Here is “Americans Need to Know the Hard Truth About Union Monuments in the West — During the Civil War, Union soldiers in the West weren’t fighting to end slavery, but to annihilate and remove Native Americans.”
Civil War
NYTs “Disunion” Series Profiles Cherokee Nation after the Civil War
Here.
Fascinating. My favorite part:
By 1862, Ross had become disillusioned with the Confederate government. The first major military engagements in Indian Territory proved disastrous for both the Confederacy and the Cherokees. Retreating from Indian Territory, the Confederacy left the Cherokees open to Union advances and without supplies for Cherokee troops and destitute civilians. Although Ross believed the Confederacy was shirking its treaty promises, the Confederate colonel Douglas H. Cooper called upon Ross to fulfill his obligations by ordering all Cherokee men of fighting age to “take up arms to repel invasion.”
Union Capt. Harris S. Greeno was aware of Ross’s dissatisfaction with the Confederacy, and he ordered the arrest of Ross and his family at their plantation home, Rose Cottage, in present-day eastern Oklahoma. They were quickly paroled and escorted to Union territory, and they retreated to his wife’s family home in Philadelphia. Ross would spend the remainder of the war attempting to convince the Lincoln administration of the Cherokee’s loyalty and commitment to the Union cause.
More Company K Coverage
The Civil War started 150 years ago, on April 12, 1861, which is a likely reason for the increased coverage of the war in media outlets. Regardless, the additional coverage of Company K is welcome. From the Petoskey News (h/t K.B.):
BOYNE CITY — After a century of anonymity the unmarked graves of two American Indian sharpshooters from the Civil War received their full honors Saturday at Maple Lawn Cemetery.
The two Union soldiers, Pvt. John Jacko and William Isaacs, were members of a 140-member American Indian unit of the Michigan Sharpshooters known as Company K that fought in some of the fiercest battles of the Civil War, including the Battle of the Wilderness, Battle of Spotsylvania and the Siege of Petersburg.
But, following the Civil War many American Indian veterans took their severance pay and were largely forgotten.
In the full tradition of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Traverse City-based Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War Robert Finch Camp 14 honored the two veterans with taps and three volleys by riflemen, as well white marble tombstones, recognizing the two men for the first time since their deaths in 1907.
The historical details of Company K had been almost completely undocumented until this past year, when historian Chris Czopek, of Lansing, began self-publishing more than 15 years of sifting through documents and federal records about the unit.
It was Czopek who identified the two graves while researching his book “Who was Who in Company K,” is the first historical text of compiled names, dates and details about the unit.
“One of the things I wanted to do was track down every single grave of these soldiers,” Czopek said.
The first grave he found was of Jacko, then later Isaacs.
Jacko, who belonged to the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians in Leelanau County, enlisted in the Union Army in Grand Rapids in 1845 as a replacement sharpshooter after his father Jacko Penaiswanquot died in the infamous Andersonville prison in Georgia, Czopek said.
“He enlisted in Company K, as if he wanted to take his father’s place,” Czopek said. “But, despite enlisting at the end of the (Civil War) he fought in some of the biggest battles and was a true veteran in every sense of the word.”
Isaacs was also seasoned veteran.
Twice wounded, the Swan Creek Black River Bands of Ojibwe Indian was with Company K when it was first recruited in 1863 until it was released from duty at the end of the war. First wounded in the leg, Czopek said, Isaacs, who lived grew up near Saginaw, later sustained a second injury when a mortar round landed directly between his legs — failing to explode.
Michigan Indians in the Civil War, Petersburg National Battlefield
From the National Parks Traveler–Eric Hemenway is quoted extensively on the next page.
H/T Indianz
American Indians in the Civil War? Petersburg National Battlefield is Part of the Story
Submitted by Jim Burnett on December 17, 2010 – 12:34am
The 150th Anniversary of the Civil War is nearly here and a recent event at Petersburg National Battlefield underscored a bit of history that often escapes much notice—the role of American Indians in the conflict.
Estimates of the number of American Indians who fought for either the Union or the Confederacy vary widely; several sources cite numbers ranging from about 6,000 to over 20,000 men. One example occurred at Petersburg, Virginia, and that story has recently received some renewed attention.
Earlier this month, descendents of Company K of the First Michigan Sharpshooters returned to the park to meet with Superintendent Lewis Rogers and his staff and pay homage to their ancestors. Company K consisted entirely of American Indians from Michigan who enlisted in the Union Army.
According to information from the park, “The 1st Michigan Sharpshooters fought valiantly in every major battle in the Petersburg campaign. The American Indians were a memorable presence at the Battle of the Crater, where they were noticed for their composure under adversity. A Union officer described watching a group of them pull their jackets over their faces and sing their death chant when trapped in the crater under Confederate fire. When Petersburg fell in April, 1865, after a nine and half month siege, the First Michigan raised the first United States flag above the city.”
It’s not hard to see how specific details about individual units get lost in the history of the Civil War, and even just at Petersburg. A park publication notes that 800 regiments of nearly 160,000 soldiers served on both sides at Petersburg. That’s a lot of history waiting to be told.
The story of the men of Company K attracted the attention of the park staff as a result of a project at Poplar Grove National Cemetery, which is maintained by Petersburg National Battlefield. The cemetery is the final resting place of over 6,000 Union Civil War soldiers, and the tombstones lie flat on the ground. The park is in the planning stages of a project to replace the stones with new, upright markers that match the original Civil War design, along with other work to rehabilitate the cultural landscape. Studies for the project revealed that some of the men of Company K were buried at Poplar Grove.
“So far, five named Indian graves have been identified, but there are probably more unnamed individuals that have not yet been identified as Indians buried here,” explained Julia Steele, the battlefield’s cultural resources manager. “Of all the amazing stories that occurred here during the war, this is one of the most striking. When we started to research the role of Company K, we were touched by how deeply they were involved in the whole campaign.”
Turtle Talk 