Indian Territory, 1861-1865: The Forts, The Battles, The Soldiers

Indian Territory, 1861-1865: The Forts, The Battles, The Soldiers; by Ethel Crisp Taylor; 622 pp; Paper; 5.5x8.5; Published: 2010; ISBN: 9780788433986; Item # HBT3398

In 1861, the area of present-day Oklahoma was known as “Indian Territory,” populated by Sovereign Nations. About 60,000 Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole Indians resided in the Territory with 1,500 white men married to Indian women, and 10,000 Negro slaves. An estimated 2,500 Osage, Caddo, Wichita, Shawnee, and Delaware were part of the Indian Territory population and approximately 3,000 Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho were located in the western part of Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle, southeast Colorado and southwest Kansas. Of these people, 8,000 plus served the Union in the three Indian Home Guard Regiments and 15,000 plus served the Confederacy. Indian Territory supplied a larger percentage of her population to the cause, second only to Virginia, than any other Confederate state. Given the task of keeping invading Federal armies out of Texas, Indian Territory suffered more destruction and loss of civilian life than any state in the Confederacy. But the Indians held the line; the Federals were never able to reach the Red River. Unlike the rest of the Confederacy, the Indian troops became more successful after July 1863. The majority of the Indian Division of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi was still in the field and undefeated in June 1865. This book will bring to light the names of many of the "nameless" soldiers who fought in the Civil War. A number of the Confederate units’ rosters have been lost. The remaining rosters have been used for this book. The three Union Indian Home Guard Regiments are listed, as are the available lists of the Union pensions that were applied for in 1871 at Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation. This book grew out of the research for previous books, Dust in the Wind: The Civil War in Indian Territory and Shifting Winds of War: Indian Territory, 1861-1865. It contains photos and information on the forts, maps, location of the battles and the remaining rosters of both Confederate and Union troops. It also contains the treaties between the Confederate States and the Indian Nations.