The American Indian as Slaveholder and Seccessionist / An Omitted Chapter in the Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy

by Annie Heloise Abel

I encamped, with my little party near the residence of the Chief, unprotected even by a guard, and with the Confederate flag flying. The terms of the Treaty were fully discussed and the Cherokee authorities dealt with me on equal terms. Mr. John Ross had met me as I was on my way to Park Hill, escorted by the National Regiment, and had welcomed me to the Cherokee Nation, in an earnest and enthusiastic speech; and seemed to me throughout to be acting in perfect good faith. I acted in the same way with him.

After the treaties were signed, I presented Colonel Drew’s Regiment a flag, and the chief in a speech exhorted them to be true to it: and afterwards, at his request, I wrote the Cherokee Declaration of Independence which is printed with the Memorial of the Southern Cherokees. I no more doubted, then, that Mr. Ross’ whole heart was with the South, than that mine was. Even in May he said to General McCulloch and myself, that if Northern troops invaded the Cherokee Country, he would head the Cherokees and drive them back. “I have borne arms” he said, “and though I am old I can do it again.”

At the time of the treaty there were about nine hundred Cherokees of Colonel Drew’s Regiment encamped near, and fed by me, and Colonel Watie, who had almost abandoned the idea of raising a regiment, had a small body of men, not more, I think, than eighty or ninety, at Tahlequah. When the flag was presented, Col. Watie was present, and after the ceremony the chief shook hands with him and expressed his warm desire for union and harmony in the Nation.

The gentlemen whom I had invited to meet me in June at the Creek Agency did not do so. They were afraid of being murdered, they said, if they openly sided with the South. In October they censured me for treating with Mr. Ross, and were in an ill humour, saying that the regiment was raised in order to be used to oppress them.

The same day that the Cherokee Treaty was signed, the Osages, Quapaws, Shawnees and Senecas signed treaties, and the next day they had a talk with Mr. Ross at his residence, smoked the great pipe and renewed their alliance, being urged by him to be true to the Confederate States.

I protest that I believed Mr. John Ross, at this time and for long after, to be as sincerely devoted to the Confederacy as I myself was. He was frank, cheerful, earnest, and evidently believed that the independence of the Confederate States was an accomplished fact. I should dishonour him if I believed that he then dreamed of abandoning the Confederacy or turning the arms of the Cherokees against us in case of a reverse.

Before I left the Cherokee Country, part of the Creeks, under Opoth-le-Yaholo left their homes, under arms and threatened hostilities. Mr. Ross, at my request, invited the old Chief to meet him, and urged him to unite with the Confederate States. Colonel Drew’s regiment was ordered into the Creek Country, and afterwards, on the eve of the action at Bird Creek, abandoned Colonel Cooper, rather than fight against their neighbours. But after the action, the regiment was again reorganized. The men were eager to fight, they said, against the Yankees; but did not wish to fight their own brethren, the Creeks.

When General Curtis entered North Western Arkansas, in February 1862, I sent orders from Fort Smith to Colonel Drew to move towards Evansville and receive orders from General McCulloch. Colonel Watie’s Regiment was already under General McCulloch’s command. Colonel Drew’s men moved in advance of Colonel Watie, with great alacrity, and showed no want of zeal at Pea Ridge.

I do not know that any one was scalped at that place or in that action, except from information. None of my officers knew it at the time. I heard of it afterwards. I cannot say to which regiment those belonged who did it. But it has been publicly charged on some of the same men who afterwards abandoned the Confederate cause and enlisting in the Federal Service were sent into Arkansas to ravage it.

After the actions at Pea Ridge and Elk Horn, the Regiment of Colonel Drew was moved to the mouth of the Illinois, where I was able, after a time, to pay them $25 cash, the commutation for six months’ clothing, in Confederate money. Nothing more, owing to the wretched management of the Confederate government, was ever paid them; and the clothing procured for them was plundered by the commands of Generals Price and Van Dorn. The consequence was that when Colonel Weer entered the Cherokee Country, the Pin Indians joined him en masse.