American Indian in the Civil War, 1862-1865

"The Civil War was a major event in the lives of southern Indians who had been removed to Indian Territory in the antebellum period. Early attempts to remain neutral crumbled under pressure from their Arkansas and Texas neighbors, clever Confederate diplomacy, and indifference from a United States concerned with more pressing problems. By the fall of 1861, the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles had signed Confederate treaties and organized military companies to serve as a home guard. Thus the southern Indians became a part of the bloodiest war in United States history."--Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green. Annie Heloise Abel describes the 1862 Battle of Pea Ridge, a bloody disaster for the Confederates but a glorious moment for Colonel Stand Watie and his Cherokee Mounted Rifles. The Indians were soon enough swept by the war into a vortex of confusion and chaos. Abel makes clear that their participation in the conflict brought only devastation to Indian Territory. Born in England and educated in Kansas, Annie Heloise Abel (1873-1947) was a historical editor and writer of books dealing mainly with the trans-Missis-sippi West. They include The American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist (1915), also reprinted as a Bison Book. Abel's distinguished career is noted in an introduction by Theda Perdue, the author of Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society (1979), and Michael D. Green, whose Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis (1982) was published by the University of Nebraska Press.