The First Battle Of Carthage, July 5, 1861

The Civil War in Jasper County MO was a long, bloody era that had killed or driven out all but a handful of people by 1865. The Battle of Carthage was just the first act in the bitter struggle for control of Missouri; the fight was just beginning.  

The first Battle of Carthage, which took place on July 5, 1861 and could be labeled the first real battle of the Civil War.  Although many refer to the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run), July 21, 1861, as the first battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Carthage was fought 16 days earlier. 

Political views in Missouri were divided, due to its economic connection to the North.  It was also home to a large immigrant German community that voted Republican; most of them were not slave holders and opposed slavery.  Missouri Governor Claiborne Jackson was pro-South; publicly he tried to appear neutral, but the Union suspected he was secretly planning to secede. He had refused President Lincoln’s request to form military units for the Union.  

  

The Battle of Carthage, also called the Battle of Dry Fork, was the only time a sitting state governor led troops against the Union to which his state belonged.  Union forces under the command of Colonel Franz Sigel set against Missouri State Guard forces under the Governor's command.  

Much of the Confederate success can be given to the new battle tactics used by General Joseph Orville "JO" Shelby and his rangers. During the "Bleeding Kansas" struggle, he organized the pro-slavery Blue Lodge group, a company of border ruffians.

Colonel Franz Sigel arrived at Carthage with 1,100 well-armed German-American soldiers and 8 cannons.  They made camp southeast of the town July 4, 1861. That evening, Sigel learned that Jackson and his men were camped 15 miles north of Carthage.

Born in Germany, Sigel, a skillful politician was a leader in the failed insurrections of 1848 in his native country.  After the insurrection was crushed by the Prussians, Sigel fled and in 1857 he came to St. Louis to teach at the German-American Institute and, like many German immigrants, joined the Republican Party.  They were an important political constituency in the 1860 election.

Sigel rallied German-Americans to the Union cause in 1861 with the slogan, "I goes to fight mit Sigel."  He was rewarded by being appointed colonel of the 3rd Missouri Infantry, one of several regiments of 90-day volunteers raised under the direction of Union General Nathaniel Lyon to expel Confederates from the state of Missouri. 

When Governor Jackson heard that Sigel was also at Carthage, he made plans to attack the smaller Union force. On the morning of July 5, the rival armies met 10 miles north of Carthage.  The State Guard raised 2 Confederate battle flags, one on either end of their line that stretched for over 1/2 mile.  Sigel’s men formed a battle line and moved within 800 yards of the State Guard troops.

Before he could open the battle, Sigel encountered a skirmish line under the command of Gen Shelby.  Shelby, with 150 men, rode between the two forces and made moves toward the Union lines. This activity drew Union artillery fire causing the Union forces to waste shot and powder defending against a believed threat.  Although a small action, it became the 'trademark' of Gen. Shelby and his "Iron Brigade."  

After pushing back Shelby's line, Sigel opened with his artillery; Jackson replied in kind. The artillery duel lasted about an hour.  Jackson and the State Guard charged Sigel's brigade. Rather than let himself be surrounded and cut off from his supplies, Sigel began a retreat back across the creek towards Carthage.  Jackson had his men divide up to surround the Union force.  

The battle continued throughout the day until both sides faced off in the town square. At this point, Sigel received word that there was a large group of Jackson's troops moving into the woods outside of town.  Jackson had sent his 2000 unarmed volunteers into the woods to take shelter. Sigel unaware they were unarmed ordered a retreat.  The State Guard pursued; Sigel conducted a successful rearguard action. By evening, Sigel was back in Carthage but that night he retreated to Sarcoxie.

From the battlefield maneuvers and pursuit to Sarcoxie, Shelby's rangers "snatched the victory at Carthage from Sigel."  The battle had little meaning, but the pro-Southern elements in Missouri, anxious for any good news, championed their first victory. A Confederate victory increased recruitment for Southern regiments. 

With Sigel retreating, Jackson and his men had a clear path south to join up with his Confederate allies, Generals Price and McCulloch.  

The stage was set for the "Bull Run of the west," the Battle of Wilson's Creek, one month later, near Springfield, MO.

Estimated Casualties: 244 total, 44 Union and 200 Confederate

CARTHAGE, MO

In the southwest corner of Missouri sets Jasper County.  Formed in 1841, Carthage, named after the ancient Phoenician city-state of Carthage, was selected as the county seat. On the eve of the Civil War, the population was over 500 was divided over the issue of slavery, most Negroes in the area were slaves.

On July 5, 1861, Union troops from St Louis and pro-southern Confederate troops lead by Missouri Governor, Claiborne Fox Jackson, met in the Battle of Carthage.  In the Second Battle of Carthage, October 1863, Union troops met Confederate forces north of town and forced them back into Arkansas. Other minor skirmishes and attacks occurred in and around town and in September 1864 pro-Confederate guerrillas burned most of the city, including the court house.

Following the war, with the arrival of the Missouri Western Railroad in 1872, the town and surrounding area grew. Town residents worked in the foundry, furniture factory, woolen and grain mills, a plow works and numerous liveries and other businesses.  Nearby lead mines and limestone quarries contributed significant wealth and Carthage became one of the most prosperous towns in the area.  Wealthy residents built ornate Victorian-style homes, many are now part of the Carthage South District, placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Numerous local buildings, in addition to the courthouse, were built in the late 19th and early 20th century out of stone from local quarries. The local limestone is hard enough to be polished into "Carthage marble" and was used in both the interior and exterior of the state capitol building in Jefferson.   

Route 66 and the Jefferson Highway intersected in town in the 1920s. The original owners of Boots Court Motel, at this crossroads, promoted a drive-in restaurant with radio broadcast on KDMO AM, "Breakfast at the Crossroads of America.” Route 66 was eventually re-routed, and then replaced in the 1960s with Interstate 44 running south of town.  The Boots Court Motel has been renovated to the 1940s era and is a lovely stop for the night if you don’t need a TV – but there is a radio in every room!

 A Radio In Every Room!

The Port Of Muskogee

Once I arrived at Muskogee OK, I noticed signs related to the Port of Muskogee.  Had no idea Muskogee was a PORT.  I guess, in my ignorance, I think ports need to be near an ocean, or at least on a really large lake.  But I found out differently in Muskogee.

The Port of Muskogee (OK) is a regional port.  It is a local hub for trucks, railroad, and barges on the Arkansas River. It is one of the farthest inland, ice-free year-round, US ports that can access the Gulf of Mexico.   Strategically located near the confluence of the Arkansas, Verdigris and Grand Rivers, the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, the nation’s most inland all-weather waterway, linking Oklahoma with inland ports on the Ohio, Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, and sea ports around the world, via the Gulf of Mexico.

INDIAN TERRITORY PARTICIPATION CIVIL WAR

NOTE:  For the purpose of this blog entry, I will speak to the participation in the area of the Indian Territory.  This is not meant to take away from the valiant efforts put forth by other tribes in the east, southeast, southwest, and north. Geographical locations generally dictated loyalties. Tribes such as the Catawba of South Carolina and the eastern band of the Cherokee in North Carolina were Confederate allies.  Others were geographically located to side with the Union. Two Seneca brothers served with the north.  Isaac Newton Parker was a non-commissioned officer in the 132nd New York State Volunteer Infantry, while his brother, Ely Samuel Parker, was a colonel on the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant. 

A particularly sad chapter during the war took place in the southwest and involved the removal of the Mescalero Apache and Navajo peoples from the District of Arizona. In October 1862, Colonel of Volunteers Christopher "Kit" Carson was ordered to round up and relocate the Mescalero Apache and Navajo to the Bosque Redondo Reservation in eastern New Mexico territory. The forced removal left as many as 3,000 Navajo dead of starvation, disease, and abuse along the way, and another 2,000 were dead within 2 years on the reservation.  Throughout most of 1863, Carson employed brutal tactics to subdue the Navajo, including the destruction of most of their villages and crops.

     Flag of the 1st Cherokee Mounted Regiment

During the Civil War, the Indian Territory was the scene of numerous skirmishes and 7 battles involving Indian units allied with either the Confederate States or with the Union.

It is estimated that as many as 20,000 Indians played an active role in the Civil War. They participated in conventional battles and guerrilla actions.  There is documentation that 7,860 Indians from various tribes participated in the Confederate Army, as both officers and enlisted.  The majority were from the Five Civilized Tribes: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations. The Union organized several regiments of Indian Home Guard to serve in the Territory and adjacent areas of Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas.  Many more participated without officially being “signed up” and many served, not identified, in guerrilla and marauding bands.  Others provided transportation services, served as river pilots, and guarded vital lines of communications and the railways.

On the eve of the war, the US government relocated soldiers from the Indian Territory to other potentially troublesome areas, leaving the Indian Territory unprotected from Texas and Arkansas, both already aligned with the Confederacy.  Confederate forces took possession of the vacated forts and, in June and July 1861, they negotiated with the tribes for combat support.  The Confederacy took a serious interest in the Indian Territory in the event the Union set a blockade.  The territory would be a valuable source of food; it would serve as a connection to western territories, and as a buffer area between Texas and the Union-held Kansas.

Although they chose different sides, the reasons were basically the same. Poverty was high and their dependence on the US government for protection and survival encouraged their entry into the conflict, either to fight against the US government for their treatment or fight for the US government in hopes of bettering their circumstances.  Tribes that had been assimilated into the white population in the area usually supported the same cause as their neighbors.

Many Cherokee followed Stand Watie, a tribal leader and eventually a Confederate General, hoping to avenge old grievances.  There had been a long-standing tribal division since the minority faction of the tribe signed the 1835 Treaty of New Echota that removed them from their ancestral lands and the forced removal to the Indian Territory.  Also, a number of Cherokee were slaveholders and supported the south. 

 Distrusting the Federal Government, leaders from each of the Five Civilized Tribes, often acting without the approval of their councils, signed treaties with the Confederacy agreeing to support the Confederate actions in return for protection and recognition of current tribal lands. These tribes came from the South and southeast and were culturally aligned to the Confederacy. And as an additional tie, some owned Negro slaves.

Many of the tribal members, however, did not support the Confederacy.  Whether joining with the Union or the Confederacy, friction within the tribes, some advocating for the north, some for the south, lead to inter-tribal turmoil.

Many volunteered for Union duty in hopes of regaining control of their lands from the Confederacy. Opothleyahola, Principal Chief of the Creek nation and loyal to the Union, refused to allow his tribal lands to join the Confederacy and took his people to Kansas.  
 
Opotheyehala, Creek chief painted by Charles Bird King




As the Indian tribes chose sides, tensions mounted. Confederate Indians that allied with Texas regiments came to battle against the Indian regiments of Union loyalists. Despite fierce resistance, Confederate troops prevailed and expelled the Union loyalists from the territory. This was the first of many battles that tore the Indian Territory into warring factions, with Indian tribes divided and fighting each other.

Union loyalists lacked organization and found themselves driven from Territory. Most fled to Kansas and Missouri on what became known as "the Trail of Blood on the Ice". They left behind nearly everything: food, clothing and medicine. Severe winter weather set in bringing suffering and death. Arriving in Kansas, they were forced to live in ‘refugee camps’ along the rivers without shelters.  Minimal supplies of food and clothing came to the camps.  Many died during that winter.

A surgeon who visited the camps stated, “It is impossible for me to depict the wretchedness of their condition. Their only protection from the snow upon which they lie is prairie grass and from the wind and weather scraps and rags stretched upon switches. Some of them had some personal clothing; most had but shreds and rags which did not conceal their nakedness, and I saw seven varying in age from three to fifteen years without one thread upon their bodies. … They greatly need medical assistance. Many have their toes frozen off; others have feet wounded by sharp ice or branches of trees lying on the snow. But few have shoes or moccasins. They suffer with inflammatory diseases of the chest, throat and eyes. Those who come in last get sick as soon as they eat. Means should be taken at once to have the horses which lie dead in every direction through the camp and on the side of the river removed and burned, lest the first few warm days breed a pestilence amongst them. .”

Driven to Kansas in 1861 by Confederate forces, the refugees came to the attention of agencies in Kansas and the Union Army.  Needing manpower, the commanders of the Union Army made the decision to recruit and train Indian soldiers from the refugees. Their efforts were opposed by many who felt that Indian soldiers would be inferior. Referring to the Indian soldiers, the Fort Scott Bulletin stated "their principal use is to devour Uncle Sam's hard-bread and beef, and spend his money. They will be as valuable as a flock of sheep in time of action. They ought to be disbanded immediately." Others feared that Indians, once armed, would turn against the white population. Some pointed to the reported behavior of Confederate Cherokees at Pea Ridge, who were thought to be responsible for scalping and mutilating Iowa troops.

Opothleyahola, along with members from the other tribes, formed 3 volunteer regiments known as the Indian Home Guard. These regiments fought primarily in Indian Territory and Arkansas.

The Union Army, planned to retake the Indian Territory and reduce the risk of a Confederate invasion of Kansas. Recruited to be part of the expedition to Indian Territory, the First and Second Indian Regiments accompanied several units of white soldiers in a quest to return the Indian refugees to their homes and to reestablish a Union presence in the Indian Territory. Their first taste of war as Union soldiers came in the summer of 1862. Marginally successful, the expedition did have one significant impact. A large number of the captured Cherokee, once free from Confederate influence, ended up joining the Union Army.

The refugees were anxious to return to their lands, fight off their brothers in the Confederacy and reclaim their lands.  With the condition that they would only fight in Indian Territory, the recruitment of the Indians continued. The Union Army formed two regiments-the First and Second Indian Home Guards. When first organized, white officers had overall command of the regiments, but leadership of individual companies fell to the Indians. Not being familiar with Army discipline or tactics, the Indian regiments, initially, were far from an effective fighting force. The Osage of the Second Regiment never did adjust to Army regulations and procedures. Many were mustered out after a series of mass desertions.  In spring of 1863, brigade commander William Phillips remarked that he was satisfied that all 3 regiments had become effective fighting units.

Organized and supplied at Fort Scott in the summer of 1862, they experienced initial success. Union victories near the Cherokee capital of Tahlequah routed the Confederate troops and captured several of their Cherokee allies. Fearing loss of their supply lines, the Union forces fell back.

The Union Army with Indian regiments returned to the Indian Territory and fought in a series of battles that would prove the ability of the Home Guards.  Some of their major efforts include:

               In October 1862, the Third Indian Home Guard halted the flanking operation and captured 4 artillery pieces of the Confederate forces at Old Fort Wayne (eastern OK).

               The Union loyal Indian Guard routed Confederate Warriors stationed at Fort Davis (Muskogee OK) and the fort burned in December 1862.

               Second Indian Home Guard captured Fort Gibson, driving the Confederate defenders in to the Grand River in April 1863.

               At Cabin Creek, soldiers of the Indian Home Guard saved a Union supply train from being captured by the Cherokee forces of General Stand Watie in July 1863.

               In July 1863, Honey Springs was one of the most important sites of the Confederacy in the Indian Territory. Indian regiments, along with white soldiers and Colored troops from Kansas, combined in a battle often referred to as “the Gettysburg of Indian Territory.” Union forces combined to drive the Confederates from the area, liberated valuable stores of supplies, and most importantly, secured the Union Army a firm foothold in Indian Territory.

The actions of the Union Home Guards made it possible for their families to begin returning home, some of them doing so as early as spring of 1863. But the war was not over, fierce and determined opposition brought about two more years of fighting.

From 1864 until summer of 1865, guerilla activity continued.  Confederate Colonel William Quantrill and his gang committed raids throughout the Indian Territory.  Armed gangs stole horses and cattle, and burned the communities.  The Confederate Army unit led by General Stand Watie roamed as marauders but attacked only objectives with a value to the military; they destroyed houses and barns used by Union troops as quarters or for supply storage. Watie also targeted federal military supply trains, depriving the Union forces of supplies, while providing significant supplies, food, forage and ammunition for the Confederacy.

In early 1864, the Indian Home Guards went on a march through the southern part of the territory, engaging in Sherman like destruction, laying waste wherever they marched. Houses and other structures belonging to backers of the Confederacy, again many left homeless, as tribes continued fighting within and with each other. Tensions continued until the very end of the war.

Throughout the war, Confederates formed 4 infantry regiments from among the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations. The loyalties of the Cherokee Nation were particularly divided, as many of the original Confederate Cherokees eventually deserted to join the Union cause.

The determination of the Indian Home Guards contributed to ultimate Union victory; they were driven out of their lands in rags but came home in Union Blue. It was mainly due to these Loyal Indians that the Five Civilized Tribes retained any of their lands following the end of the Civil War.

For the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, treaties signed after the war provided for huge territorial concessions, and erosion of tribal authority.  Even though many Cherokees had fought for the Union, the provisions of a July 19, 1866, treaty with the federal government required the tribe to cede parcels of land as railroad right of ways, relinquish a four-mile-wide strip of land that ran the entire length of that nation's border with Kansas, and to allow the Government to settle "friendly Indians" west of 96 degrees longitude.  Permission from the Cherokee Council would not be needed. Other tribes signed treaties with similar provisions that eventually led to a growing dependence on the federal government. With the war concluded, the Army put great effort in de-tribalization and assimilation policies in regard to all tribes. .