Wednesday, August 28, 2013

"New Directions" in Scholarship: The Trans-Mississippi


Civil War History, a quarterly journal, has once again published an article about the trans-Mississippi. “Nations Colliding: The Civil War Comes to Indian Territory” by Troy Smith is touted as one of the “new directions in the study of the American Civil War that are helping to reshape the field” (277). The article “explores the formal wartime alliance between the so-called Five Civilized Tribes and the Confederate States of America, a topic about which even many Civil War specialists know comparatively little” (277). With the upcoming publication of Mary Jane Warde’s When the Wolf Came: The Civil War and the Indian Territory and some other recent publications, I sense an uptick in serious scholarship about the trans-Mississippi. 

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Locust Grove: A More Historic Skirmish Than You Realized


The men of the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry fought in a skirmish on James Island, South Carolina, on July 16, 1863, making them the first African-American soldiers to experience combat during the Civil War. Right? Well, not quite… perhaps the first were the men of the African Brigade (the 9th Louisiana Infantry, the 11th Louisiana Infantry, and the 1st Mississippi) as they engaged in a ferocious defense against Confederate soldiers at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, on June 7, 1863? No… It must be the portion of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry that served at Island Mound, Missouri, on October 29, 1862. But, no, that is wrong also.

Some of you may recall that I posted a piece on October 4, 2011, about the skirmish at Locust Grove, Indian Territory. In the short posting, I used the skirmish at Locust Grove to illustrate how even “small” events could have important consequences, but the skirmish at Locust Grove was significant in yet another way. The First Indian Home Guard, made up mostly of refugee Creek and Seminole Indians from the Indian Territory, also had in its ranks 25-30 African Creeks. These men, some of them former slaves in the Creek Nation, were mustered in during the spring of 1862 in refugee camps in Kansas. The First Indian Home Guard was primarily responsible for the Union victory at Locust Grove, therefore earning the African Creeks in that unit the distinction of being the "first... regularly mustered blacks in the federal army” to experience combat during the war according to Dr. Gary Zellar (“Occupying the Middle Ground, 55). Now, in case you want to quibble that Locust Grove was a mere skirmish, and it doesn't really "count," bear in mind that the First Indian Home Guard also fought at Prairie Grove, a major battle, on December 7, 1862. When do you think a movie will be made about these men?

For further information about the African Creeks see the following:

Zellar, Gary. African Creeks: Estelvste and the Creek Nation. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.

Zellar, Gary. “Occupying the Middle Ground: African Creeks in the First Indian Home Guard, 1862-1865.” Chronicles of Oklahoma. V. 76 (No. 1, 1998): 48-71.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Trans-Mississippi Losses: Union Troops


William F. Fox’s Regimental Losses In The American Civil War, 1861-1865 (1898) contains a great amount of interesting statistical data. Near the end of his book, I recently reexamined a table titled “Total Deaths and Percentages By States,” and I extracted part of the data and placed it in the table below. For starters, the statistics below pertain only to Union enlistments, and I have deleted his statistics relating to Veteran Reserves, Regular Army, as well as several other categories. Curious about losses from the trans-Mississippi and how they compared to eastern states, I have highlighted the states and territories from west of the Mississippi. Regrettably, reliable data from the Confederate states are unavailable.

Source: Fox, William F. Regimental Losses In The American Civil War, 1861-1865. (Albany, NY: Brandow Printing Co., 1898), pp. 526-527.


State/Territory
Total deaths
Troops furnished; three years standard
Percent of total deaths
Indian Nations
1,018
3,530
28.8
Tennessee
6,777
26,394
25.6
Kentucky
10,774
43,550
24.7
Arkansas
1,713
7,836
21.8
Alabama
345
1,611
21.4
Louisiana
945
4,654
20.3
Vermont
5,224
26,355
19.8
Michigan
14,753
76,218
19.3
Iowa
13,001
68,118
19.0
Maine
9,398
49,635
18.9
Indiana
26,672
150,177
17.7
Missouri
13,885
78,035
17.7
New Hampshire
4,882
29,150
16.7
Wisconsin
12,301
73,865
16.6
Florida
215
1,290
16.6
Illinois
34,834
210,043
16.5
Kansas
2,630
16,624
15.8
Ohio
35,475
225,669
15.7
Pennsylvania
33,183
214,427
15.4
West Virginia
4,017
27,518
14.5
Mississippi
78
545
14.3
Massachusetts
13,942
98,803
14.1
Minnesota
2,584
18,554
13.9
New York
46,534
334,784
13.8
New Jersey
5,754
44,398
12.9
Maryland
2,982
24,954
11.9
Connecticut
5,354
45,181
11.8
North Carolina
360
3,156
11.4
Delaware
882
7,888
11.1
Nebraska Territory
239
2,175
10.9
Rhode Island
1,321
13,688
9.6
Colorado Territory
323
3,697
8.7
Texas
141
1,632
8.6
New Mexico Terr.
277
4,432
6.2
District of Columbia
290
6,546
4.4
California
573
15,725
3.6
Nevada Territory
33
1,080
3.0
Dakota Territory
6
206
3.0
Oregon Territory
45
1,773
2.5
Washington Terr.
22
964
2.2