Oklahoma Civil War Map of Battles

November 19, 1861 Round Mountain December 9, 1861 Chusto-Talasah / Caving Banks December 26, 1861 Chustenahlah October 22, 1862 Old Fort Wayne / Beaty's Prairie February 13, 1864 Middle Boggy Depot July 1-2, 1863 Cabin Creek July 17, 1863 Honey Springs / Elk Creek / Shaw's Inn

The present Oklahoma State Flag adopted by the State Legislature in 1925, is Oklahoma's 14th flag. This shows a sky blue field with a central device: an Indian war shield of tan buckskin showing small crosses on the face -- the Indian design for stars -- and seven eagle feathers pendent for the edge of the shield. An Indian peace pipe (calumet) with a pipestone bowl and a tassel at the end of the pipestem lies on the shield; above the Indian peace pipe is an olive branch, the white man's emblem of peace.  Underneath the shield or design in white letters is the word "Oklahoma."

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General Maxey, dignified, articulate, and confident, arrives in Indian Territory in 1863 to assume command of a diverse and motley army of Indians. The troops are in disarray; they are suspicious of tribal alliances, weakened from malnutrition, their crops have been pillaged, and they are discouraged by a series of battlefield setbacks at the hands of the Union Army invading from Kansas. Maxey calls upon all of his leadership and administrative skills and his insight into Indian culture to win the confidence and loyalty of these soldiers. Desperately he fights to secure badly needed munitions and provisions from the Confederate bureaucracy, which is focused on the plight of its eastern armies. All the while he struggles with his own field commander, the able and ambitious Douglas Cooper, friend of Jefferson Davis, who is eager to supplant him. Yet, Maxey perseveres and succeeds in molding this "army without infantry" into an effective fighting force that plays an important role in the Red River and Arkansas Campaigns and ultimately helps prevent a Union invasion of north Texas. A little known story, dramatically told by a distinguished author.

Inexperienced Union and Confederate soldiers in the West waged numerous bloody campaigns against the Indians during the Civil War. Fighting with a distinct geographical advantage, many tribes terrorized the territory from the Plains to the Pacific, as American pioneers moved west in greater numbers. These noteworthy--and notorious--Indian campaigns featured a fascinating cast of colorful characters, and were set against the wild, desolate, and untamed territories of the western United States. This is the first book to explore Indian conflicts that took place during the Civil War and documents both Union and Confederate encounters with hostile Indians blocking western expansion.

Very little of the information in this history of Native American participation in the Civil War is wholly news, and some--such as that Grant's aide, Eli Parker, was an Iroquois chief and that Cherokees under Stand Watie fought for the Confederacy--is known to most well-read Civil War enthusiasts. But no other recent author has pulled together into one accessible, well-written, and thoroughly researched book the full scope of Native American service in the Civil War. Indians participated both as groups and as individuals and with a wide diversity of motivation, but most had at least some notion that participation was a step forward to full acceptance in American society--a goal that, then as on too many other occasions, eluded them.