UNION AND CONFEDERATE INDIANS IN THE CIVIL WAR.

BY WILEY BRITTON.

ELKHORN TAVERN. PEA RIDGE.FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

T HE Cherokee, Creek,Choctaw, Chickasaw,and Seminole tribeswere the only In-dian tribes whotook an active partin the civil war.Before the war veryfew of the Indiansof these tribes mani-fested any interestin the question ofslavery, and only a small number owned slave prop-erty. Slavery among them was not regarded inthe same light as among the whites, for in manyinstances the slaves acted as if they were on anequality with their masters. But the tribes namedoccupied valuable territory, and the Confederateauthorities lost no time in sending agents amongthem to win them over. When the Confederateagents first approached the full-blood leaders ofthe Cherokee and Creek tribes on the subject ofsevering their relations with the United States ,the Indians expressed themselves cautiously butdecidedly as preferring to remain neutral.

Conspicuous among those who took a decidedstand against organizing the Indians to oppose theFederal Government was Hopoeithleyoliola, theold chief of the Creek tribe. The Confederateagents had succeeded in winning over ex-ChiefMcIntosh, by appointing him colonel, but, per-haps, two-thirds of the people preferred to beguided by the advice of their venerable old chief,Hopoeithleyoliola.

In the fall of 1861, Colonel Douglas H. Cooper,commanding the department of Indian operationsunder authority from the Confederate Govern-ment, made several ineffectual efforts to have aconference with the old chief for the purpose ofeffecting a peaceful settlement of the difficultiesthat were dividing the nation into two hostilecamps. Finding Hopoeithleyohola unwavering inhis loyalty to the United States , Colonel Cooperdetermined to force him into submission, destroyhis power, or drive him out of the country, andat once commenced collecting forces, composedmostly of white troops, to attack him. In Novem-ber and December, 1861, the battles of ChustoTalasah and Chustenahlah were fought, and theloyal Indians finally were defeated and forced toretire to Kansas in midwinter.

In the spring of 1862 the United States Govern-ment sent an expedition of five thousand menunder Colonel William Weer, 10th Kansas In-fantry, into the Indian Territory to drive out theConfederate forces of Pike and Cooper, and to re-store the refugee Indians to their homes. After

a short action at Locust Grove, near Grand Sa-line, Cherokee Nation , July 2d, Colonel Weer’scavalry captured Colonel Clarkson and part of hisregiment of Missourians. On the 16th of JulyCaptain Greeno, 6th Kansas Cavalry, capturedTahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation ,and on the 19th of July Colonel Jewell, 6th Kan-sas Cavalry, captured Fort Gibson, the most im-portant point in the Indian Territory.

The Confederate forces were now driven out ofall that part of the Indian country north of theArkansas Iiiver, and the loyal Indians of the Cher-okee , Creek, and Seminole nations were organized,by authority of the United States Government,into three regiments, each fully a thousand strong,for the defense of their country. The colonel andpart of the field and line officers of each regimentwere white officers. Most of the captains of com-panies were Indians. Colonel William A. Phillips ,of Kansas , who was active in organizing these In-dian regiments, commanded the Indian brigadefrom its organization to the close of the war. Hetook part with his Indian troops in the action atLocust Grove, C. N., and in the battles of New-tonia, Mo. , Maysville, Ark., Prairie Grove, Ark.,Honey Springs, C. N., Perryville, C. N., besidesmany other minor engagements.

In all the operations in which they participatedthey acquitted themselves creditably, and to thesatisfaction of the Federal commander in the In-dian Territory.

On the Confederate side, General Albert Pike andColonel Douglas H. Cooper, in the fall and winterof 1861, organized three regiments of Indiansfrom the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee , Creek,and Seminole nations or tribes, for service in theIndian Territory. These regiments, under Gen-eral Pike , participated in the battle of Pea Ridge,Ark., on the 7tli and 8th of March, 1862. In thefive tribes named a battalion and parts of fourregiments were raised for the Confederate service,but these amounted in all to perhaps not over3500 men.

At the close of Mr. Buchanan’s administrationnearly all the United States Indian agents in theIndian Territory were secessionists, and the mo-ment the Southern States commenced passingordinances of secession, these men exerted theirinfluence to get the five tribes committed to theConfederate cause. Occupying territory south ofthe Arkansas River , and having the secessionistsof Arkansas on the east and those of Texas on thesouth for neighbors, the Choctaws and Chickasawsoffered no decided opposition to the scheme. Withthe Cherokees , the mostpowerful and most civilizedof the tribes of the Indian Territory, it was differ-ent. Their chief, John Ross , was opposed to

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