A Disappointing Source

Research is a mixed bag. Sometimes, books turn out to yield unexpected jewels, and sometimes books turn out to be disappointing. It’s probably not fair to label a book as disappointing because its contents may be invaluable to a historian working on a different project. Also, historians shouldn't judge a book based on what they wished the author had covered. In spite of all that, though, I am disappointed by a source, namely Wiley Britton’s, The Union Indian Brigade In The Civil War (1922). Britton, a veteran of the 6^th Kansas Cavalry, penned two other works: The Civil War on the Border in two volumes and his own Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border: 1863. Authors regularly cite Britton’s books, although his influence seems to be declining somewhat as more modern books are published about the Border War.

Britton often observed the Union Indian brigade that consisted of the 1st, 2^nd, and 3^rd Indian Home Guard regiments, and his personal comments about these soldiers are sprinkled throughout the unit history. The frustrating part to me, though, is that his history could have been much more valuable. A top-notch unit history draws on letters, diaries, recollections, official documents, and other sources that relate directly to the soldiers in that unit. What is lacking in Britton’s history is the perspective of men who actually served in the brigade. To be fair, many of the veterans had died by the time Britton's book was published in 1922. If only Britton had worked earlier on securing letters, recollections, and other documentation from the Indians, African-Americans, and white soldiers that served in the brigade! That would have resulted in an amazing resource about one of the most unique brigades in the Union army. We are fortunate to have the resources that we do about the War, but sometimes you just can’t help but think about what could have been.

More Books With Staying Power

As mentioned in an earlier posting, historians often cite Annie Heloise Abel’s trilogy about the slaveholding Indians in the Indian Territory. Four books by Union veteran Wiley Britton also regularly crop up in book citations. Born near Neosho, Missouri, in 1841, Britton enlisted in March 1862 in Company K of the 6^th Kansas Cavalry, a regiment that saw much service in the border area. Based on a diary, his Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border: 1863 is a good chronicle of campaigning and contains excellent descriptions of the people and geography of Arkansas, the Indian Territory, and Missouri. Pioneer Life in Southwest Missouri relates facts of Britton’s early life and the Civil War years in southwest Missouri. Britton used his diary, official records, and papers loaned to him by participants in writing The Civil War On The Border in two volumes. This work was the first to focus exclusively on the entire war along the border, and it ranks as Britton’s most cited work along with his Memoirs. An inferior work, and one less cited, is The Union Indian Brigade In The Civil War that provides too little specific information about the brigade to even be considered as a unit history. Like Abel, Wiley Britton was also a pioneering historian of the trans-Mississippi. He died in 1930 at the Old Soldiers Home in Leavenworth, Kansas.

Bibliographic citations for his books:

Britton, Wiley. The Civil War On The Border. 2 vols. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1899-1904; reprint ed., Ottawa, KS: Kansas Heritage Press, 1994.

Britton, Wiley. Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border: 1863. Chicago: Cushing, Thomas, and Co., 1882; reprint ed., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

Britton, Wiley. Pioneer Life in Southwest Missouri. Columbia: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1923.

Britton, Wiley. The Union Indian Brigade In The Civil War. Kansas City, MO: Franklin Hudson Publishing Co., 1922; reprint ed., Ottawa, KS: Kansas Heritage Press, n.d.

More Long Marches in the Trans-Mississippi

As mentioned in some older posts, there were some notable long marches in the trans-Mississippi. Wiley Britton’s, The Union Indian Brigade In The Civil War (1922) documented two lengthy marches that took place during the summer of 1863. A skirmish was fought at Cabin Creek in the Indian Territory on 1 July 1863; when General James G. Blunt received word of this fight, he took a small force of cavalry and artillery from Fort Scott, Kansas, to Cabin Creek. The men were able to travel “one hundred and twenty miles in three days” (p. 268). In late August, Colonel W. F. Cloud’s brigade consisting of “…the Second Kansas Cavalry, the First Arkansas Infantry, and two sections of Rabb’s Second Indiana Battery” (p. 286) marched from “…Perryville [Indian Territory] to the vicinity of Fort Smith, a distance of upwards of one hundred miles in four days, the men and horses of Colonel Cloud’s brigade were put to the severest test of physical endurance, for they had been constantly marching for three weeks, and a good deal of the time day and night…” (p. 291).

Fraternizing

Recently, I have been reading Wiley Britton’s The Union Indian Brigade In The Civil War (1922). Britton, a veteran of the 6^th Kansas Cavalry, misnamed his book as it is really not a unit history, or at least it is certainly missing some elements that I typically see in unit histories. In the book, there is only a limited discussion of the creation of the brigade, no insider’s view of the brigade, no listing of officers, hardly any discussion of casualties, and no roster. Britton, though, observed the Indian brigade, participated in some of the same campaigns, and did include some valuable eyewitness material. His account of fraternizing with the enemy in the Indian Territory reveals that trans-Mississippi soldiers did share some attributes with their eastern counterparts. Couldn’t the following have happened in Virginia? Or Tennessee?

“There was heavy timber on both sides of the Arkansas below the mouth of Grand River, and many fallen trees which afforded good protection to the pickets of both sides, very few of whom exposed themselves to the point blank range of the rifles then in use. The river was fully half a mile wide from bank to bank, and the Sharp’s carbines of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, the best cavalry arm then in use, even with raised sight, was not always effective at that distance.

In some instances the pickets of each side came down to the water’s edge of the river and took deliberate aim at each other, which resulted in some casualties. Later the pickets communicated with each other and declared a truce and came down to the river and talked with each other from a sandbar to the opposite shore; they then went in swimming, each party keeping to their own side of the river, near enough, however, on several occasions for the Confederates to exchange tobacco with the Federal soldiers for coffee, which was not then issued to the Confederate forces in the west. Several substitutes, however, were used in the Confederate army and by the Southern people” (p. 228).

A Skirmish With Important Results

I notice that sometimes scholars fall into the trap of the prodigious fallacy. Historian David Hackett Fischer wrote a wonderful book titled Historian’s Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1970) in which he documented with real-life examples dozens of fallacies from the pens of historians. As Fischer explained, the prodigious fallacy “…is the erroneous idea that a historian’s task is to describe portents and prodigies, and events marvelous, stupendous, fantastic, extraordinary, wonderful, superlative, astonishing, and monstrous—and further, that the more marvelous, stupendous, etc., an event is, the more historic and eventful it becomes. This absurd standard of significance is older than history itself” (70-71). Haven’t you noticed this fallacious standard applied in Civil War histories? Surely, the fact that an extraordinary number of casualties occurred at a battle means that the battle was extraordinarily significant! But, is that necessarily the case? I’m hoping that you’re thinking “No, that is not necessarily true.”

And so that leads us to the ranks of the 6^th Kansas Cavalry as they are about to attack an enemy camp on 3 July 1862. “We struck the enemy just at dawn—some of the brightest stars were still shining” (233) reported Wiley Britton in his Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border: 1863. This surprise attack on Colonel J. J. Clarkson’s Missouri soldiers near Locust Grove (Indian Territory) resulted in the capture of 110 Missourians and perhaps as many as 100 Confederates killed and wounded. Union casualties totaled three killed and six wounded. So here we have it—a low number of casualties and a small number of people involved must mean that it was an event of little importance. Or, maybe one of those that was only important to those who fought there. That last one always gets me because it is so confining. It implies that combat occurs in a vacuum and has no possible effect on any people other than those directly involved in the combat. Relatives of those who fall as casualties are thus quickly dismissed as are civilians in the geographical vicinity of the combat. Guess none of those folks really count. But, I digress…

The Union victory at Locust Grove sent a wave of consternation through the Cherokee Nation. The Nation had officially allied with the Confederacy, but in actuality the Nation was severely divided in its loyalties. The loyalty of Colonel John Drew’s Mounted Rifles was so undermined after the Locust Grove skirmish that 600 of its men defected to the Union; it was the only time during the war that virtually an entire regiment shifted to the opposing side. The collateral damage from the skirmish continued. Union forces advanced and entered Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, and then continued a short distance to Park Hill where Chief John Ross resided. Ross had never been enthused about the alliance with the Confederacy, and Union troops arrested him and then paroled him. He and several family members ended up leaving the Nation—all escorted by a detachment of the 6^th Kansas Cavalry. Ross then went into virtual exile in Philadelphia. So, the moral of this little narrative: small military events do not necessarily lead to small outcomes.

For more information about the skirmish at Locust Grove and John Drew’s regiment see W. Craig Gaines’ interesting book, The Confederate Cherokees: John Drew’s Regiment of Mounted Rifles (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989).