A Confederate Monument in Indian Territory

While on a recent western road trip I was very interested to find this Confederate Monument in Purcell, McClain County, Oklahoma.  What makes this monument interesting is the fact that Oklahoma was not a state at the time of the War for Southern Independence.  It was Indian Territory; and Purcell was a town of the Chickasaw Nation. 

The Chickasaw Nation became the first of the Five Civilized Tribes to be allies of the Confederate States of America when the Chickasaw Legislature passed a resolution signed by Governor Cyrus Harris on May 25, 1861.  One of the main quarrels the Chickasaw Nation had with the Union was economic.  There was evidence that the federal government had mishandled the nation's funds. Also, the federals did not always honor their treaty obligations and there was the lingering resentment of being forcefully removed from their traditional homeland on the infamous Trail of Tears.

With the Treaty of 1866, the Chickasaws, along with the Choctaws, were the last Confederate community to surrender following the War Between the States.  In spite of many decades of mistreatment by the United States government, the only time in history that the Chickasaws ever made war against an English speaking people was in defending themselves against the Yankee invasion during the War  of 1861-1865.

This Confederate Monument, one of several in Oklahoma, was erected by members of the Mrs. Stonewall Jackson Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy of Purcell, Indian Territory, in December 1906.  The center stone of the monument reads:  "To the Memory of those who fought and those who fell in the Confederate Army, 1861-1865."

The lower stone of the monument bears this inscription:

But their memories e're shall remain for us,

And their names, bright names, without stain for us,

The glory they won shall not wane for us,

In legend and lay our heroes in gray,

Shall forever live over again for us.