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previous: Chapter 3 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! next: Chapter 5

 p43  Chapter 4

While Watie was participating in the Wilson's Creek activities, the squeezing pressure on Ross was beginning to take its toll. Albert Pike had been success­ful elsewhere in kneading Indians for the Confederacy — even if the fecundity in the case of the wild and "half wild" Plains Indians was impregnated sometimes with canned oysters, sardines, asparagus, green peas, and lobsters, bolts of calico and gingham, a liberal distribution of decks of playing cards and ready-made pants for the chiefs. In August 1861, Pike sent in a strong request for formal Cherokee alliance with the South.

Both Ross and Pike knew that Stand Watie and his friends were advocating such a treaty. And all the principals were well aware of the disaster which had overthrown Lyon and Sigel at Wilson's Creek, and how Stand Watie's position had been subsequently  p44 strengthened because he had participated in the Federal defeat.

Ross recognized that the Plains Indians in some cases had rejected his plea to negotiate no treaties with the Confederacy. Plains leaders — Pock Mark, George Washington and Buffalo Hump — bore no actual affection for the Confederacy, but in their eyes at least a glint of Rebel love was ignited by the munificent gifts of diplomat Pike.

When the Federal troops had pulled out of Forts Washita, Arbuckle and Cobb, back in July, Pike, with an impressive escort, had ridden in to over-awe the half-wild Comanches, Osages and Wichitas baffled that the Federal Army officers, Samuel Sturgis and James Totten, would abandon their posts.

Irregular independent Secesh commands, troops made up of half-breed Choctaws and Chickasaws, with English speaking commanders, shared the old Army forts with bands of Texans who had moved into Indian lands. Terrified by the rapid change in their lands, some of the Indians had headed for Kansas and government protection, others had moved westward to the lands of their "wild Indian brothers" and still others preferred to make the future on their home lands. These were the Indians who had come to Pike's grand councils and seen the civilized Indians proudly riding under the Confederate flag.

Both Watie and Ross must have debated whether in behalf of the Southern cause the mutual hatred of the aristocratic Southern planter half-breed Cherokee for his fellow tribesman, the full-blooded Pin, could be effaced?

Seeking some febrifuge against the political fever of the Nation, Chief Ross sent out a call to his people. On August 21, 1861, 4,000 Cherokees gathered at Tahlequah, filed up to the Council house and the open rostrum on the hill, pitched their tents in wind-sheltered valleys. John Ross and his brother Lewis, the Cherokee treasurer, spoke to the crowd and pled for a Confederate alliance. The frock-coated "white" mixed-bloods entertained no notion of opposing the Principal Chief this time since he had switched to Watie's position.

But what of the full-bloods in turbans and calico shirts? Men who looked no part of the Southern civilization as did their half-breed tribesmen with their fair Anglo-Saxon wives.

Ross realized that to side with the Confederacy would cancel  p45 the Cherokee treaty with the United States, still owing about $5,000,000 to the Nation for lands vacated in North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. But the Confederate Government had promised to take over the Federal payments, to apply the fugitive slaves laws to their slaves and, if desired, to give the Indian Nations statehood.

Longanimity shattered, the assembled Cherokees gave the answer — union with the Confederacy and the raising of a regiment by Colonel John Drew, a Ross man, for service with General McCulloch. Stand Watie's independent command had already set him high in official Confederate circles.

Had Ross really been won over to the Confederacy? If so why was it that after the treaty was assured Mrs. Ross, a Quaker, violently opposed efforts by the pro-Southern Cherokees to raise a Confederate flag over the Indian council house? Chief Ross upheld his wife.

Even Pike, in his time of triumph, must have had some mistrust of Ross' dulcet tones, and, after the war, Pike said "If Stand Watie and his party took one side, John Ross and his party were in the end sure to take the other, especially when the other proved itself the stronger."

General James G. Blunt, leading the Federal attack on Indian Territory, after he had captured Ross, wrote Lincoln that the Cherokees "had resisted the Confederate agents as long as possible and only the lack of communications with the Federal government had kept Ross from being loyal."

With the Cherokee Nation now allied with the Confederacy, Stand Watie, still with an independent command, saw General McCulloch at Camp Walker, Benton County, Arkansas, and was given a Colonel's commission and his unit became known as the Cherokee Mounted Rifles.

How excellent an impression Watie and his men made on McCulloch is contained in a report the Brigadier General wrote to Secretary of War Walker in September 1861, in which he stated, "Watie's Regiment is composed of half-breeds, men generally educated and good soldiers in or out of the Nation. I hope the government will continue this gallant man and true friend of our country in the service."

On October 7 the official signing of the Cherokee Treaty of Alliance was held and Albert Pike wrote on this meeting:

Said, in part, the Cherokee alliance:

McCulloch, replying to John Ross' letter of alliance with the Confederacy, said:

In an address to Colonel Drew's regiment of mainly full-bloods and Pins at Fort Gibson, John Ross stated:

The Fort Smith Times and Herald reported August 29 that George Michael Murrell at Park Hill wrote Major G. W. Clarke, Acting Quartermaster of the Confederate States, "The Cherokees are all right at last, and will have a regiment raised shortly for McCulloch, to go wherever he may order. The Cherokees are more united than they have been for several years."

Murrell, a native of Virginia, owned Hunter's Home, one of the showplaces of the Indian Territory, furnished with importations from France and Italy. A voyager commented, "We thought it beauti­ful because it had red plush future and prisms on the chandeliers. There were large mirrors over the curved mantles and the andirons and fixtures for the expensive drapes and the imported curtains around the bed and one guest wrote, "Between the parlor and the sitting room there were a hundred canaries in there among the flowers. It was a beauti­ful sight."

Wealthy Murrell divided his time between Hunter's Home and his plantation on Bayou Goula in Louisiana. The merchant-planter had first married Minerva, eldest daughter of Lewis Ross, brother of Chief John Ross, but when she died at the age of thirty-six, he next married Armanda Melvina Ross, his young sister-in‑law. Despite Murrell's relation­ship with the Ross family, Stand Watie's raiders never burned the Murrell mansion occupied by Miss Eliza Jane Ross, niece of John Ross, and her mother, during the war.

But, though on the surface, the warring factions of the Cherokees were united, it should be kept in mind that McCulloch warned Pike, in late September to separate the Indian commands under Stand Watie and Colonel Drew "for fear of a collision if they should come into contact with each other." Watie had said at the Tahlequah conference that no peace could come to the Cherokees as long as the Pins remained a power­ful political organization.

The tangled situation in the Creek Nation remained troublesome for the Confederacy even though John Ross had written  p48 the strong-willed Chief Opothleyoholo, known also as Yo‑ho‑la, to come "where we may all smoke the pipe of peace and friendship around our great council fire."

Chief John Ross wrote from Park Hill, September 19:

The Creek leader remained adamant in his refusal to join in with the Creek Council in its support of the Confederacy. The pro-Confederate Creeks grew so strong that the Chief fled from the Creek capital to his plantation.

Commissioner Pike, from Park Hill, on October 7 had vainly sought to win over Yo‑ho‑la with a letter later discovered in the archives of the "Snake" Creek Government of Crazy Snake stating:

Pro-Union refugees from the Seminole Nation — which also had become a Confederate ally — joined the stream of wagons, horses and walking parties which converged on Opothleyoholo. His grass eaten away by the livestock of his uninvited — but not unwelcome — guests, said to number as high as 4,000, including a thousand warriors, the Creek leader was beset with conflicting rumors. One was that the Confederate Indians were preparing to ride upon him and massacre the assembled (thought to be impuissant) Union leaders. Another was that Jim Lane's Kansas troops were on their way to enforce the Union redskins so that they could drive the Rebel tribes from Indian Territory.

 p49  The Creek Chief, taking more stock in the first report, poured the National Treasury in a barrel, buried it in the hills, and then ordered a great exodus of his people, authorities on Indian warfare even today debating what the Chief intended to do. Yo-ho-la himself claimed that he was heading for western lands to set up a cow-pen. Watie felt that the Creeks and their refugees were headed eventually for Kansas and Free Territory where they could be reformed and pose a threat to Indian Territory. Had Yo-ho-la not raided the lands of Confederate Indians and driven off their cattle? Had not the homes of pro-South Creeks been burned? And who put the torch to the Indian trading house of John W. Taylor — soon to die in the battle of Round Mounds — openly siding with the South?

Major John Jumper assembled Rebel Seminole fighters eager to battle the Seminoles under Billy Bowlegs and Alligator, both siding with Creek Yo-ho-la. Chilly and Daniel McIntosh rallied the Creeks for vengeance against the depredations of the Old Chief. His seizure of the Creek Treasury brought the retaliatory threat — later countermanded by Cooper — that all of Opothleyoholo's following would forfeit their possessions to a new Creek war chest.

Help arrived from the Confederate Indian ranks around Douglas Cooper's headquarters and soon the expedition started out November 15 from Fort Gibson after the fleeing Creeks and their camp followers. The white Fourth Texas Cavalry led the column — Chilly McIntosh rode in his buggy — which numbered well over a thousand.

The column's advance guard — the Texans — caught up with Opothleyoholo at Round Mounds on November 19 in the late afternoon when approaching darkness was lighted by the Indian campfires. The Southerners charged the Indian camp in the woods and were met with a deadly fire of guns and a volley of arrows. Advancing Confederate Creeks came to the support of the Texans, bewildered by the night fighting. The charge was stopped and the attackers fell back through the brush and tall grass as the loyal Indians picked off the stragglers.

Yo-ho-la, his enemies momentarily halted, ordered a night withdrawal north toward Kansas. His squaws took a firm grip on their hominy pestles and approached the prisoners taken in the  p50 night fighting. These captives bound hand and foot knew what fate awaited them.

In the morning Cooper's scouts found them, their heads beaten into unrecognisable pulp, and vowed death to the Yankee Indians when encountered in battle. Booty was plentiful, for retiring Opothleyoholo left behind his buggy, broken down wagons, oxen, ponies, sheep and sacks of supplies.

The first engagement in the Indian Territory was over. Technically it might be called a victory for the defenders as Yo-ho-la had stopped Cooper's attack before fleeing and the Confederate Colonel had declined to make a pursuit, as he felt his forces would be needed in case the Federals under General David Hunter, who had succeeded General John C. Fremont, would invade the Indian Territory. But Hunter was soon on a retreat from Springfield, Missouri, his army going into winter quarters. Colonel Cooper, under orders from General McCulloch, who had moved most of his army into Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missouri, and with word that Colonel John Drew and Colonel Stand Watie would join his command, readied for another try at stubbornly resisting Opothleyoholo.

Clem Rogers, whose father had been killed by the Ross sector in the Cherokee Nation, and father of the great humorist Will Rogers, helped guide the Cooper column which left Spring Hill November 29 and on December 9 reached the Union Indians strongly situated at Chusto-Talasah, or Little High Shoals, on Bird Creek. This time Cooper's assault was well planned and Yo-ho-la was surrounded by several thousand attackers. The moment for revenge of Round Mounds was at hand.

But Colonel Cooper had not counted on Colonel Drew's duplicity. Drew had arrived with his Cherokee command a day before Cooper's main column. The Ross Cherokee leader had received word that the Old Chief desired peace and — with Cooper's permission — sent Major Pegg of the Cherokee regiment into Yo-ho-la's camp. Surprised Pegg was confronted with Union Indians in full warpaint!

News of the warpaint took its effect on Drew and his command. His five hundred Cherokee refused to attack the full-bloods and withdrew from the battle. Again, this time on the south bank of Bird Creek, Opothleyoholo, though having to give  p51 some ground, threw back Cooper's efforts to capture or rout the Union Indians.

Crippled Confederate forces fell back to Fort Gibson to await new supplies and ammunition from Fort Smith. Frustrated Cooper rode ahead of his men so that he could rush out request for aid.

General McCulloch was in Richmond trying to straighten out difficulties in command which conflicted with Sterling Price and his State Commissioned Missouri army. His second-in‑command was James McIntosh, whose brother John was to lose a leg in the battle of Winchester and later he retired as a Brigadier General in the United States Army. Brother John fought on the side of the Yankees! When Ross hedged on forcing Drew and his men into action against the obstinate Old Creek Chief, McIntosh, an aggressive fighter, came to Cooper's aid from Van Buren, Arkansas, with over a thousand men who had participated in the triumph at Wilson's Creek.

Through the cold snow, Colonel Cooper's column advanced up the north side of the Arkansas River so as to get in the rear of the Union Indians. Colonel McIntosh led his column of 1,600 men, mostly Texas cavalry except for four companies of South Arkansas Mounted Riflemen and the South Kansas-Texan Regiment of Colonel Lane, up the Verdigris River.

On December 26 — four days after leaving Fort Gibson — McIntosh reached Shoal Creek and crossed the thin ice as fire came from four hundred yards down the prairie where the loyal Indians were hidden behind boulders and blackjack along the brow of a hill.

McIntosh, even though his supporting Indian column, failing to keep its paripassu, was not in sight, ordered his cavalry to dismount, then charge. The Confederates reached the shelter of rocks and trees and then methodically started their way up the hill under a shower of bullets. The real fight against Yo-ho-la had commenced.

Hurrying along their path beside the Arkansas River were three hundred Cherokee horsemen with Stand Watie riding at their head; at his side, Major Elias C. Boudinot. The Confederate Cherokees rode as hard as the weather permitted for they were alert to the possibility of striking a death blow at the feculent Union Indians. With the Texans advancing in another  p52 column the Rebel pinchers would close on Opothleyoholo!

At darkness Watie's men — behind them the Cooper column of Choctaws and Chickasaws — rode into Shoal Creek to find the Texans warming themselves before large campfires.

Jubilant McIntosh shouted a welcome to Watie, then said, "I'm going back to Fort Smith, Colonel Watie, the war's over!"

Watie's men, dismounting from their horses, could hardly believe what had happened. The Texans in a four hour battle and losing only nine killed and forty wounded, had routed Yo-ho-la. The victors pointed out their captives, several hundred men and women and a handful of Negroes as well as thirty-nine wagons, seventy yoke of oxen and over five hundred ponies.

McIntosh explained that some of the loyal squaws had escaped with the warriors who were able to flee on horseback. Among those who had slipped from the Texans' trap was the Chief himself.

Watie told his men to rest for the night, but the morning's light would find them in on the chase.

And so on the morning air, when McIntosh, winner of the battle of Chustenahlah, rode with his victorious Texans toward Fort Smith, Watie and Boudinot, followed by Douglas Cooper's Choctaws and Chickasaws, sped their vengeance.

In the wintery blasts — so cold that one of Cooper's men froze to death — retreating bands of Unionists were overtaken and, when they offered resistance, killed. The fleeing Indians, with supplies gone and hope of reaching Kansas fast disappearing, watched apprehensively across prairie and hill, wondering if approaching horsemen would be blue-coated cavalry sent to their rescue by Lane or the ill-uniformed, but hard-riding Cherokee Rifles under Watie.

And when the riders turned out to be the dreaded Confederate Indians, the dismayed mothers — even as some of them had bashed in prisoners' heads — threw babies into cold mudholes and tramped them to death rather than let them fall into mixed-blood hands. Yet Watie and Cooper were not making war on women and children and none who surrendered were slain. But as thoroughly as possible the Rebel leaders sought out the loyal bands; some hiding in brush shelters and some, having eaten their horses, hidden in the cover of their hides.

 p53  "Surrender or die!" was the ultimatum. The Seminole Alligator took his choice. He died.

Terror rode the Indian lands as even the independent tribes were caught in the net spread by Watie and Cooper. Those Indians not with Yo-ho-la were released and many of the half-wild Indians, on their way to free Kansas, felt it prudent to speak up for the Confederacy.

The rout of the loyal Indians was complete. Not only were their warriors defeated at Shoal Creek, but some seven hundred of the fleeing Indians perished in the fight, either through the elements or under the guns of the Southern Indians. Opothleyoholo, though, reached safety at Leroy, Kansas.

Since Colonel Stand Watie was in the forefront of the chase he became the hero of the wild winter pursuit and Confederate newspapers erroneously had him "capturing and burning Fort Scott, Topeka and Lawrence."

Chief John Ross sulked in his mansion at Park Hill for Colonel Stand Watie was the hero of the Cherokee Nation and Albert Pike was now Brigadier General Albert Pike, commander of the entire Indian Territory.

One of Pike's first acts of importance was to obtain funds for the Indians and on January 28, 1862, he wrote from Little Rock to Major Elias Rector, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at Fort Smith:

Although the Indians received their money, Pike was unable to obtain uniforms even for Watie's top command. General Pike, knowing the psychological effect of putting the Indian troops into regular uniforms, pressed his demands.

In February 1862, Stand Watie's Cherokees were at McCulloch's camp at Cross Hollow, Arkansas. Price's "Patriots Army," which "Old Pap" had miraculously maintained for six months with no government to direct it, no weapons except those he provided himself and which had no regular provisions but lived  p54 on the country as it marched and fought, came into Cross Hollow with 50 pieces of artillery, 400 tents and a wagon train of stores. The stores had been captured from the Federals!

Price's captured equipment didn't include uniforms and his army was almost as ill-fitted as the Cherokees. Shortly after Price's arrival, new Confederate uniforms arrived. Although these were the ones ordered by Pike for the Indian allies, the uniforms were distributed to Price's men. Colonel Watie's unit remained in odd shirts and pants, moccasins and hats with feathers sticking in them. Pike, who wanted Watie's Indians to look as smart as they fought, was furious.

Throughout the war, the Confederates were unable to keep their army in proper uniforms whether it be on the Virginia front or the Indian Territory. Long before the end of the war the Confederates were wearing Yankee uniforms and overcoats in cold weather. Most of Jo Shelby's men were wearing Union blue and many were shot when captured in Missouri in these uniforms. Colonel John F. Phillips — one of Watie's chief opponents — said in a report on the battle of Marais de Cygnes that the Confederates captured wearing Union uniforms were "executed instanter on the battlefield."

Colonel Watie's troubles were much more extensive than having his uniforms appropriated by other Confederate commanders. Back at the Cherokee capital the hatred of John Ross for him was already penetrating the coverage placed over it by the Confederate alliance. From the Cherokee Executive Department at Park Hill, Ross wrote General Pike:

Whereas it was true that the Indian officers did not demand the strict discipline adhered to by white officers, it was known that Watie's command was the best disciplined Indian troop. Later on in the war when his raiders would capture Yankee  p55  whiskey, Watie, if his men drank too heavily, dumped the remaining "likker" into the nearest stream.

Coming upon the horizon was the battle of Pea Ridge, the first time the Confederate Indians were to participate in the war "on a big scale" comparable to battles in the East and South.

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