The Forgotten Indian Soldiers

Most books, movies and tv stories of the Civil War are of the battles east of the Mississippi River. The war west of the Mississippi has had very little information presented. The mails I have received over time, shows that many of the younger Native Americans from the Nations of the former Indian Territory, Oklahoma, did not know of the involvement of their Nations during the Civil War. Those soldiers fought for either the Union or the Confederacy. The Nations were just as divided as the people in the east. The information contained in this book's source notes are from "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", maps of significant actions, and speeches and correspondence of the principle parties during the War. Because of the forced removal of the southeastern Nations east of the Mississippi by President Andrew Jackson in the 1830's, internal conflicts simmered between those who had signed the treaties of Removal, trading their lands in the east for those west of the Mississippi. The coming Civil War divided them further as feuding political factions took sides with either the United States or the Confederate States.This ripped the Nations apart, bringing the seething conflicts to the surface. As a result, there were two wars being fought in Indian Territory. Over 30,000 western and eastern Indians were drawn into the conflict of the Civil War as soldiers or auxiliaries of the United States or the Confederate States.