Principal Chief of the Choctaw Nation; and J. A. Scales, Secretary of the Grand Council.

Perhaps to show that they were still their own masters, the Southern Indians were late in arriving at the conference. When they did arrive, they were treated as equals and not as the conquered. At Fort Smith the Rebel Indians protested demands that they open up their territory to Negroes. The Seminoles, although "willing to provide for the colored peoples of their own nation" found most repugnant the idea that the Indian Nations were to become, in part, colonization grounds for the blacks of other states and other territories.

Ever seeking to throw their opposition off base, the United Indians projected a most unexpected line of attack when the scholar­ly, experienced Cherokee diplomat, Elias C. Boudinot, rose to speak. The politically suave Boudinot, equally as at ease in defeat at Fort Smith as when he had been in the Confederate Congress or conferring with Jefferson Davis at Richmond, paid his compliments to the United States Commissioner and then commenced to flay Chief John Ross, saying:

Chief Ross, who had only a short time previously been re-elected as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation by the inhabitants of the Nation — most of the Southern Cherokees were still afraid to return to their homeland and many of their homes had been confiscated by the victors — was astonished by the audacity of the assault. He was more stunned when the United States Commissioners, although cautioning Boudinot against opening old wounds, actually accepted his viewpoint. The Rebel decried the notion that Ross was faithful to the Union and built up a case against him to discredit the old Chief, their longtime foe, with the Commission.

And the United States Commissioners, as incredible as it was, actually suggested that Chief Ross had no right to occupy the Principal Chief's spot and contended that he had, in fact, enjoyed strong ties with the Confederacy.

General Watie, Colonel Jumper, and all the rest of the former Confederate Indian leaders making up the Southern Indian delegation knew how Ross had actually betrayed his allegiance to the Confederacy.

And now Ross was being penalized by the United States on the grounds he was too loyal to the Confederacy!

The political education and experience of the Rebel leaders was fomenting the possibility of a most unusual payoff.

Loyal Cherokees defended Ross with a declaration of dissent which stated:

But the commissioners brushed aside the petition of the Loyal Cherokees and the wily Confederate Indians brought forth Chief Black Dog of the Osages to discredit further Chief Ross in the eyes of the United States representatives. Black Dog related how the Osages had signed the Confederate Treaty after Ross had written them:

Black Dog finished his statement and the United States Commissioners nodded their heads well convinced that they had been right about Chief Ross. Then Wah-tah-in-gah, Chief counselor of the Black Dog and Clermont bands of the Osages, solemnly endorsed the statement of Chief Black Dog.

No one doubted the words of the Osage leaders. Ross, himself, knew that what they said was true, but he most assuredly had turned against the Confederacy at his first opportunity to make his switch a success.

But smiles of the Commissioners were all for their former enemies and the Rebel Indians looked with a condescending "the-pity-of-it-all" attitude at the thoroughly shocked and rejected Chief John Ross. General Stand Watie, as Principal Chief of the Cherokees, was back in the saddle and riding in triumph!

General Watie signed the Articles of Agreement drawn up at Fort Smith for the Southern Cherokees, but these were only preliminary in nature, and in November from his Executive Department Watie issued instructions to Colonel W. P. Adair to proceed to Washington as one of the Commissioners of the Cherokee south in the "free and final" negotiations between the United States not Cherokee Nation.

All possible efforts were being exercised by the Cherokee south  p207 leaders to help their unfortunate people. Colonel Adair had appealed to General Henry J. Hunt, who in 1865 had been sent to command the District of the Frontier, for means to relieve the sufferings of the Cherokees. Formerly, the destitute Cherokees in Texas and the Choctaw Nation had been supplied by Confederate authorities and Adair maintained that the United States would be wise to assume the problem of supplies until the Cherokees could resume agricultural operations.

Elias C. Boudinot reported to Stand Watie in December, "I have been doing all that I could and am still working for what in believe to be the best interests of the Southern Cherokees and all other Southern Indians. I have already expended $600 on my own account for which I ask and expect no return."

In the Spring of 1866 the Cherokee delegation went to Washington. Besides General Watie, the members were all former members of his Rebel army; Saladin Watie, Elias C. Boudinot, W. P. Adair, J. A. Scales and Richard Fields. The secretary to the group was J. W. Washbourne. Soon John Rollin Ridge, who had been in California since 1850, joined them and was elected head.

The Ross delegation also was in Washington to uphold its claims and with the battle lines again drawn, both groups eagerly sought the attentions of the political leaders.

Noted Indian authority, Annie Heloise Abel, in her book, The American Indian Under Reconstruction, said:

In the political tug of war the Ross faction consented to no partition of the Cherokee Nation, but they did agree to repeal their confiscatory laws and to restore the secessionists to full rights. The latter concessions were a major victory, but the Southern Cherokees kept pressing for their own independence.

In the meantime General Watie, having returned to the  p208 Cherokee and Choctaw Nations, was urged by his Washington delegation to declare a South Cherokee country independent of the Tahlequah rule. J. W. Washbourne, at the orders of the delegation, sought Watie's action to organize the new Cherokee government in the Canadian District and to proclaim an election for all officers, even if only one thousand Cherokees had time to vote.

Utilizing his journalistic talents, John Rollin Ridge was fighting Chief John Ross — much of the time in a sick bed — through the New York press and both he and Ross strove for aid from Horace Greeley of the Tribune, though Greeley, himself, was pro-Ross.

The Southern Cherokees were most hopeful of victory; nevertheless Ross had managed to get a reversal of the stand taken by the United States Commissioners at Fort Smith and was recognized as head of the loyal Cherokees.

As usual, tempers sometimes were a bit short when the two parties conflicted and John Rollin Ridge was outspoken in his mind to the President. In fact, so outspoken, that he felt it wise to write Commissioner Cooley:

The delegations pressed their claims with the Senate Indian Committee and Saladin Watie wrote his father that the Chairman of the Committee had told the Southern delegation that it should be all right for the Cherokees in their faction to remain in the Choctaw District or in the Canadian District. Saladin considered such a statement both absurd and ridiculous and a revelation of the lack of true knowledge of the Indian problem by the Senate.

 p209  The Negro situation plagued all the Southern delegations of the various nations. The Choctaws and the Chickasaws settled for "forty acres of ground to heads of families of former slaves," but the Cherokees, Seminoles and Creeks were punished harder and they had to make equal distribution with their ex-slaves. Because of this the treaty was termed "The Dark Treaty."

Despite the tireless efforts of the Watie contingent, the Ross delegation finally prevailed and the hope of an independent Southern Cherokee nation was gone. The President approved the treaty and Saladin termed the treaty "a sad disappointment to our people." General Watie could never have succeeded in forcing Washington recognition for the Southern Cherokee nation, even if he had had the time to call the special election pled for by his delegation.

Elias C. Boudinot and Saladin Watie urged the acceptance of the treaty as the Southern Cherokees had won some points even though they had lost their plea for independence. Though the treaty recognized John Ross as Principal Chief of the Cherokees, the former Secessionists were restored to their full rights in the Cherokee Nation.

John Rollin Ridge and Colonel Adair opposed signing the Treaty and there was an open split in the delegation and Ridge, withdrawing, returned to California. But, realizing that the contest in Washington was concluded, the Southern Cherokees agreed to the July compact. They arranged to keep representatives in Washington to look after the interests of their people.

The Treaty of 1866 was signed on July 17, but was not proclaimed until August 11. In the meantime, on August 1, John Ross died in the Mades Hotel⁠a on lower Pennsylvania Avenue. At only around forty, the lovely Mrs.  Ross had died a year earlier.

With the Treaty of 1866 guaranteeing their rights, the Southern Cherokees slowly drifted back to their homes. Stand Watie's family had remained on the Red River in Choctaw country, but General Watie moved them back into his beloved Cherokee Nation.

Wars . . . surrenders . . . treaties. Nothing could stop Cherokee politics. With the Southern United Indian Nations removed from any pretense of power by the Treaty of 1866 and General Watie completely retired from his rump position, as Principal  p210 Chief of the Southern Cherokee, the victorious Northern Cherokees then fought among themselves!

William P. Ross, nephew of the late John Ross, headed the National Party and Louis Downing, who had been a Lieutenant Colonel in the Union Army and Reverend John B. Jones, son of the anti-Watie missionary, Evans Jones, were the leaders of the People's Party.

Of all the loyal Cherokee leaders, perhaps none had asked for fairer terms for his opponents than Louis Downing, who had maintained the Rebels should have their full rights restored. As a military man, Downing had a high esteem for the way in which Stand Watie had outwitted his opponents for four years.

Although the outnumbered Southern Cherokees could not elect their own men to office, they did hold the balance of power and, remembering the considerate treatment offered them by Downing — and still hating any connection with a Ross — the Watie faction threw its support to the People's Party and Louis Downing was elected Principal Chief over William P. Ross in the elections of 1867.

General Watie had been busy trying to resume his planting operations and he had cultivated many acres of corn along the Red River in Choctaw country. Saladin and the Watie family were back in Cherokee territory at Webber's Falls. In the summer a flood smashed up General Watie's acreage and over a hundred acres of his finest corn was destroyed.

Because of this disaster, Stand Watie planned to move back to his homeland earlier than originally set and from the new Watie home Saladin wrote his father that Sarah moved with all the energy and zest of a teen-age girl.

From the Red River Watie sent his wagons and early in 1868 he had back in cultivation some of his large plantation lands on the Grand River. He had to work hard and long in an effort to provide for his family.

General Watie also backed Elias C. Boudinot in a tobacco factory that his nephew established in the Indian Territory. Brilliant Boudinot had the assurance of the Federal officials that he would not have to pay an internal revenue tax as the internal revenue laws did not apply to the Cherokee Nation.

Notwithstanding this, when Boudinot was able to undersell  p211 his Missouri competitors, his factory was confiscated for non-payment of internal revenue taxes!

Boudinot felt that Stand Watie should run for a political office in the government and, once seated, get the Cherokee Nation to defend both Boudinot's and the Cherokees' tax rights; however, General Watie was unwilling to run and eventually the United States Government paid Boudinot for his confiscated tobacco plant.

Stand Watie had built a new house about twenty-five miles below his old fighting ground at Fort Gibson and on the south side of the Arkansas River. Actually, as he wrote his friend J. W. Washbourne, he was flat broke and too old to work. Like most other planters who had been prosperous before the war, Watie was financially distressed and on one occasion didn't have enough money to buy shoes for one of his daughters so that she could attend school!

Yet he was still the leader to the Cherokee South. This whole region of the nation looked to him for guidance and felt that once the burdens had become too difficult for Stand Watie, much of the responsibility would be allotted to popular Saladin.

Suddenly, in early 1868, Saladin was taken ill and soon died. Some said he died of a broken heart over the death of Charles Webber, his intimate friend since childhood.

There remained Watica — sometimes called Solon — at school in Cane Hill College. This Arkansas institution, chartered in 1852, had been reopened after the war and was a favorite with the aristocratic but financially imperiled Indian leaders.

It took almost all of Stand Watie's last dollars to send Watica to school, but the youth rewarded the General with his good work, and pride for his home located on a level sweep with large shade trees and a beauti­ful view of the river. True, the lad did write home for money — to buy a new hat! And for a horse — to carry him home for Christmas!

Some of Watica's letters which appear in Cherokee Cavaliers show the warm devotion of the Watie family.

Sallie E. Starr, daughter of Nancy Starr, Mrs. Watie's sister who died while they were refugees in Texas, was a student at Bell Grove Seminary at Fort Smith. Sallie nurtured high hopes for Cousin Watica. She wrote him in February, 1869, to get a book on Stonewall Jackson. Watica could emulate the life of the  p212 beloved Confederate leader and Sallie reminded Watica how she was depending on him to follow his father's example in courageous leader­ship of the Cherokees and the Cherokee Nation.

But in late March, Watica was more filled with homesickness than anything else for he yearned to be with his Mother and Father and his little sister. Yet he was determined to stay out his school term and then to enjoy the vacation fun at home. He dreamed of berry hunting and riding around the countryside with General Watie to see their friends, who would ask all about his experiences at Cane Hill College.

There was to be no such fun and berry-picking. Shortly after Watica had written home his anticipation of being with his family and the fun he would have riding with his Father, Watica was stricken with pneumonia. The General and Sarah hastened to Cane Hill.

Quiet, well-behaved Watica, General Watie's last son, failed to recover and the Waties took his body home for burial.

As for the Watie girls, Minnehaha Josephine ("Ninnie") for whom the General, determined that his children should have an education, had somehow found the dollars necessary to send her to the Sandles School at Fort Smith — died February 27, 1875, at the age of 23; and Jacqueline, who had attended Captain Isaac A. Clark's Academy at Berryville, Arkansas, on March 17, died at the age of only 18. Sarah Watie lived until 1880.

Minnehaha Josephine (Ninnie) Watie. Oklahoma Historical Society	Jacqueline (Jessie) Watie. Oklahoma Historical Society

Broken-hearted General Watie, shocked and buffeted by the death of his two sons, had not slackened in his efforts to rebuild his fortunes to some semblance of his pre-war prosperity. Sarah and the girls deserved the best he could make for them. In September, 1871, General Watie was taken to his old home at Honey Creek and on the 9th died.

From throughout the old Confederate Indian Nations came tributes to their late leader and from the former Rebel lands in Missouri and Arkansas men in gray penned eulogies to one who had fought so well for the Cherokee Nation, the Indian allies and the Confederate States of America.

George Washington Grayson, the Creek Second Regiment Captain, who had been with Stand Watie at the capture of the "Williams" and the destruction of the million dollar wagon train at Cabin Creek, and who later became Principal Chief of the Creek Nation, wrote:

As a memorial to Stand Watie, Indian statesman and Principal Chief of the Cherokees, one could recall these words from Hiawatha:

And what words could fit better General Stand Watie, C. A., than those written by Virginia Frazer Boyle, which appear on the monument to General Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis, Tennessee:

Yes, as it is written on the monument to the Confederate dead at the University of Virginia, "Fate denied them Victory, but clothed them with glorious Immortality."

Forever to those who loved the Confederacy there will be the remembrance of General Stand Watie.

His had been a bold dream — a dream that shimmered with courage and valor. So bold the dream — so brave the dreamer!

---

Thayer's Note:

a Cunningham's text reads "Medes Hotel": an error, but not his. The mistake — unanimously repeated all over the Web, usually not in connection with the book we have before us — seems to be due to a misprint or error in "Chief John Ross" by John Bartlett Meserve, in Chronicles of Oklahoma Vol. XIII, No. 4 (December 1935), p435.

The Mades Hotel, a prominent fixture in Washington at the time, stood on the southwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 3rd Street NW. This photo, which I downloaded from "Streets of Washington", a Flickr account with additional interesting information on its page, clearly shows its name four times:

The hotel was named for its owner Charles Mades, a biographical sketch of whom can be read on a page at Find-a‑Grave that also shows his tombstone.

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