The Black Dog Trail by Tillie Karns Newman

Author:Tillie Karns Newman [Newman, Tillie Karns]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781839743818
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Barakaldo Books
Published: 2020-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

XII—THE CHEROKEES, TOO, HAVE WAR TROUBLES

The pressure from the South on the Cherokee Nation became too strong to be resisted, and on October 7, 1861, a treaty was concluded at Talequah, with General Albert Pike, Commissioner for the Confederate States, by which the Cherokee Nation cast its lot with the Confederacy, as the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, Osages, Comanches, and several smaller tribes had already done.

The Cherokee regiments were raised for the Confederate service, under command of Stan Watie and Colonel Drew, respectively, the former being commissioned as Brigadier-General. They participated in several engagements, chief among them being the battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, on March 2, 1862.

In the following summer the Union forces entered the Cherokee Country and sent a proposition to Chief John Ross, urging him to repudiate the treaty with the Confederate States, but the offer was indignantly declined. Shortly afterward, however, the men of Drew’s regiment, finding themselves unpaid and generally neglected by their allies, went over almost in a body to the Union side, thus compelling Ross to make an arrangement with the Union Commander, Colonel Weir.

Leaving the Cherokee Country, Chief Ross retired to Philadelphia from which he did not return until the close of the war.

In the meantime, Indian Territory was ravaged alternately by contending factions and armed bodies,—thousands of loyal fugitives were obliged to take refuge in Kansas, where they were cared for by the government. Among those, at the end of 1862, were two thousand Cherokees. In the following spring, they were sent back to their homes under armed escort, to give them an opportunity to put in a crop, seeds and took being furnished for that purpose. They had hardly begun work when they were forced to retire by the approach of Stan Watie and his regiment of Confederate Cherokees, estimated at seven hundred braves. Stan Watie and his men scoured the country, destroying or carrying off everything to the loyal Cherokees who had gone to Fort Gibson. There were seven thousand of them who took refuge at the Fort, seeking protection. The government, however, at that time was unable to do much for them.

Their accumulations of twenty years were swept away by this guerilla warfare. They lost over 300,000 head of livestock alone.

The events of the war brought more desolation and ruin to them than any other community. They were raided and sacked alternately, not only by the Confederate and Union forces, but by the vindictive hate of their own factional divisions. Their country became a blackened and desolate waste. Driven from comfortable homes, exposed to want, misery, and the elements, they perished like sheep in a snow storm. Everything they possessed was burned and only ghostly chimneys arose from the virgin prairie to point that they once lived there. After five years of war, the Cherokees found that their numbers had been reduced from 21,000 to 14,000 and their country was in ashes.

On June 10, 1863, Superintendent Coffin of the Osage Indian Agency, wrote: “The Great and Little Osage

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.