Captain Atoka: Choctaw Chief and Confederate Defender

Captain Atoka Monument in front of the Atoka County Courthouse, Atoka, Oklahoma

This simple monument, standing in front of the Atoka County Courthouse, Atoka, Oklahoma, memorializes the man for whom both the city and the county were named:  Captain Atoka Oshlatubee.  Born about 1782, Atoka was a noted athlete, a respected leader, and Chief of the Pushmataha District in the Choctaw Nation.  He signed the treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830 and led a band of Choctaws from Mississippi on the "Trail of Tears" to settle in the area now known as Oklahoma, in 1834.  Atoka died during the War Between the States.  Like most Native Americans in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma), Atoka was a strong supporter of the Confederate States of America in their bid for Southern Independence.
 
A large Confederate supply base, Boggy Depot, was located just north of Atoka, where the Butterfield Overland Mail Route met with the Texas Road.  On February 13, 1864, Union Colonel William A. Philips entered the area with some 1500 invading Union Troops to whom he had given these orders:

"I take you with me to clean out the Indian Nation south of the river and drive away and destroy rebels. Let me say a few words to you that you are not to forget .... Those who are still in arms are rebels, who ought to die. Do not kill a prisoner after he has surrendered. But I do not ask you to take prisoners. I ask you to make your footsteps severe and terrible." -- Colonel William A. Philips, to his men before beginning the campaign

Approaching the Boggy Depot, Colonel Phillips' invading hoard made a surprise attack on about 90 vastly outnumbered Native American Confederate soldiers with no artillary, camped on the banks of the Middle Boggy River.  The Yankees killed forty-seven - more than half of the Confederates. No Union soldiers perished in the battle.  Among the Confederate dead were those wounded who had been left behind when their comrades retreated. They were found on the battlefield with their throats slashed - murdered by the Yankees.

Colonel Phillips said that the wicked deeds of his army brought peace.  If genocide is peace, then he spoke the truth.

Photo by J. Stephen Conn

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.

Confederates are Victorious at the Battle of Poison Spring, Arkansas

In the spring of 1864, invading Union troops, led by Major General Fred Steele, occupied the town of Camden, Arkansas. Upon learning that the Confederates had stores of corn about twenty miles up the Prairie D’Ane-Camden Road on White Oak Creek, General Steel sent a “foraging party” to take the food supplies from the Southerners. The foragers, 600 strong, took four cannon and 198 wagons with them. Led by Colonel James M. Williams, they sacked and plundered Confederate provisions they found on farms and plantations.

With their wagons groaning under 5000 bushels of corn, plus other contraband they had stolen, the Union raiders regrouped at White Oak Creek. Early the next day they were joined by a 501-man relief force of infantry, cavalry and two additional artillery pieces. But even with reinforcements, the Yankee thieves would prove to be no match for the defending Southerners.

On the morning of April 18, the despoilers were stopped by a roadblock near Poison Spring. There they faced Confederate Brigadier General John Sappington Marmaduke with 3,600 cavalrymen with twelve cannon. The horsemen were from Arkansas, Missouri and Texas, as well as Colonel Tandy Walker’s Choctaw Brigade from the Indian Territory – now Oklahoma.

The entire Yankee force was put to flight, being chased for two and a half miles before the Confederates stopped their pursuit.

The Union lost all of their 198 wagons; the Confederates got back all of their corn. Northern casualties were 301 men killed, wounded and missing. Confederate losses were estimated at 114.

Some the captured Yankee Infantrymen from Kansas did not make it back due to revenge killings by Confederates from the border regions and scalpings by Native Americans in Confederate service whose homes in the Indian Territory had been raided by the Kansas troops.

According to Civil War Historian Dale Cox, "One Confederate participant wrote after the battle that he saw black Union soldiers being killed by Choctaw warriors fighting with the 1st and 2nd Choctaw Regiments of the 2nd Indian Brigade. These warriors were outraged over raids carried out by Union soldiers from Fort Smith, Arkansas, into the Choctaw Nation earlier that year. Homes had been burned, crops destroyed, family possessions looted, women and children harmed or left homeless and men killed...."

Reports of other eyewitnesses of the Battle at Poison Spring tell of Union soldiers of the 1st Kansas Colored desperately clinging to their weapons as they fled the battlefield. These men would still have been considered armed combatants, not prisoners of war. This is reminiscent of reports from Fort Pillow, Tennessee, where black Union POWs were allegedly killed by Confederate troops.

Today, Poison Spring Historic Battlefield near Bragg City, Ouachita County, Arkansas, preserves a small portion of the site.

Photos and story by J. Stephen Conn

Confederate Monument at the Cherokee Capitol

This monument, placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, stands directly in front of the Cherokee National Capitol building in Talahquah, Oklahoma. It is especially significant since this was Indian Territory at the time of the War Between the States.

The monument is a reminder that the Cherokee Nation was an ally to the Confederate States of America during their bid for independence from a Union which had forsaken the original principles of its founding fathers such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Although the war was waged several decades before Oklahoma became a state, the independent-minded Cherokees felt a much stronger affinity with the Confederate ideals of libertarianism and states rights than they did to the all-powerful federal government being advocated by Abraham Lincoln. Like the Confederates, the Cherokees held dear the principles of limited government and decentralized power guaranteed by the United States Constitution, but ignored by the United States governmental leaders.

It amazes me that less than four decades after the gruesome injustice dealt the Indians in the infamous Trail of Tears, many hundreds of them would volunteer to fight - and many would die - for the Confederacy.

In truth, most Cherokees wanted little or nothing to do with the "white man's war." They would rather just be left alone. However, when the time came to choose, most Cherokees sided with the Confederates. The Cherokee Nation fielded several units of Confederate soldiers. One of those soldiers, Chief Stand Waite, rose to the rank of Brigadier General in the Confederate army.

General Waite was faithful to the "Lost Cause" to the bitter end. He became the last Confederate General to surrender to the Union on June 23, 1865. This was more than two months after Confederate Commander Robert E. Lee effectively ended the war by laying down his own sword to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, April 5, 1865.

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Article and Photo by J. Stephen Conn