Earlier today, I attended
a reenactment of the battle of Honey Springs near Checotah, Oklahoma. One of
the sutlers had a table set up with a display of a book that is “hot off the
press.” Mary Jane Warde’s When the Wolf
Came: The Civil War and the Indian Territory (University of Arkansas Press)
is a book that I have been eagerly anticipating, and when she arrived later in
the day, I purchased a signed copy from her.
In the preface, T. Michael
Parrish and Daniel E. Sutherland wrote “Mary Jane Warde has
devoted many years
to researching and preserving the history of the old Indian Territory. Built on
a solid foundation of published and unpublished sources, including such rich
archival collections as the records of the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek
Nations, the present work demonstrates the impressive scope of her knowledge. From
the removal acts of the 1830s to the post-Civil War readjustment of the western
tribes, her sweeping narrative explores both the signal public events that
marked the tumultuous era and the consequences for the territory’s tens of
thousands of native peoples.” Weighing in at 404 pages, the book also includes
a ten page bibliographical essay. I’m looking forward to digging into this
book!
