Native American Mounted Rifleman 1861-65 by Mark Lardas

Author:Mark Lardas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Native American Mounted Rifleman 1861–65
ISBN: 9781782000631
Publisher: Osprey Publishing

A nighttime bivouac by members of the Union Indian regiments during the First Indian Expedition. (Potter Collection)

This reluctance was motivated, in part, because the Indians regarded Pea Ridge as an attempt to acquire land outside the Indian Territory. It might help the South strategically, but the Indians tended to view it as an attempt to lure them into a war in which they had no interest.

At Newtonia and Poison Springs the pattern was different. Both of those battles were fought to blunt Union drives into the Indian Territory through western Arkansas. The Union had invaded the Indian Territory once by the time Newtonia was fought, and although they had withdrawn, the Indians participated at Newtonia in the spirit that the best place to defend your home was in a back yard other than your own. Similarly, at Poison Springs, the Choctaws and Chickasaw were trying to protect the Red River valley from Union invasion.

The Union Indians were more willing to fight outside the Indian Territory. They started their war in Kansas, and had begged to be permitted to fight. “We had not come here to live at the expense of the government,” Opothleyohola appealed. “Send to us ammunition and transportation as early as possible – we ask no more.” When the Federal government finally raised Indian regiments, they fought wherever they were asked to fight. They preferred fighting in the Indian Territory, but through most of 1862 and early 1863 they were forced to fight outside it, until the Union finally secured Fort Gibson.

Initially, conditions for the two first Union Indian regiments were primitive. They set out from Kansas with no regimental baggage. They lacked tents, cooking pots, and other regimental equipment. They had no surgeons or medical supplies, and were dependent upon the accompanying white regiments for medical care. Watcher spent his nights sleeping under the stars or, when time permitted, in a brush lean-to assembled at the end of the day. His meals on this campaign were equally Spartan. He received biscuit – hard tack – and a piece of raw beef, which he had to cook on a stick over a campfire. By Newtonia in October 1862, the Union Indians had acquired both tents and cooking pots. While conditions improved over the course of the war, the Union Indians seemed to be perpetually at the end of the supply line.

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