USA > Oklahoma > A standard history of Oklahoma; an authentic narrative of its development from the date of the first European exploration down to the present time, including accounts of the Indian tribes, both civilized and wild, of the cattle range, of the land openings and the achievements of the most recent period, Vol. I > Part 34
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cousin, he became the recognized leader of the Treaty, or Ridge party. After coming to the West he made his home on Honey Creek, near the border of the Cherokee country and not far from the point where the Arkansas-Missouri boundary line intersects the Oklahoma state line. He lived there until the outbreak of the Civil war. He was of a modest and retiring disposition, but was distinguished as a man of unfaltering courage when thoroughly aroused. At the outbreak of the Civil war, he promptly aligned himself on the side of the seceding states and was actively identified with it until the end of the struggle. His official correspondence, much if not most of which has been embodied in the published vol- umes of Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, re- veals in its very terseness the most marked traits of his character- brevity, modesty, devotion and action. He suffered every priva- tion that befell his people yet no one ever heard a word of complaint from his lips, and because of this and his undoubted courage, for he never ordered his followers into any danger where he would not himself go, he held the confidence, respect and love of his soldiers. He was of a most humane disposition and no prisoner taken by his troops was suffered to be maltreated with his knowledge. The end of the war found his farm a waste, his flocks and herds gone and himself, like the humblest of his followers, homeless and penniless. He settled at Webbers Falls and endeavored by energy and economy to regain a competence. Within three or four years both of his sons, in whom he had centered great hopes, died. He lived and labored on a year or two longer, until September 2, 1871, while on a visit to his old home on Honey Creek (Delaware County), he died. His body still reposes in a rural cemetery near by, the grave being un- marked by any permanent monument.
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tary guard, consisting of a lieutenant and twenty-five men, beat a precipitate retreat. The steamboat was captured and steered across the river, where its eargo, consisting of quartermaster sup- plies and goods intended for the commissary of the Indian refugees at Fort Gibson, were unloaded on a sandbar. Col. John Ritchie with a detachment of the Second Indian Home Guard Regiment arrived the next morning from the eneampment near the mouth of the Illinois River (where it was guarding the neighboring salt works and lime kiln) and by musketry fire, from the river bank, drove the Confederates from the steamboat (though not until it had been set afire) and also kept them from removing the cargo from the sandbar where it had been unloaded until a sudden rise in the river washed it away. Although, as it turned out, the Confederates did not gain mueh by this exploit, yet, as it crippled the enemy to that extent, it had the effect of greatly encouraging the officers and men of the Indian Division.19
Individual scouts and spies were numerous in the service of both armies, the character of the country and the uncertainty of the attachment and alignment of many of its people making it com- paratively easy for a commander to keep himself advised as to recent movements and contemplated plans of the enemy. The official correspondence of commanders in the service of each of the hostile forees in the Indian Territory give abundant evidence of this.20
19 Reports of Gen. D. H. Cooper and Col. Stand Watie, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. XXXIV, Part I, pp. 1011-3; also letters of Gen. John M. Thayer, Part IV, pp. 503-4, and of Gen. S. B. Maxey and Captains Greene Durbin and M. S. Adams, pp. 686. In General Thayer's letter, the J. R. Wil- liams is alluded to as a steam ferry-boat but it was evidently a more pretentious craft than that, as it was employed as a military trans. port on the lower Arkansas and Mississippi rivers during the cam- paign against Vicksburg a year earlier. Although the incident was not mentioned in official reports or correspondence, it is said to be a fact that one of the guns of the Confederate battery burst during the course of the attack on the steamboat.
20 Colonel Phillips, who was accounted an expert in the matter of securing intelligence coneerning the doings and plans of the enemy, onee revealed something of the zest with which he played the game. In a letter addressed to General Blunt (July 17, 1863), he said: "I have had for some time the utmost difficulty in get- ting information from the enemy over the river. My spies have been taken or killed and many of my expedients have failed. I have opened some new leads. One is a correspondence with a man whoni you commissioned last fall to raise some men south of the river. He
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There were neither telegraphs nor telephones within its limits in those days but there were hard-riding couriers, with relays of speedy horses, and it was surprising how far and fast the news sometimes traveled. The Confederate commanders in the Red River encampments were generally posted as to the time that a Federal supply train would probably leave Fort Scott, Kansas, en route to Fort Gibson; also as to its probable size and value and as to the strength of the military escort by which it would be guarded. An expedition would then be hastily fitted out for the purpose of waylaying and capturing the wagon train before it reached Fort Gibson. As a rule such trains were reinforced by a strong detachment sent out from Fort Gibson and thus escaped capture, though several of them had to fight their way through.
One of the most picturesque events that happened in the Indian Territory during the Civil war period was the capture of a large Federal supply train at the Cabin Creek crossing on the military road, en route from Fort Scott to Fort Gibson, in September, 1864.21 The train, which consisted of 300 wagons (including 205 loaded with Government stores and ninety-one loaded with goods for the sutlers and traders), left Fort Scott on the 12th of September with an escort of 260 cavalrymen under the command of Maj. Henry Hopkins of the Second Kansas Cavalry. At Baxter Springs, a re- inforcement of fifty Cherokee cavalrymen (Third Indian Home Guard) from Fort Gibson was received.
raised a company, was enrolled by Holmes, and was offered the pleasant alternative of hanging or going back to the rebels. He, of course, chose the latter, biding his time. He is one means of communication and his company will come over when I open an- other. I have just had a spy of Cooper's in camp. She brought up news and dispatches from Scott and Sebastian counties and was recommended as a suitable spy for Cooper. He employed her and sent her over, giving her a good deal of information as to his modus operandi in getting news from my camp. She was passed over fif- teen miles below here, and came in with my dispatches in her bon- net slits; also general news. Besides news [of this post, it was] stipulated that she was to buy at the sutler's store a little coffee and a bottle of whiskey. Believing that his thirst for the latter would be almost as great as his thirst for news, I sent him the desired articles, as an additional incentive to keep up the channel of com- munication."
21 The Cabin Creek fight and the capture of the Federal wagon train occurred about four miles north of the station and Village of Pensacola, on the Missouri, Oklahoma & Gulf Railway, near the boundary line between Mayes and Craig counties.
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Just at this time Gen. Sterling Price had started northward from the Arkansas River, in Arkansas, on his memorable raid through Missouri toward Kansas City and Leavenworth. The available Confederate forces in the Indian Territory, 1,200 men of Gen. R. M. Gano's Texas Brigade and 800 men of Gen. Stand Watie's First Indian Cavalry Brigade, were selected to make a demonstration up the valley of the Grand, or Neosho River, above Fort Gibson.22 Crossing the Arkansas River about six miles above the Creek Agency, this joint expedition of 2,000 men under the command of Generals Gano and Watie, took a northeasterly course, crossed the Verdigris and struck the valley of the Grand about fifteen miles above Fort Gibson. There a Federal hay camp was found and attacked, all the members of its guard killed or captured, and 5,000 tons of hay were burned, together with wagons and mow- ing machines. From some of the prisoners taken at this point, it was learned that the big supply train was expected within a few days.
Meanwhile, the commander of the escort accompanying the train (Major Hopkins) had learned of the presence of the enemy in superior force in the road between the train and its destination, and he hastened on to the Cabin Creek crossing, where there was a stockade post guarded by a force of 170 Cherokee soldiers of the Second Indian Home Guard. He had also been reinforced by another detachment of Indian troops numbering 140 men, making an aggregate force of 610 men available for the defense of the train. Just about midnight on the 18th of September, the picket guards of the defenders were driven back to the stockade and, an hour later, a battery of artillery opened upon them, the attacking force moving forward with loud yells at the same time. The Fed- eral position was soon partially encircled and its ranks subjected to an effective cross fire. Mule teams became unmanageable and stampeded, breaking and overturning many of the wagons and adding to the confusion. Teamsters and wagon-masters, mounted upon mules from the wagon teams, beat a hasty retreat in the direc- tion of Fort Scott, making it impossible to move any of the wagons
22 The troops of General Watie's brigade which participated in this affair consisted of the following detachments: First Cherokee Regiment, 200 men (Col. C. N. Vann) ; Second Cherokee Regiment, 150 men (Maj. John Vann) ; First Creek Regiment, 125 men (Lieut. Col. Samuel Checote) ; Second Creek Regiment, 200 men (Lieut. Col. T. Barnett) ; Seminole Battalion, 130 men (Lieut. Col. John Jumper).
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to the rear. At daylight, finding it impossible to save the train, Major Hopkins withdrew the men of his command, marching east- ward to Grand River.
Gathering up the spoils of their victory, the commands of Gen- erals Gano and Watie started southward on the road. They had captured the entire train, with all of its contents, valued at $1,500,- 000. After burning the disabled wagons and killing the crippled mules, they had 130 wagons and 740 mules, all heavily loaded, new clothing for every man of the 2,000 in the expeditionary force-a veritable God-send, for many of them had been in rags-and an abundance of commissary supplies. At Pryor Creek they met a strong force of Federal infantry and artillery, which, under the command of Col. J. M. Williams, had been making a forced march from Fort Gibson to relieve the beleaguered train. This force was engaged until evening. Under cover of night the Confederate forces withdrew, marching westward to a crossing over the Verdigris near Claremore Mound. Thence it turned southward, crossing the Arkansas River at Tulsa.23
The immediate effect of this achievement was to greatly en-
. courage the Confederate forces in the Indian Territory, though it did not produce a corresponding depression on the Federal side, where the captured train was replaced in the due course of time. Though the war did not technically and formally end in the Indian Territory until ten months afterward, the fight at Cabin Creek was the last serious clash between the armed forces of the Union and the Confederacy in Oklahoma.
While these stirring events were happening in the Indian Ter- ritory, they attracted but little attention elsewhere. The Con- federacy had been sundered by the Federal occupation of the Mis- sissippi River. General Sherman was even then cleaving it again by his march from Atlanta to Savanah, while General Grant was slowly but surely pressing the Army of Northern Virginia back toward Richmond. Gen. Sterling Price had led his spectacular raid to the Missouri River and almost to the border of Kansas, only to be turned back in defeat and utter rout. Yet a few weeks later, early in November, the general council of the representatives of the tribes in alliance with the Confederate States convened once more at Armstrong Academy and resolved to stand together to the end.
23 For more detailed accounts of the Cabin Creek affair, consult the correspondence of various commanders in both armies, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. XLI, Part I, pp. 764-94.
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Then a little later came the tidings of the disaster and demoraliza- tion of General Hood's Confederate army at Nashville. The last winter of the war was one of comparative quiet in the Indian Ter- ritory, with little in the way of activity on either side.
Spring had only fairly opened when the news of the surrender of General Lee was received. There was talk of the war being pro- longed in some quarters but not to any great extent in the Indian Territory-not that the people were any less ardent in their at- tachment to the cause of the South than elsewhere, but rather that they had the hardships and privations of exile and want and misery until human flesh and blood could endure no more. And so, as the spring wore on, the soldiers who had followed Watie and Adair and the McIntosh brothers, and those who had rode forth at the command of Tandy Walker and the Folsoms and Reynolds and John Jumper, waited-waited for the war to end-waited for the time when they might return to the farms that had been laid waste and for the privilege of rebuilding the homes that had been destroyed.
Although the Choctaws had been more nearly unanimous than any of the other tribes in espousing the cause of the seceding states, they were seemingly the first to take thought for eventuali- ties in the possible downfall of the Confederacy. In the tribal election which was held some months before the end of the war, they had selected for Peter P. Pitchlynn the office of principal chief of the nation.24 Pitchlynn, who had long been regarded as one of
24 Peter P. Pitchlynn was born in Noxubee County, Mississippi, January 30, 1806. His father, a white man, was the first Govern- ment interpreter of the Choctaw Nation, having been appointed to the position during the administration of President Washington in 1786. His mother's maiden name was Sophia Folsom. (Her father, Ebenezer Folsom, was a white man, a native of North Caro- lina and of New England extraction.) Thirsting for an education before there were any schools among the Choctaws, he was sent to Tennessee where he attended an academy. Subsequently he entered the University of Nashville, where he pursued a full course and graduated. Returning home from school once as a boy, he found his people making a new treaty with the Government, some of the terms of which he so strongly disapproved that he refused to shake hands with Gen. Andrew Jackson, who was one of the Government commissioners. Although he afterward became a very warm friend of General Jackson, he never became reconciled to the treaty, which was the first of those which provided for the sale of Choctaw lands in Mississippi and for the removal of his people to the West. In 1828, although he was but little more than a youth in years, he was
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the leading men of the Choctaw Nation, made no secret of the fact that his sympathies were with the Union, though he had not actively opposed the course chosen by his people when he found that they were so nearly unanimous. Still, his selection, under the circum- stances, may be fairly regarded as indicating that the Choctaws wished to be in a position to make the best terms possible in event that the issue of the war should go against them. Nor was it a poor choice. To be sure, no man could hope to be able to over- come austerity of the great Government which felt aggrieved that the Choctaw people, whom it had always befriended, should have seen fit to turn against it in the hour of its extremity-far from it. But Pitchlynn was a farsighted, cool-headed and sagacious conn- selor, whose capacity for leadership was made manifest when it was most needed and his influence was felt far beyond the borders of the domain of his own tribe.
During the progress of the war, the Indian Territory, which was included in the District of the Frontier, had formed succes- sively a subdivision of the departments of Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas, with sometimes more or less of strife between some of them as to which should have jurisdiction.25 When the end of the
chosen as the leader of a delegation of six Indians-two Choctaws. two Chickasaws and two Muskogees-to go at the expense of the Government on a peacemaking expedition into the Osage country, west of the Mississippi. The journey was made by way of Memphis and St. Louis to Independence, Missouri. Leaving that settlement the little party made its way directly into the country of the Osages, who had been their hereditary enemies for many generations. The Osages were not inclined to consider the offer of peace at first but, in the end, the boldness and tact of the young Choctaw leader con- vinced them and the pipe of peace was smoked. He migrated to the Indian Territory with his people. He occasionally visited Wash- ington, where he was well known. He was a friend of Henry Clay and of Charles Dickens, who described him as a man of great physi- cal beauty and a natural orator. At the outbreak of the Civil war, Pitchlynn was in Washington, where he called on President Lincoln and assured him that he hoped to be able to hold the Choctaws neu- tral during the impending struggle. He is said to have remained firm in his attachment for the Union, though three sons were in the Confederate Army. As a result of the war, he lost a large amount of property, including 100 slaves. He died in the City of Washing- ton, in 1881, and was buried in the Congressional Cemetery, Gen. Albert Pike pronouncing the eulogy.
25 Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. XXXIV, Part II, letter of Gen. S. R. Curtis to the Secretary of War, pp. 443-6; letter of Gen. John M. Thayer to Gen. U. S. Grant,
.
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struggle came, while the departments of Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas were contending for the control of the Indian Territory, Maj. Gen. Francis J. Herron, in command of the Northern Division of Louisiana, with headquarters at Shreveport, complicated the situation still further by appointing Lieut. Col. Asa C. Matthews, of the Ninety-ninth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, as a commissioner to receive the surrender of the Confederate forces in the Indian Territory.26
Meanwhile, the tribal authorities had been preparing for the capitulation which was inevitable. As a result of considerable pre- liminary correspondence between the Confederate War Department and Gen. E. Kirby Smith, commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department of the Confederate Army, Maj. Israel G. Vore, Con- federate tribal agent for the Creek Nation, sent a message to the Comanches and other tribes of the Plains inviting them to meet the Confederate commissioners in council at Council Grove, on the North Canadian River, on the 15th of May.27 For some reason not explained, the council was held at Camp Napoleon on the Washita River, ten days later than the date that was originally proposed. The course of events also had the effect of changing the original purpose of the proposed council. When first planned, it was hoped to draw the Comanche and Kiowa Indians and possibly those of other tribes of the plains into an alliance with the Con- federate States, thus insuring peace on the frontier of Texas and also promising serious interference with traffic and travel on the
p. 566; letter of Gen. John M. Thayer to Gen. H. W. Halleck, pp. 631-2; letter of John Ross, Evan Jones and Daniel Ross to Lieut. Gen. U. S. Grant, Ibid., Vol. XLVIII, Part I, pp. 1237-8.
26 General Herron apparently appointed Colonel Matthews as a commissioner to treat with the Confederate authorities in the Indian Territory because of an understanding that there was to be an in- tertribal council held at Doaksville or Fort Towson, on the 10th of May. As he mentions General Throckmorton and Colonel Reagan, the Confederate commissioners who had been appointed to meet the Indians of the Plains tribes, it is evident that he was acting under a misapprehension, as the council with the Comanches and other tribes was to be held at Council Grove, on the North Canadian, five days after the date specified by him .- Letter of Gen. F. J. Herron to Gen. N. P. Banks, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. XLVIII, Part II, p. 818.
27 Council Grove is a growth of upland oak timber, six miles west of Oklahoma City.
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overland trails in Kansas and Nebraska.28 The surrender of Gen- eral Lee's army necessarily led to a modification of the last men- tioned phase of the proposition.29 No record of the proceedings of the council at Camp Napoleon has been published but a copy of the compact entered into by the tribes in alliance with the Con- federacy with those of the plains gives some idea of the character of its deliberations.30 A number of white women and children who
. 28 Letters of Gen. Douglas H. Cooper and Gen. E. Kirby Smith, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. XLVIII, Part II, p. 1306.
29 Letter of Gen. Douglas H. Cooper to Gen. James W. Throck- morton, Ibid., pp. 1307-8.
30 The text of the compact made and entered into at Camp Napoleon was as follows :
"Whereas, the history of the past admonishes the Red man that his once great and powerful race is rapidly passing away as the snow beneath the summer sun, our people of the mighty nations of our forefathers many years ago having been as numerous as the leaves of the forest or the stars of the heavens; but now, by the vicissitudes of time and change and misfortune and the cvils of dis- union, discord and war among themselves, are but a wreck of their former greatness; their vast and lovely country and the beautiful hunting grounds, abounding in all the luxuries and necessities of life and happiness, given to them by the Great Spirit, having no known limits but the shores of the great waters and the horizon of the heavens, is now, on account of our weakness, being reduced and hemmed into a small and precarious country that we can scarcely call our own and in which we cannot remain in safety and pursue our peaceful avocations, nor can we visit the bones and graves of our kindred so dear to our hearts and sacred to our memories, to pay the tribute of respect unless we run the risk of being murdered by our more powerful enemies ; and
"Whereas, there are still in the timbered countries, on the plains and in the mountains, many nations and bands of our people, which, if united, would present a body that would afford sufficient strength to command respect and assert and maintain our rights, therefore, we, the Cherokees, Choctaws, Muskogees, Seminoles, Chickasaws, Reserve Caddos, Reserve Osages and Reserve Comanches, Compris- ing the Confederate Indian tribes and allies of the Confederate States, of the First Part, and our brothers of the Plains, the Kio- was, Arapahocs, Chivans (Cheyennes), Lipans, and the several bands of the Comanches (the Noconies, Co-cho-te-kas. Le-na-weets, Yampankas [Yampiracas] and Mootchas), and Jim Pock Mark's band of Caddos and Anadarkoes, of the Second Part, do, for the peace and happiness and the preservation of our race, make and enter into the following league and compact, towit :
"Article I. Peace and friendship shall forever exist between the
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had been carried off from the frontier settlements of Texas by the Comanches and Kiowas, were liberated, by ransom or otherwise, at the council.
tribes and bands parties to this compact. The ancient council fires of our forefathers, already kindled by our brothers of the timbered countries, shall be kept kindled and blazing by brotherly love, until their smoke shall ascend to the Spirit Land to invoke the blessing of the Great Spirit on all our good works. The tomahawk shall be forever buried. The scalping knife shall be forever broken. The warpath heretofore leading from one tribe or band to another shall grow up and become as the wild wilderness. The path of peace shall be opened from one tribe or band to another, and kept open and traveled in friendship, so that it may become white and brigliten as time rolls on, and so that our children in all time to come may travel no other road, and never shall it be stained by the blood of our brothers.
"Article II. The parties to this compact shall compose (as our undersigned brothers of the timbered country, of the First Part, have already done) an Indian confederacy or band of brothers, hav- ing for its object the peace, the happiness and the protection of all alike and the preservation of our race. In no case shall the war- path be opened to settle any difficulty or dispute which may herc- after arise between any of the tribes or bands parties to this compact or individuals thereof. All difficulties shall be settled without the shedding of any blood and by suggestion of the chiefs and headmen of the tribes, bands or persons interested. The motto or great prin- ciple of the Confederated Indian tribes shall be, 'An Indian shall not spill an Indian's blood.'
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