Customer Reviews

General Stand Watie's Confederate Indians

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If you are not familiar with the american Indian (Particularly Cherokee) role in the war between the states, then this is a good place to begin learning.

....one of the worst of which is that the Confederacy was a white, Anglo-Saxon monolith. The truth is that the Confederacy pioneered the idea of giving blacks and women positions of authority [the Matron Law], placed Jews in positions of power, and put General's stars on a Mexican. And, we had the first American Indian General; this wonderful book is his story.

Stand Watie was born in Georgia in 1806, and went west on the Trail of Tears. In Oklahoma, he became a rich, powerful, slave-owning rancher. [Yes, Indians owned slaves; so did Jews, Mexicans, and, surprise, Blacks]. He also gained both friends and enemies; as one of the two rival Principal Chiefs of the Cherokee Nations, he headed the Mixed Blood faction, which some thought got along a little too well with the government. [The other Chief, John Ross, was also a rich slave-owning rancher, living in a mansion, married to a white woman; he had less Indian blood than Watie]. Sort of like the Pure Bloods and the Mud-Bloods in the Harry Potter stories, only this wasn't funny........

When the Civil War came, both sides wanted the Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes in present day Oklahoma; enter another of the few Civil War characters who provide a measure of comic relief, Brigadier General Albert Pike, sent by the Confederacy to recruit the Indians; he did a pretty good job, too, capitalizing on the very real beef that the Indians had with the US. Pike's Civil War career is a minor footnote to a long, productive life. Today, he is best known as the philosopher of Scottish Rite Masonry. Pike resigned in late 1862 [Maybe---another topic], and was replaced by the more conventional, but less colorful, Douglas Cooper. Cooper said that Pike was either disloyal to the Confederacy, or was insane; Masons know which was the case.....

Oklahoma saw action all thru the war; the battles aren't as well known as the eastern ones, but the troops gave just as much, and the dead were just as dead. Stand Watie was a hero of Wilson's Creek, and proved to be an effective leader the whole way. Indeed, this was a theatre of operations where the Confederacy remained viable right to the end. Stand Watie was rewarded with General's stars in 1864, and was the very last Confederate General to stack arms.

This book is a true classic, a well written account of a part of the Civil War that most people don't even know existed.. Many thanks to Mr. Cunningham, and many thanks to the University of Oklahoma Press for making it available.

Excellent overview of Native American Confederates. A little looked at fact of the Civil War. Does justice to all men, women of all color, nationalities whom fought for what they beleived in.

True Southern History-very seldom found in todays VERY politically correct USA.
A must read

Well written chronicle of one of the South's finest soldiers.
Too little has been introduced about the struggle between North and South in the Nations. This book is the best I have read on the subject.
Watie and his gallant band are well represented in their struggle to defend their families and save their homes from ruin during the Yankee invasion.

This book has a lot of good information and provides a good overview of Stand Watie's Civil War efforts as well as background and an over all view of the Trans-Mississippi Theater. There are also lengthy passages transcribing primary documents which gives a very first hand feel at times. Unfortunately, the author's bias and politics are almost always at the forefront. He goes out of his way to include countless editorial remarks that always vilify the Union and pro-Union Indians and always praise the "Glorious South" and pro-Confederate Indians. However, if you can wade through the opinions and occasionally rambling style, the information can be worthwhile.