Back home, Principal Chief Ross struggled to maintain control over a Cherokee Nation that was spinning hopelessly out of control. Confronted with the fact that the very troops he had commissioned into military service had deserted to Kansas, Ross found his leadership and loyalty to the Confederate States of America called seriously into question. Stand Watie and the Knights of the Golden Circle had not only gained a strategic advantage by the Keetoowah's desertion, they were using the desertion to increase their own political and social standing within the Cherokee Nation. In addition to accusing the Keetoowah of spoiling the good name of the Cherokee people before their Confederate allies, the Knights even charged Ross with having protected some of the deserters in his home.26
Some deserters were, indeed, returning to the Cherokee Nation and attempting to reintegrate themselves into Cherokee society. Others went home to gather up what materials they had and to retreat to Kansas. Upon learning of Colonel Cooper's intent to court-martial the deserters, Ross begged him to be allowed to handle this situation himself. He explained to Cooper that he was responsible for the confusion because of his efforts at reconciliation with Opothle Yahola. He also stressed the terms of the treaty with the Confederacy that the Cherokee soldiers would be required to fight only in defense of their homeland. He believed that asking the Confederate Cherokee to assault the fleeing renegades went against this policy. Through deft discourse and diplomacy, Ross was able to persuade Cooper to allow him to handle the affair as he best saw fit.27
Ross reassembled Drew's regiment on December 19, 1861, and addressed the troops as Colonel Cooper and Major Thomas Pegg stood by his side. He began by chastising those among Drew's regiment who had deserted the Confederacy, but promised a pardon to those who agreed to return to the regiment. He then asserted that the treaty that the Cherokee people had secured with the Confederate States of America was perhaps the best that could be expected under the circumstances. The desertion was all a misunderstanding, "According to the stipulations of our treaty [with the Confederacy] we must meet enemies of our allies whenever the South requires it, as they are our enemies as well as the enemies of the south; and I feel sure that no such occurrence as the one we deplore would have taken place if all things were understood as I have endeavored to explain them."28 In spite of Ross's call to Drew's regiment to recognize the treaty with the Confederacy, the plea fell upon many a deaf ear; even Major Pegg could not rally the remaining Keetoowah to recognize the Confederate treaties. Many of the Keetoowah deserted the army and simply went home. Yet, the danger at home was as great as that on the battlefield. 29
In late December, as Watie's troops were pursuing the fleeing Opothle Yahola north to Kansas, the Civil War was also brought home to those "Pins" who had remained at home. Chunestotie, one of the leaders of the Keetoowah, was murdered and scalped by Charles Webber, the nephew of Colonel Stand Watie. Chunestotie had deserted Drew's regiment before the battle of Bird's Creek, had fought with Opothle Yahola against the Confederate troops, and had returned to the Nation under Ross's amnesty. Chunestotie, a well known "Pin," had also been part of a struggle over the Confederate flag being raised over the Cherokee Council House in August.30 Chunestotie was killed for his part in the preservation of the "old ways."
Colonel Drew called the murder of Chunestotie a "barbarous crime" and called for the arrest and trial of Webber. The Keetoowah held Watie and the Knights of the Golden Circle responsible for the murder. Stand Watie called the murder "regretful" but said that his nephew was "beside himself with liquor" at the time. He also stated that the Ross party was just trying to make political hay of an unfortunate but entirely understandable incident.
Around the same time, Arch Snail, another of the Keetoowah deserters from Drew's troops who had returned home, was killed by his own pistol. Watie's followers claimed that Snail had tried to ambush them and they were forced to kill him.31 Ross wrote to Colonel Cooper, urging him to investigate "certain complaints made against the reckless proceedings of Colonel Watie and some of his men towards Cherokee citizens," and demanded Cooper's immediate "attention to the Subjects therein embraced."32 Cooper was little inclined to pursue charges against his most dedicated cavaliers.
Stand Watie, in responding to Cooper's inquiry regarding the murders, was incredulous. The murder of Chunestotie, Watie sardonically replied, "is called a barbarous crime and shocks the sensitive nerves of Colonel Drew, Mr. Ross, and others, who of course never participated in the shedding of innocent blood."33 He further went on to lay out his contempt for Chunestotie and the Keetoowah, "Chunestotie has been for years hostile to Southern people and their institutions; he was active last summer in repressing Southern movements with a strong hand, with the advice and assistance of Capt. John Ross `who accompanied you in your recent expedition.' He went at the head of many others of like opinion to Tahlequah last summer for the avowed purpose of butchering any and all who should attempt to raise a southern flag -- the flag was not raised as you remember..." 34
Watie concluded by stating that he was "well aware that the personal relations of myself with the unfortunate faction is seized upon with avidity by those whose only ambition seem to be to misrepresent and injure me."35 Cooper's half-hearted investigation of Webber probably resulted from his disinterest in prosecuting those who would kill an enemy of the Confederacy. However, his inaction resulted in an increasingly clandestine internal warfare between the Keetoowah and the Knights of the Golden Circle. The losses on both sides would be great.
Drew's regiment was the only thing that stood between John Ross and his enemies. Ross began to refer to them as "my regiment," and those Keetoowah who remained in the Cherokee Nation were tied closely to Ross. Not only did they protect Ross, but they also worked against Watie and his Knights of the Golden Circle in their efforts to solidify the Cherokee Nation within the Confederate States of America. On January 11, 1862, Colonel Drew's troops left Fort Gibson to go to Ross's home at Park Hill in order to "protect Chief Ross, that it was thought that he was not safe."36 The troops were called to Park Hill because John Ross had been threatened by "a drunk boy [who] goes there, calls him a Pin and an abolitionist."37
Ross's problems with this "drunk boy" were not only just the fear the he might become another victim of someone "beside himself with liquor." There were deeper issues here. The boy was Return Foreman, the nephew of Reverend Stephen Foreman, Pastor of Park Hill Presbyterian Church. Foreman was Ross's closest neighbor and a follower of Stand Watie. The Foreman family ran down both sides of the conflict. Stand Watie killed James Foreman, supposedly responsible for killing Treaty Party members, in 1842. David Foreman, ordained by Evan Jones at Flint Church in 1849, left Jones's church over the issue of slavery to pursue a ministry with the Southern Baptists in 1861. Members of the Foreman family also fought on both sides in the Civil War: Stephen Foreman's sons fought with Watie's troops; John Foreman fled North to Kansas with Opothle Yahola's forces. 38
Stephen Foreman shared his nephew's opinion about Ross. He never believed Ross to have been committed to the Southern cause, and believed that the whole purpose of Drew's regiment was to protect Ross and the Keetoowah from the Knights of the Golden Circle. Foreman, a mixed blood slaveholder, distrusted Ross and Drew's regiment, "His regiment showed their hand and his hand too at the Bird Creek fight when they fought against our own men. Mr. Ross showed his hand also in pardoning all those men without even a trial. Mr. Ross also showed his hand harboring the leaders of those traitors of the country. It is said that two or three of those traitors were in his house." 39 It is likely that when Return Foreman, with so many family members on both sides of the conflict, called John Ross a "Pin," he knew what he was talking about.
Cooper's investigation into the Chunestotie murder being a charade, Ross felt further alienated and endangered. The Knights of the Golden Circle kept up the intensity by consistently provoking incidents. Ross, with great consternation, wrote a letter to brother Albert Pike, seeking assistance, "I have at all times in the most unequivocable manner assured the People that you will not only promptly discountenance, but will take steps to put a stop to such proceedings for the protection of their persons & property and to redress their wrongs. This is not the time for crimination and recrimination; at a proper time I have certain complaints to report for your investigation."40 Though Ross was articulating the fears of his supporters, it was clear that an increasingly bloody feud between the Knights of the Golden Circle and the Keetoowah had been set in motion. In this conflict, there would be no innocent parties:
Them pins was after Master all de time for a while at de first of de War, and he was afraid to ride into Fort Smith. Dey come to de house one time when he was gone to Fort Smith and us children told dem he was at Honey Springs, but dey knowed better and when he got home he said somebody shot at him and bushwhacked him all the way from Wilson's Rock to dem Wildhorse Mountains, but he run his horse like de devil was setting on his tail and dey never did hit him. He never sen them neither. We told him `bout de Pins coming for him and he just laughed....Pretty soon all de young Cherokee menfolks all gone off to de War, and Pins was riding `round all de time, and it ain't safe to be in dat part around Webber's falls, so old Master take us all to Fort Smith where they was a lot of Confederate soldiers.41
A new chaos arose within Indian Territory that eclipsed even the terrible years following removal. Each day, the terror struck not just at Keetoowah and Knight but also at those defenseless ones who made the easiest targets. Hannah Hicks, the daughter of missionary Samuel Worcester, described the dread that stalked the Nation, "Today we hear that Watie's men declared their intention to come back and rob every woman whose husband has gone to the Federals and every woman who has Northern principles."42 The internecine struggle, being no respecter of persons, decimated with equal ferocity the just and the unjust too.
Not just in the Cherokee Nation did the terror reign; it spread like a wildfire among the nations of Indian Territory. In the Creek Nation, the crops that had been ready to gather were left in the field. The ceremonies to celebrate the harvest and the beginnings of a new season were not held; the lodges and churches saw little activity. There was only desolation: "We would see some lone cow that had been left. The roosters would continually crow at some deserted home. The dogs would bark or howl. Those days were lonesome to me, as young as I was, for I knew that most of our old acquaintances were gone."43
Terror reigned. Men of the North and South killed each other on sight. Parties of armed factions rode the land looking for the spoils of "war." They stole everything they could, not only from the homes of the "enemy," but also from anyone thought to be the enemies "supporters." Homes were burned, supplies were stolen and what could not be used to support the struggle was destroyed. The women and children hid in the woods by day, and at night returned to "what was left of our homes." No one was left untouched by the pain and horror that swept the Indian Territory.
In March of 1862, the Confederate forces, including many of reinstated members of Drew's regiment, as well as Watie's troops, fought a decisive struggle against Union forces at the Battle of Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas.44 For the first time, the Confederate Indians were not only allowed to fight amongst the white soldiers in a traditional Napoleonic confrontation, they were encouraged to fight in "their own fashion" with traditional weapons. A member of Sterling Price's Missouri brigade described the Confederate warriors, "They came trotting gaily into camp yelling forth a wild war whoop that startled the army out of all of its propriety. Their faces were painted for they were `on the warpath,' their long black hair qued in clubs hung down their backs, buckskin shirts, leggins, and moccasins adorned with little bells and rattles, together with bright colored turkey feathers fastened on their heads completed unique uniforms, uniforms not strictly cut according to military regulations. Armed only with tomahawk, and war clubs, they presented an image somewhat savage, but they were mostly Cherokees, cool and cautious in danger, active and sinewy on persons, fine specimens of the `noble red man.' " 45
Stand Watie's Confederate troops fought bravely and earned recognition for their valor. After first being frightened by the "thunder wagons" of Union artillery, they recovered and captured several cannons and artillerymen. However, when the Battle of Pea Ridge was over, the Union forces under General Samuel Curtis had soundly defeated the Confederate forces under General Earl Van Dorn. The Western frontier was up for grabs. Furthermore, there were troubling rumors of "atrocities" being committed against Union soldiers by the Confederate Cherokee.46
A Northern pamphlet charged that General Albert Pike had "maddened them [the Confederate Indians] with liquor to fire their savage natures, and, with gaudy dress and a large plume on his head, disregarding all the usages of civilized warfare, led them in a carnage of savagery, scalping wounded and helpless soldiers, and committing other atrocities too horrible to mention."47 Nothing could be farther than the truth, but General Pike, upon examining the reports of Confederate surgeons, found that, indeed, one of the Federal dead was found scalped. Pike immediately denounced the scalpings and immediately alleged that soldiers in another command did them. Union officers reported that white Texans committed the "atrocities."48
However, the scalpings, paired with the Confederate Cherokee's wholesale desertion in December, caught Brother Albert Pike in a whirlwind that he was to not escape unscathed. He was seen as being "partially deranged, and a dangerous person to be at liberty among the Indians" and if not insane, then he was to be arrested for violation of the "Rules and Articles of War."49 Albert Pike was arrested and charges were advanced regarding numerous violations of military protocol including "intercourse with the Indians."50 He was soon to resign his commission.51
Farther north in Kansas, a new storm was rising. Those who had fled and suffered greatly in the winter of discontent were gathering their will and preparing to return home to recover the land that had once been theirs. An ill wind blew across the prairie, and the struggle to come would be monumental. At home, knowing of the impending cataclysm, the Confederate forces gathered their strength for the coming days. In the forthcoming battles, there would be no winners.
26 John Ross, The Papers of Chief John Ross, Edited and with an introduction by Gary E. Moulton, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), Vol. 2: 560-568. 27 Craig Gaines, The Confederate Cherokees: John Drew's Regiment of Mounted Rifle (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 57. 28 Ross, quoted in Wardell, 132. 29 "That portion of the Cherokee warriors who had taken part in this fight, but whose families were at home, returned home from the battle... The men returned to the service, and that portion of the regiment that had not gone to Kansas, was once more brought together. These loyal men accepted such terms, simply because there was nothing else that they could do, to escape being hunted down like wild beasts, and keep their families from being exposed to any abuse the rebels might see fit to heap upon them. With alternate hope and despair, they waited for their day of deliverance; under the eye and the power of an ever watchful and suspicious foe." Cherokee Nation, Memorial of the Delegates of the Cherokee Nation to the President of the United States and the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress, (Washington: Washington Chronicle Print, 1866), 6. 30 Stand Watie to Douglas Cooper in Edward E. Dale and Gaston Litton, ed., Cherokee Cavaliers: Forty Years of Cherokee History as Told in the Correspondence of the Ridge-Watie-Boudinot family (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1940), 112. 31 Stand Watie to Douglas Cooper in Dale and Litton, ed., 113. 32 Ross, Papers of Chief John Ross, 2: 508. 33 Stand Watie to Douglas Cooper in Dale and Litton, ed., 113. In this sarcastic statement, Watie was referring to the murder of his relatives by conservatives following the Treaty of New Echota in the early days of Indian Territory. 34 Ibid. 35 Stand Watie to Douglas Cooper in Dale and Litton, ed., 113.. 36 Stephen Foreman, "Diary," January 11, 1862 in Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. 37 Kenny Franks, Stand Watie (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1979), 182-183. Though Chief Ross has actually never been determined to be a Keetoowah, his son Robert Ross was a member of the Keetoowah Society. Robert Ross also held the sacred wampums; when he died, his father came into possession of them. [Janey Hendrix, "Redbird Smith and the Nighthawk Keetoowahs" Journal of Cherokee Studies (Fall, 1983): 76.] 38 Several of the Foreman family members were also brethren at Cherokee Lodge #21. 39 Stephen Foreman, "Diary," January 11, 1862, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. 40 Ross, 2: 508. 41 Morris Sheppard in T. Lindsey Baker and Julie P. Baker, The WPA Oklahoma Slave Narratives (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 378-379. 42 Hannah Hicks, Diary of Hannah Hicks, (Tulsa, OK: Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, 1977), 10. 43 Malucy Bear, quoted in Angie Debo, The Road to Disappearance (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1941), 153. 44 Pea Ridge National Military Park, The Battle of Pea Ridge, 1862 (Rogers, Ark.: The Park, 1963), 3-5; See also William L. Shea, War in the West: Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove (Fort Worth, Tex.: Ryan Place Publishers, 1996); Roy A. Clifford, "The Indian Regiments in the Battle of Pea Ridge." Chronicles of Oklahoma 25, Winter (1947-48): 314-322. 45 R.S. Bevier, History of the First and Second Missouri Brigades, 1861-1862 (St. Louis, n.p., 1879), 92-93. In all probability, these were Drew's Keetoowah's for General Albert Pike had only given specific orders to fight "in their own fashion" to Drew's full-blood brigade. [Official Records, Vol. 8, 289.] 46 See Elizabeth Watts Narrrative. Appendix B; Section IV Paragraph 1ff. 47 Gaines, 89. 48 Gaines, 90. For more information, see Walter L. Brown "Albert Pike And The Pea Ridge Atrocities." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 1979 38(4): 345-359; Roy A. Clifford, "The Indian Regiments in the Battle of Pea Ridge" Chronicles of Oklahoma 25 (Winter 1947-48): 314-322; Ohland Morton, "Confederate Government Relations with the Five Civilized Tribes" Chronicles of Oklahoma 31 (1953-54): 189-204. 49 United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. XVIX, 977. 50 United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. XVIX, 41. 51 Albert Pike, To the Chiefs and People of the Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, Chickasaws, and Choctaws, [microform] (Fort McCulloch, OK: n.p., 1862).