Chustenahlah
(December 26)
 |
| James McIntosh |
Colonel Cooper received word that Colonel James McIntosh had forwarded part of his men to him so that he would have more numbers and ammunition to get back on the trail of Opothleyahola. The plan was that Cooper would travel up the Arkansas River and get in front of the rebellious Indians. McIntosh would go up the Verdigris River and head west, trapped the target between two forces. But it would be some time before Cooper was ready. McIntosh, a highly aggressive officer who often put himself at risk, knew that to wait would give Opothleyahola respite from pursuit and worse more distance. He thus resolved to move at once.[1] McIntosh had at his disposal 4 companies of his own 2nd Arkansas Mounted Riflemen, 5 companies of the South Kansas-Texas Regiment, the 3rd Texas Cavalry, 6th Texas Cavalry, and a single company of Texans under Captain Bennett. Like Cooper, he led a mounted force ideal for moving quickly across large stretches of uninhabited territory. He had 1,380 men in total. These soldiers were surprised to be in action. With the first phase of winter having come, the men were busy constructing comfortable wood cabins near Van Buren. But winter rest would not come quite yet.[2]
Back on Fort Gibson, on December 24, Cooper received the ammunition he had ordered. He moved out, but sent Stand Watie and the 2nd Cherokee ahead to link up with McIntosh. Watie was of the pro-Confederate Cherokee faction and so were the men in his regiment. Unlike Drew’s 1st Cherokee, this regiment was in no danger of defecting.[3] Despite his quickness to move upon gaining ammunition, Cooper would miss out on the climactic battle of the Trail of Blood on Ice.
On
the evening of December 25, one of McIntosh’s regiments spotted some of
Opothleyahola’s men. Believing that they were planning to draw the regiment
into a fight where it would be ambushed and outnumbered, McIntosh “restrained
my impatient men.” Already he was avoiding Cooper’s mistakes. That same night
McIntosh received a message from Cooper stating that it would be at least a
couple days before he could link up. McIntosh could not afford to wait and let
Opothleyahola get further away. Leaving his wagon train behind, he fitted the
rest of his force with four days’ rations and moved forward in search of a
battle.[4]
On
the morning of December 26 McIntosh sent a company of the South Kansas-Texas
regiment forward in a skirmish line. The line crossed Shoal Creek, at that time
partially made up of thin ice and cold mud, and immediately came under fire from
a heavily treed and rocky ridge. The Kansan-Texan regiment stayed put while
McIntosh hurried the rest of his force forward. The 6th Texas
Cavalry formed on the right, the 3rd Texas Cavalry on the left. The
remainder of Lane’s regiment, Bennett’s Texans, and part of the 2nd
Aransas filled out the center. McIntosh sent the 6th up the stream
until they opposed Opothleyahola’s left. The hope was that the Texans could
strike the enemy in the flank.[5]
On
the Unionist side Seminoles under Halek Tustenuggee took a position in front on
the “rough and rugged side of the hill,” using trees and rocks for cover.
McIntosh commented, “Each tree on the hill-side screened a stalwart warrior.”
Another line formed near the summit of the hill, and the Creeks were mounted in
the third and final line. The warriors taunted the Confederates, “barking like
a dog howling like a wolf & yelling and gobbling like a turkey.” McIntosh
estimated their force at 1,700.[6]
The Confederate had some of his men take cover and pepper the ridge, keeping the
Indians down while his men got ready.[7]
Around
noon McIntosh turned to his bugler with command: “Blow the charge!” Then “One
wild yell from a thousand throats burst upon the air, and the living mass
hurled itself upon the foe. The sharp report of the rifle came from every tree
and rock, but on our brave men rushed, nor stopped until the summit of the hill
was gained and we were mingled with the enemy.” At the forefront of this charge
was the South Kansas-Texas Regiment. It managed to rush up the rough slope
“with the irresistible force of a tornado, and swept” the Seminoles away. One
of its officer, Major Chilton, received a head wound, “but with unabated vigor”
stayed in the fight. Bennett’s Texans and Gipson’s detachment of the Arkansas
Mounted Riflemen followed, the latter group still on horseback. The
increasingly rough and dense terrain forced them to dismount.[8]
The
6th Texas on the right, seeing the charge, executed their planned
flanking movement. It burst across Shoal Creek and put the line of warrior to
flight. It then turned, cutting off enemy warriors from retreat.[9]
To the left the 3rd Texas looked on. No warriors appeared from the
woods in their front to attack them, so Colonel Young ordered his regiment to
move to the right. He came upon the wounded Chilton, who gave him directions.
The 3rd charged up the hill at an oblique angle. There were narrow
pathways just good enough to allow some to ride up. Others had to dismount and
scale the rocks with their hands and feet. Because they had to leave their
horses, roughly one fifth of the regiment was forced to serve as horse holders.
One youthful soldier assigned to such duty actually cried, upset that he could
not share in the glory of the assault. The Texans were able to cut off many
Seminoles and Creeks attempting to climb to better ground.[10]
A company of cavalry under Captain Bennett, the Lamar Cavalry Company, faced a
steep, rocky hill. In spite of his imposing terrain, the dismounted men were
able to scale it under enemy fire and drive the Unionist Indians off with just
2 killed and 1 wounded.[11]
Opothleyahola’s
army began to fall apart. Those still in the fight took position in rocky
gorges. Though their defense was broken, many of the mostly Creek warriors
continued to fight. Individual contests involving physical hand-to-hand combat
broke out. One Texan wrote admiringly, “some of those Indians were very brave
and daring and would not leave, but continued to shoot… one big feathered cap
fellow stood out from the trees and continued shooting until he fell. I had
shot both barrels of my gun and one of my holster pistols at him before he fell.”
The 6th Texas, charging up and over six of these rocky hills, had to
constantly stop and organize for another charge. The Texans were successful,
though one of their lieutenants was killed, shot in the head.[12]
McIntosh’s
own 2nd Arkansas Mounted Rifles, which had dismounted to advance up
the wooded, rocky hill, rushed back to their horses so they could continue the
chase. Gipson, commanding while McIntosh assumed overall control of the force,
reported that his riders cut down dozens of Indians as they chased them across
the prairie.[13]
Whites swarmed into the camps. Perhaps confident because of how the last two
battles unfolded, hundreds of families had not packed up while the fighting
raged. Now they paid the cost. Caught among their own soldiers and the
Confederates, many women, children, and the elderly were trampled by horses or
cut down by frenzied Whites.
The
last line of defense was 20 Hillaby warriors, sworn to fight to the absolute
death. They lay among rocks and trees as Confederate cavalry came upon them.
When the distance between the foes was 20 paces, they rose and fired their
shotguns, inflicting casualties. The wave of Confederates nearly surrounded
them, and they were killed to the last man, a sign of bravery that somewhat
cushioned the harsh sting defeat.[14]
Stand
Watie and his Cherokees arrived at 4 PM. They had just missed the battle,
thought McIntosh appreciated that they had made a vigorous effort to reinforce
him.[15]
In one battle McIntosh had completely demoralized Opothleyahola’s warriors,
with dire consequences for the Unionists and neutrals.
 |
| Historical Marker (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat-tle_of_Chustenahlah#/media/File:Chustenahlah.JPG) |
McIntosh’s losses were 8 killed and 32 wounded. The 6th Texas, perhaps because they had charged stubborn warriors in the rocky gorges, suffered a high percentage of these losses at 15 killed and wounded. The 2nd Arkansas had 7 wounded. Tallies for the McIntosh’s campaign n total would be 9 killed and 40 wounded. As usual estimates of enemy killed were possibly inflated. In this case, considering the chaotic rout of Opothleyahola’s warriors, some of the higher numbers are more feasible. The report of the 3rd Texas Cavalry made a point of tallying the kills scored by each of its companies. The final total was 211. They captured 160 women and children, 20 blacks, 30 wagons, 500 horses, 100 sheep, and several hundred cattle and oxen. One of the more unique items among the loot was a commemorative peace medal from 1694, celebrating a treaty between the Creek and the British. These captured would prove devastating to Opothleyahola’s exodus.[16]
Watie’s
300 Cherokees had missed the battle, but they still had work to do. In the days
after the battle came upon Opothleyahola’s column and started a running fight.
Without the loss of a single man, which Watie found “quite remarkable,” the
Cherokees killed 15 of the enemy.[17]
Watie’s men also came upon a party of Unionist Cherokee. After a fight in which
they killed 1 and wounded 7, they were able to arrest the others. Many of the
Cherokees who had pitched in with Opothleyahola came back, asking to make a
treaty and return to the Confederate fold. McIntosh was heartened by this
development, thinking that after their defeat and loss of vital supplies, “all
but [Opothleyahola’s] immediate followers will come in.”[18]
On December 28 McIntosh withdrew his men back into Arkansas, feeling that he
had a total victory.[19]
 |
| This guidon of the 3rd Texas Cavalry calls attention to the regiment's role at Chustenahlah. |
Cold Comfort
Cooper,
arriving much later than Watie, tried to score a little glory as well. On New
Year’s Eve some of his men found a group of Creek, Cherokee, and Osage, killing
several men and capturing some women and children On January 1, 1862, Drew’s
Cherokee regiment attacked a camp of fellow Cherokees, then struck a Creek
encampment nestled under a bluff. They captured 21 women and children. This
final pursuit ended just short of the Kansas border when winter conditions
became deadly. “The weather was exceedingly cold; sleet fell in considerable
quantities during the day, and there being every appearance of a snow-storm, we
pushed for the timber.” One unlucky Confederate froze to death.[20]
The
Indians had it worse. With the loss of so many supplies at Chustenahlah and the
scattering of families, every step was a struggle to survive. People who had been
cut off by the chaos of the battle found horse droppings from Confederate horses
and picked out kernels of corn. Some of the very desperate women chose to hurl their
infant children into freezing mudholes and stomp them to death rather than share
scant food with them, or perhaps they thought this would be more merciful than letting
them die slowly from hunger and cold.[21]
Alligator, a leader of the Unionist Seminoles, was just the most notable of the
exodus to die from mere exposure to the environment.[22]
Colonel
Douglas Cooper refused to be satisfied with the Confederate successes, as
Opothleyahola and hundreds of Indians had gotten into Kansas. He blamed his
incomplete victory on McIntosh. If he had “waited until the forces under my
command reached a position in the rear of the enemy, or even if Col. Stand
Watie had been sent up Delaware Creek or up Bird Creek and thence to the rear
of [Opothleyahola’s] position, the same result would have been attained and the
machinations of the arch old traitor forever ended.”[23]
Cooper’s accusations would bear weight if one assumes that Opothleyahola and
his people had stayed put for one day. More likely they would have started
heading north by the time Cooper or perhaps even Watie arrived. The press was certainly
jubilant, and as usual leaned towards exaggerated inaccuracies. One paper crowed
that stand Watie had raided deep into Kansas, “leaving Fort Scott, Topeka and Lawrence
in ashes.”[24]
Opothleyahola
and the survivors were finally in Kansas, where Indian agent Carruth had
promised refuge. While they were free of the Confederates, their misery had in
fact just begun, largely in part because of all the valuable supplies and
animals lost in the wake of the Battle of Chustenahlah. They arrived in “a famishing,
freezing multitude,” many without clothes, and most to all of their property
gone. They were an unwelcome problem for those running Kansas. The Federal
government was preoccupied with running the war further east after a half-year
of military defeats. Caring for Indians far on the frontier was not a primary
concern of the federal government, so funds and relief were at the time coming.
The local government of Kansas was there, but they did not seem to have the
resources to actually assist the refugees.[25]
Conditions
in the refugee camp were absolutely wretched. Over 4,000 people, about
three-quarters of them Creek, were trapped there. They lived in
lean-to-shelters or under tent flaps with nothing on the frozen ground. Often
structures were made of tree branches and whatever scraps of cloth could be
found. Naturally this left them exposed to the winter, which that year was full
of blizzards. People died of the cold. Amputations of legs and arms literally
numbered in the hundreds. Aged Opothleyahola was just one Indian who was struck
with fever.
Even
as the weather warmed, the Indians were still reduced to pitiful victims. Gangs
of cattle rustlers stole cattle and herded them east to sell to the Union Army.
Others cruelly looted anything they saw, forcing the already impoverished women
and children to hide until they passed. In an attempt to rescue the starving,
freezing Indians, the Secretary of the Interior had the unpaid annuities used
to support the Creeks. As it was the annuities weren’t enough, and the food
that did come consisted mostly of poor-quality flour and meat. By April the
camp housed 7,600 people, with thousands of other displaced Indians residing in
other parts of Kansas. To accommodate the swelling, superintendent of Indian
affairs William Coffin moved the camp east to the Neosho River. Perhaps his
relative Dr. Samuel Coffin, one of only two doctors tending to thousands of
people, thought the river would be a more human location.[26]
Even
worse were some of the agents and officials who were supposed to protect and
supply the refugees. Officials and soldiers joined rustlers and bandits in
looting the refugee camps. Often they were not as outright. Instead they used
funds for food and then pocketed money for themselves by buying cheaper,
near-uneatable and unhealthy junk. The funds they diverted were used to enhance
personal business interests. Agents of the government and business out east
came looking for desperate, easy Creeks who would gladly sell their land back
home.[27]
Perhaps
through the next two miserable winters, the Unionist and neutral Indians wondered
if their great exodus had been worth it. Indeed, back in Indian Territory, the
Confederate Creeks prospered for the first half of the war. The Confederates
honored the terms of their alliance treaty, giving over annuities that agents
for the Federal government in the North were skimming off from the refugees.
Even after the Civil War returned to Indian Territory in mid-1862 and
especially in 1863, the McIntosh family came out of the conflict in positions
of relative wealth and power.[28]
Of course, if any of those who followed Opothleyahola regretted their decision,
it could only be through hindsight.
With
conditions in southern Kansas so terrible, the Indians now yearned to go home
to the Territory. But now that they had opposed the Confederacy and most of the
heads of their nations it would not be so simple. Thousands of Creek, Cherokee,
and other men formed Indian regiments. Opothleyahola, who died in 1863 at the
age of 85, would have lived long enough to see civil war emerge among his
Indian brethren. It was the very thing he had protested, Indians killing each
other in what he saw as a white man’s war. Perhaps for the aged chief, who died
when matters were far from resolved, this was the greatest tragedy of all.
 |
| Indians swear themselves into Union service. The ragged condition of their clothes matches that of the people suffering in Kansan refugee camps. (https://www.nps.gov/fosc/learn/historyculture/forgotten-warriors.htm) |
Sources
Debo, Angie. The Road to Disappearance: A History of the
Creek Indians. Oklahoma Press, 1941.
Edwards, Whit. “The Prairie was on Fire”: Eyewitness
Accounts of the Civil War in the Indian Territory. Oklahoma Historical
Society, 2001.
Hale, Douglas. The Third Texas Cavalry in the Civil War.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.
Hatch, Thom. The Blue, the Gray, & the Red: Indian
Campaigns of the Civil War. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole, 2003.
Josephy, Alvin. The Civil War in the American West, New York:
Knopf, 1991.
Monaghan, Jay. The Civil War on the Western Border,
1854-1865. Boston: First Bison Book Publishing, 1955.
United States. The War of
the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Armies Vol. VIII.
Washington D.C. 1883.
Warde, Mary
Jane. George Washington Grayson and the
Creek Nation, 1843-1920. University of Oklahoma Press, 1999.
White,
Christine Schultz and Benton R. White. Now
the Wolf Has Come: the Creek Nation in the Civil War. Texas A&M
University Press, 1996.
[1] OR VIII, 11; White, When the Wolf Has Come, 112.
[2] OR VIII, 22; Douglas
Hale, The Third Texas Cavalry in the
Civil War, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), 78.
[3] OR VIII, 12.
[4] OR VIII, 22.
[5] OR VIII, 22-23;
Edwards, Prairie was on Fire, 12.
[6] OR VIII, 23; Edwards, Prairie was on Fire, 13.
[7] Monaghan, Civil War on the Western Border, 226.
[8] OR VIII, 23.
[9] OR VIII, 27.
[10] OR VIII, 26, 29; Hale, Third Texas, 81.
[11] OR VIII, 30.
[12] OR VIII, 23-24, 27; White, When the Wolf Has Come, 121; Hale, Third Texas, 82.
[13] OR VIII, 30.
[14] White, When the Wolf Has Come, 121-122.
[15] OR VIII, 24.
[16] OR VIII, 24-25,
27, 30; Hale, Third Texas, 82.
[17] OR VIII, 12, 24, 32.
[18] OR VIII, 31.
[19] Hatch, Indian Campaigns, 20.
[20] Hatch, Indian Campaigns, 21; OR VIII, 13.
[21] Monaghan, Civil War on the Western Border, 227.
[22] Alvin M. Josephy, The Civil War in the American West, (New
York: Knopf, 1991), 333.
[23] OR VIII, 13.
[24] Monaghan, Civil War on the Western Border, 227.
[25] Warde, George Washington Grayson, 60-61.
[26] Hatch, Indian Campaigns, 21; White, Wolf Has Come, 150-151; Debo, Road to Disappearance, 152; Josephy, Civil War in the American West, 333
[27] White, Wolf Has Come, 151-154.
[28] Hatch, Indian Campaigns, 21, White, Wolf
Has Come, 156.
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