Both the Union and the Confederate States…
November 1861 CE
Old tribal rivalries are renewed, with some aligning with the North and others with the South.
When a Confederate force under Colonel Douglas H. Cooper attacks Unionist tribes in the Indian Territory, Upper Creek Chief Opothleyahola resists and leads Unionist Creek and Seminole from McIntosh County, Oklahoma north to Fort Row, Kansas.
These native warriors will fight Cooper in a series of battles in the winter of 1861–62.
They withdraw to Kansas in a bitterly harsh trek known as the "Trail of Blood on Ice."
Cooper, who in 1858 had led a militia composed of Choctaw and Chickasaw volunteers against Comanche marauders, had pledged his allegiance to the Confederacy with the outbreak of the Civil War.
In May, Secretary of War Leroy Pope Walker had sent Cooper a letter authorizing him to "take measures to secure the protection of these tribes in their present country from the agrarian rapacity of the North."
He has raised a regiment known as the 1st Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles and was commissioned as its colonel.
The first engagement, the Battle of Round Mountain, occurs on November 19, 1861 near the Red Fork of the Arkansas River.
The actual location is in dispute as some historians believe it to be near Keystone, while others believe it to be near Yale, Oklahoma.
The evidence slightly favors the site near Yale, known as Twin Mounds.
Cooper’s men arrive there around 4:00 p.m.
Charging cavalry discover that Opothleyahola’s followers had recently abandoned their camp.
The Confederates locate and follow stragglers; the 4th Texas blunders into Opothleyahola’s warriors on the tree line at the foot of the Round Mountains.
The Federal response chases the Confederate cavalry back to Cooper’s main force.
Darkness prevents Cooper's counterattack until the main enemy force is within sixty yards.
After a short fight, Opothleyahola’s men set fire to the prairie grass and retreat.
Locations
Groups
Muscogee, or Creek, people (Amerind tribe)
View →
Chickasaw (Amerind tribe)
View →
Choctaw (Amerind tribe)
View →
Comanche (Amerind tribe)
View →
Seminole (Amerind tribe)
View →
United States of America (US, USA) (Washington DC)
View →
Indian Territory
View →
Confederate States of America (C.S.A.)
View →
Topics
Regions
Northern North America
View →Subregions
