Chaplain Lewis Downing of the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles awoke at the dawn of a new day, December 9, 1861. He stood amidst officers of the Creek and Cherokee Nations in what was to become the Kansas Indian Regiments of the Army of the United States of America. Among the warriors lay free Africans, maroons, and fugitive slaves from the Deep South hoping to move "on to Kansas" and freedom on the border. There were many battles yet to come. For this morning, Chaplain Downing felt safe.
Across the cornfield lay what was left of the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles of the Army of the Confederate States of America, under the leadership of Colonel John Drew. Behind Colonel Drew's men lay the secessionist troops of Albert Pike's "Indian brigades," including the First Choctaw and Chickasaw Regiment, the Choctaw Battalion, the First Creek Regiment and the Second Cherokee Mounted Rifles under Colonel Stand Watie. On the other side of the Confederate Army lay Chaplain Downing's home, his family, and the rest of the Cherokee Nation.
It was the issue of slavery that ripped the Cherokee Nation asunder leading up to the Civil War, but it was also something older and much deeper. Deep within the "Kituwah Spirit" was an ideal of a free and independent Cherokee Nation founded upon the "old ways" of liberty, equality, and community. These old ideas were being challenged by a modernist movement among the elite, a movement that supported a nation based upon the institution of slavery, racial inequality, and radical individualism. As he looked about him, Chaplain Downing could see the effects of this crisis among the people that were his flock. However, he also saw within the people the face of that new nation founded upon the ancient principles of the "old ways."
The rich tapestry of colors amongst those who surrounded him reminded Chaplain Downing of the gospel message of equality brought to the Cherokee by the missionaries John Marrant, Uncle Reuben, Monday Durrant, and John B. Jones. Chaplain Downing, an ordained Baptist minister, had found confirmation in the gospel for that which had been a critical element in the "old ways" of the Cherokee Nation: all humanity has a common origin and, ultimately, a collective responsibility. In the bonds of the "beloved community" of the Keetoowah Society lay the faith that would lead these fugitives to form a new Cherokee Nation.
When Colonel John Drew of the Confederate Cherokee stepped from his tent in the middle of that night, he discovered that only about sixty of his original force of nearly five hundred men remained in his camp. Presuming an impending attack from his "loyal" troops, Colonel Drew began to saddle his horse and ordered his remaining men to set themselves for a strategic withdrawal. As he was preparing a quick retreat, Captain Pickens Benge rode up exclaiming, "We had better be off, as the enemy are upon us."154 As the remainder of Drew's Confederate Cherokee were riding hurriedly off to the Southeast to rejoin Colonel Cooper and his troops, Major Thomas Pegg and his peace delegation returned to Camp Melton to find it abandoned.
In his report to Colonel Cooper, Drew cited the circumstances of the Keetoowah "dispersion" as being, "The causes which led to the dispersion of the regiment arose from a misconception of the character of the conflict between the Creeks, from an indisposition on their part to engage is strife with their immediate neighbors, and from the panic gotten up by the threatened attack upon us. The regiment will be promptly filled and ready for service."155 When Colonel Douglas Cooper learned of the Keetoowah betrayal, he immediately called for his drummers to beat the "long roll" and his troops turned out on the double. He then sent Drew and his remaining twenty-eight Confederate Cherokee to salvage what was left of their former encampment. Cooper and his troops then withdrew down the east bank of Bird Creek to await reinforcements from Watie's Cherokee, as well as soldiers from the Creek Nation, Seminole Nation, and Choctaw Nation.
The next morning, Cooper and his troops of the Confederate States of America would attack the people of the United Nations of the Indian Territory; the Southern Baptists, Southern Methodists, and Presbyterians would fight against the "dogs" 156 of the Northern Baptist churches. The progressives would reap their revenge on the traditionalists and the "Knights of the Golden Circle" would vanquish the lowly "Keetoowah." In the end, brother would fight against brother. Years later, a historian would describe as arising within a conflict in Cherokee Lodge #21, where "a coolness that had grown out of different attitudes toward the war.... some of the leading members of the lodge sympathized with the North."157
On December 9, 1861 the Civil War within the Indian Nation began in earnest. One of the participants tells the story:
The McIntosh men got nearly everybody to side with them about the Civil War, but we Negroes got word somehow that the Cherokees over back of Ft. Gibson was not going to be in the War, that there was some Union people over there who would help slaves to get away, but we children didn't know nothing about what we heard our parents whispering about, and they would stop if they heard us listening. Most of the Creeks who lived in our part of the country...belonged to the Lower Creeks and sided with the South, but down below us along the Canadian River they were the Upper Creeks and there was a good deal of talk about them going with the North. Some of the Negroes tried to get away and go down with them, but I don't know of any from our neighborhood that went to them. Some Upper Creeks came up into Choska bottoms talking around among the folks there about siding with the North. They were talking, they said, for old man Gouge, who was a big man among the Upper Creeks. His name was Opoeth-le-ya-hola, and he got away into Kansas with a big bunch of Creeks and Seminoles during the War. I asked mammy where everybody had gone and she said, "Up to Mr. Mose's house where we are going. He's calling us all in." "Will pappy be up there too?" I asked her. "No. Your pappy and your Uncle Hector and Your Uncle William and a lot of the menfolks won't be here any more. They went away. That's why Mr. Mose is so mad, so if any of you younguns say anything about any strange men coming to our place I'll break your necks. 158
and another:
They called the old Creek, who was leaving for the North, "Old Gouge." All our family join up with him, and there was lots of Creek Indians and slaves in the outfit when they made a break for the North. The runaways was riding ponies stolen from their masters. When they get to the hilly country farther north in that country that belonged to the Cherokee Indians, they made a big camp on a big creek and there the Rebel Indian soldiers caught up, but they was fought back.
The Creek Indians and the slaves with them tried to fight off them soldiers like they did before, but they get scattered around and separated so they lose the battle. Lost their horses and wagons, and the soldiers killed lots of Creeks and Negroes, and some of the slaves were captured and carried back to their masters....Dead all over the hills when we get away; some of the Negroes shot and wounded so bad the blood run down the saddle skirts, and some fell off their horses miles from the battle ground, and lay still on the ground. 159
The Battle of Bird's Creek raged for four hours with repeated advances and retreats from both sides, but Opothle Yahola's position at a horseshoe bend in the creek was quite difficult to overcome for the Confederate forces. One of those who was with Opothle Yahola was Pig Smith, father of Redbird Smith - one of the founders of the Nighthawk Keetoowahs. It is speculated the entire Smith family fled with Opothle Yahola to Kansas. Janey Hendrix describes the situation: "Redbird Smith was exactly ten years and four months old at the time of the battle of Round Mountain and there is the possibility that he saw it all. This battle had a profound effect upon the Indians who perceived it as further proof of the perfidity and viciousness of the white man." 160
In many instances, the battle was fought not just with powder and bullets, but at close range with fists and knives as Texan and Indian fought hand to hand. The Keetoowah fought with tremendous determination. Alligator, a muscolge from Florida, would fight in the tradition that made the "black Seminole" a legend, "An old warrior fired upon a party of eight or ten from behind a tree. The men did not wish to kill him, and even used entreaties to induce him to surrender; but, with death imminent, he continued to load his old rifle with a sublime indifference never attained by the Cynic philosophers of Greece, and having loaded he coolly proceeded with the priming, when his admiring foes were compelled to dash out his old brave life." 161
The results of the battle were inconclusive militarily, yet painful and bloody. The Confederates had lost fifteen killed and thirty-seven wounded; Opothle Yahola had lost twenty-seven killed and several hundred wounded. When darkness fell, Opothle Yahola and his forces retreated to the Osage Hills of the Cooweescoowee District of the Cherokee Nation. In their hasty retreat, the renegades left many of their supplies including the largest part of their ammunition. They also left much more, "One time we saw a little baby sitting on a little blanket in the woods. Everyone was running because an attack was expected and no one had the time to stop and pick up the child. As it saw people running by, the little child began to wave its little hands. The child had no knowledge that it had been deserted."162
In the ensuing turmoil and conflict of allegiances, there were few ways to detect enemy from friend, Northerner from Southerner. The only way that the "loyal Indians" could define themselves was by the means and mechanisms of the Keetoowah Society. In the absence of uniforms, the "shuck badge" became the emblem of freedom; it also became a badge of subversion. As Colonel Cooper reported, "a body of Cherokees from Fort Gibson, about 100, who passed up the previous evening, had put on the "shuck badge" (Hopoeithleyohola's) and gone direct to his camp at Shoal Creek, I was impressed with the necessity of placing the force under my command as soon as possible in position to counteract any movement among the people to aid Hopoeithleyohola and his Northern allies." 163
On Christmas Day, 1861, Colonel Stand Watie and his Second Cherokee Mounted Rifles finally joined with Cooper's troops. The following day, the combined armies attacked the renegades led by Seminole war chief Hallek Tustenuggee. More reinforcements from Texas and Arkansas arrived and the combined forces of the Confederacy defeated Opothle Yahola's renegades who had been weakened by fight and flight and they were forced to retreat. Colonel James McIntosh, West Point graduate, reported that 250 of Opothle Yahola's followers were killed, and 160 women and children, 20 Negroes, 30 wagons, 70 yoke of oxen, 500 horses, and several hundred head of livestock were captured.164
Not content with defeating the Keetoowah, the Knights of the Golden Circle pursued Opothle Yahola's followers as they fled, raining death upon them at every occasion for more than twenty-five miles. Stand Watie's troops massacred nearly one hundred "Union Indians" without taking a single loss in a series of running fights from the site of the Battle of Patriot Hills. Elias Boudinot described his forces' hunger for the engagement, "Every man seemed anxious to be foremost, and the charges made upon the enemy over rocks, mountains, and valleys -- the roughest country I ever saw -- were made with the utmost enthusiasm, and with irresistible impetuosity."165
In spite of concerns in the Confederate papers regarding the potential danger of the "the Yankee abolitionist" Opothle Yahola, he and his 4,000 warriors were routed:
We cannot adequately depict the scenes that followed in consequence of the failure to obtain help from the Federal Army, as seven thousand loyal Indians, driven before a foe, infuriated by defeat, and strongly reinforced. With their eyes turned toward the North, ever hoping for succor, the warriors battled in the rear covering the retreat, while the old men, with women, and children, half starved, half clothed, bare footed waded through the frozen snows, and breasted the keen winds on the prairie. Never will their sufferings be known. Frozen Hands and feet - starved and emaciated frames - swift fevers and lingering diseases filling a thousand premature graves, all bear witness to their patriotic sufferings. 166
Confederate Indian Agent Albert Pike was pleased to hear of the quelling of this rebellion and the determined pursuit of his brother Mason, Opothle Yahola, the "rebel."167 Joseph S. Murrow, Confederate Indian Agent and Southern Baptist missionary at the new Ebenezer Baptist Church, described the pursuits of the soldiers, "He later, from Scullyville, wrote interesting letters, wholly lacking in compassion for the refugees, describing the pursuit of Opothleyahola's people to within ten miles of the Kansas line. He said that the country they went through was laid waste. Indian settlements and towns where formerly a contented and prosperous people lived, were ruined and destroyed, houses and barns burned, stock killed or driven off. Murrow, he says, termed the whole enterprise an effort to cut down a 'rebellion of Opothleyahola's action' " 168
On January 1, 1862, the weather turned bitter cold and a sleet storm allowed the Confederate Soldiers to more easily track the renegades, who by now were within miles of the mythical "Kansas." To protect themselves from the elements, the renegades had pitched their tents at the foot of a tall bluff on the Arkansas River; the Confederates swept down upon them, killing one man and taking twenty-one prisoners, all women and children. The weather was bitterly cold and there were no provisions to be had for either side, "The fatiguing scout of seven days... was endured with great fortitude by the officers and men under my command. Its results were 6 of the enemy killed and 150 prisoners taken, mostly women and children, the total dispersing in the direction of Walnut Creek, Kansas, of Hopoeithleyahola's forces and people, thus securing the repose of the frontier for the winter." 169
Finally arriving on the other side of the line in Kansas, the surviving Keetoowah, led by the "arch old traitor" Opothle Yahola, gathered to lick their wounds. Nearly five thousand Creek, Cherokee, Seminoles and Africans made camp near Leroy in East Central Kansas. Kansas had made no provisions for the refugees and the six weeks of fighting in the bitter cold had taken its toll. An army surgeon who visited the refugees found them lying on the frozen ground with little or no shelter.
Influenza and disease swept among the Indians with circumstances being beyond the control of the neighboring citizens, government, or military officials. More than one hundred frozen limbs had to be amputated. Mass graves covered the ground.170 The army surgeon reporting on their condition wrote, "Why the officers of the Indian Department are not doing something for them, I cannot understand; common humanity demands that something be done, and done at once to save them from total destruction."171
Chief Opothle Yahola lay under a tent made by a blanket so spare that it failed to reach the ground by nearly two feet. Once he had been a rich man, the owner of a vast plantation, and a prominent member of the Creek Nation. Now he lived little differently from those for whom he would have given up this life. No longer in his possession was a letter from Abraham Lincoln's Indian Agent E.H. Carruth that he had received in September of 1861. Somehow, in the confusion of flight, the letter had been lost. It had stated:
BROTHER: Your letter by Micco Hutka is received. You will send a delegation of your best men to meet the commissioner of the United States Government in Kansas. I am authorized to inform you that the President will not forget you. Our Army will soon go South, and those of your people who are true and loyal to the Government will be treated as friends. Your rights to property will be respected. The commissioners from the Confederate States have deceived you. They have two tongues. They wanted to get the Indians to fight, and they would rob and plunder you if they can get you into trouble. But the President is still alive. His soldiers
will soon drive these men who have violated your homes from the land they have treacherously entered. When your delegates return to you they will be able to inform you when and where your moneys will be paid. Those who stole your orphan funds will be punished, and you will learn that the people who are true to the Government which so long protected you are your friends.
Your friend and brother,
E. H. CARRUTH,
Commissioner of U. S. Government 172
In late January, at the request of Commissioner William P. Dole, Federal Indian Agent George Collamore and Baptist missionary Evan Jones visited the now ten thousand refugees at their camp in southern Kansas. Reverend Jones was there to see what could be done to assist the plight of the renegade Keetoowah, but he also sought information from the assembled as to what had led to this terrible state of affairs in the Cherokee Nation. In his report to Commissioner Dole, Collamore described the flight of the Keetoowah into Kansas and their condition upon his finding them, "The women and children suffered severely from frozen limbs, as did the men. Such coverings as I saw were made of the rudest manner, being composed of pieces of cloth, old quilts, handkerchiefs, aprons, etc. etc., stretched upon sticks, and so limited were many of them in size that they were scarcely able to cover the emaciated and dying forms beneath them. Under such shelter I found, in the last stages of consumption, the daughter of Opothleyahola, one of the oldest, most influential, and wealthy chiefs of the Creek Nation." 173
Reverend Evan Jones also traveled among the several thousand renegades that now constituted the bulk of his mission. He solicited help for the dispossessed from among the local churches and the supporters of his mission at the American Baptist Missionary Union, "I have lately received a good deal of information from the Cherokee Nation, all favorable to the faithfulness and loyalty of John Ross and the body of the Cherokee people...In daily visiting the camps of the Indians, I witness a vast amount of destitution and suffering, and it is painful to think how little I can do towards its alleviation. I am glad to hear such good news about Missionary contributions coming in. I hope it will continue." 174
Among the Baptists, and especially among the Keetoowah, Jones inquired as to what could lead his old friend John Ross to capitulate to the Confederacy. Jones wrote to Commissioner Dole of his findings regarding John Ross, ."And since I have had free conversations with the Cherokee messengers from Opothleyahola's camp, about the events which have transpired with the last few months, I am satisfied that I was not mistaken in Ross's character, and -- that whatever unfavorable shade may rest on his movements, is the result of causes beyond his control." 175
Years later, Evan Jones would describe those forces upon the Cherokee and the resistance among the Keetoowah in a letter to the American Baptist Missionary Union:
...for several years past, efforts have been made in various forms, to extend the power of slavery among them, and other Indian tribes. In this work there have been engaged commissioners and superintendents of Indian affairs, Indian agents, emissaries of secret societies, -- such as the Knights of the Golden Circle, members of the Blue Lodges, missionaries under the patronage of religious bodies, pro-slavery politicians and their satellites, hireling presses in the pay of slave interest; together with the Commissioners of the States of Arkansas and Texas; voluntary commities of influential private men; and from the government of seceded states, their commissioner and superintendent of Indian affairs and Indian agent. All these have been earnest and indefatiguable in their endeavors to bring the Cherokees over to the side of the rebellion. But they stood up firmly for their
principles and their rights, and would have put down, and kept down, the rebellion among themselves, even in the absence of the pledged protection of the United States. And they were forced into an unwilling surrender by the power of a rebel army, which they were in no condition to resist. And the result was, the conclusion of a treaty under the dictation of Confederate officers [Pike]. But the hearts of the people were not in it. And though brought under the control of the rebellion, they continued to cherish their loyalty to the government of the United States.176