The FReeper Foxhole Profiles General Stand Hope Watie - Jan. 5th, 2004

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[SAMWolf]

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General Stand Hope Watie
(1806 - 1871)

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Born at Oothcaloga in the Cherokee Nation, Georgia (near present day Rome, Georgia) on December 12, 1806, Stand Watie's Cherokee name was De-ga-ta-ga, or "he stands." He also was known as Isaac S. Watie. He attended Moravian Mission School at Springplace Georgia, and served as a clerk of the Cherokee Supreme Court and Speaker of the Cherokee National Council prior to removal.

As a member of the Ridge-Watie-boundinot faction of the Cherokee Nation, Watie supported removal to the Cherokee Nation, West, and signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, in defiance of Principal Chief John Ross and the majority of the Cherokees. Watie moved to the Cherokee Nation, West (present-day Oklahoma), in 1837 and settled at Honey Creek. Following the murders of his uncle Major Ridge, cousin John Ridge, and brother Elias Boundinot (Buck Watie) in 1839, and his brother Thomas Watie in 1845, Stand Watie assumed the leadership of the Ridge-Watie-Boundinot faction and was involved in a long-running blood feud with the followers of John Ross. He also was a leader of the Knights of the Golden Circle, which bitterly opposed abolitionism.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Watie quickly joined the Southern cause. He was commissioned a colonel on July 12, 1861, and raised a regiment of Cherokees for service with the Confederate army. Later, when Chief John Ross signed an alliance with the South, Watie's men were organized as the Cherokee Regiment of Mounted Rifles. After Ross fled Indian Territory, Watie was elected principal chief of the Confederate Cherokees in August 1862.

A portion of Watie's command saw action at Oak Hills (August 10, 1861) in a battle that assured the South's hold on Indian Territory and made Watie a Confederate military hero. Afterward, Watie helped drive the pro-Northern Indians out of Indian Territory, and following the Battle of Chustenahlah (December 26, 1861) he commanded the pursuit of hte fleeing Federals, led by Opothleyahola, and drove them into exile in Kansas. Although Watie's men were exempt from service outside Indian Territory, he led his troops into Arkansas in the spring of 1861 to stem a Federal invasion of the region. Joining with Maj. GEn. Earl Van Dorn's command, Watie took part in the battle of Elkhorn Tavern (March 5-6, 1861). On the first day of fighting, the Southern Cherokees, which were on the left flank of the Confederate line, captured a battery of Union artillery before being forced to abandon it. Following the Federal victory, Watie's command screened the southern withdrawal.



Watie, or troops in his command, participated in eighteen battles and major skirmishes with Federal troop during the Civil War, including Cowskin Prairie (April 1862), Old Fort Wayne (October 1862), Webber's Falls (April 1863), Fort Gibson (May 1863), Cabin Creek (July 1863), and Gunter's Prairie (August 1864). In addition, his men were engaged in a multitude of smaller skirmishes and meeting engagements in Indian Territory and neighboring states. Because of his wide-ranging raids behind Union lines, Watie tied down thousands of Federal troops that were badly needed in the East.

Watie's two greatest victories were the capture of the federal steam boat J.R. Williams on June 15, 1864, and the seizure of $1.5 million worth of supplies in a federal wagon supply train a the Second battle of Cabin Creek on September 19, 1864.

Watie joined the Confederacy in 1861 because he feared the consequences of Lincoln's election and the Republican Party's free soil promises to open the west and the Indian Territory to white settlement. The Union abandoned all Indian Territory military posts in the spring of 1861, violating treaty pledges and making the area vulnerable to Confederate attack. He was a slave-owning planter that shared many values of the Old South. When Albert Pike and Douglas Cooper recruited Indian soldiers for the Confederacy in 1861, Watie agreed to form a Cherokee cavalry unit. Also, John Drew formed a regiment of full-blood "Pin" Cherokees (wearing a crossed-blades symbol as a pin on uniforms), as did the Choctaws and Chickasaws and Creeks and Seminoles. However, the Creeks were divided like the Cherokees. Creek chief Opothleyaholo refused to join the Confederacy and in April 1861, Confederate Indians began attacks on the neutral Creek settlement on the Deep Fork River, but Opothleyaholo won the Battle of Round Mountain Nov. 19 and Chusto Talasay Dec. 9. However, on Dec. 26, Cooper's Confederate Indians defeated Opothleyaholo at Chustenalah and drove the pro-Union Creeks into Kanasas where they formed the First and Second Union Indian Brigades to retake their homeland. At the Battle of Pea Ridge March 6-8, 1862, Stand Watie and his Cherokee Mounted Rifles captured Union artillery batteries in a dramatic charge and held their position to allow an orderly withdrawal of Earl Van Dorn's Confederate army.



Pea Ridge began the Union invasion of the Indian Territory. John Drew and his Confederate Indians deserted from the Confederacy but Stand Watie continued to fight. The Indian Expedition of 1862 advanced from Fort Leavenworth with 6000 on June 28 led by Col. William Weer, an alcoholic former officer under Jayhawker James Lane who sought to take over the Indian Territory lands for his personal gain. Weer occupied the Confederate capital of Tahlequah and captured John Ross, but paroling him when he agreed not to oppose the Union army . Stand Watie was defeated at Locust Grove July 3 by the 6th Kansas Cavalry and the black First Kansas Colored Infantry. But Weer's officers led by Col Frederick Salomon mutinied against Weer and retreated back to Kansas, re-arresting John Ross and taking him to Kansas (and then was sent to Washington D.C. where he died in 1866).

Watie was left in control of the Cherokee lands and his forces conducted a brutal campaign of revenge against pro-Union Cherokees and white missionaries. Stand Watie was chosen to replace the deposed John Ross as Chief of the Cherokees. Watie joined a Confederate raid into southwest Missouri lead by Col. Cooper and Jo Shelby, defeating Frederick Salomon at Newtonia Sept. 30. But Gen. Schofield led a Union army to retake Newtonia Oct. 4 and drove the Confederates back into Arkansas. Stand Watie and Douglas Cooper were defeated by Schofiled at Old Fort Wayne Oct. 22, and retreated south of the Arkansas River. The Union army diverted 10,000 troops from the west to help Grant at Vicksburg in November. To take advantage of this Union weakness, Gen. John Marmaduke led 2500 Confederate troops to Cane Hill in northwest Arkansas but was defeated there Nov. 28 by Gen. James Blunt and 5000 Union troops. Gen. Thomas Hindman led a Confederate army of 11,300 to attack Blunt, but Gen. Francis Herron brought 6000 Union troops from Springfield to defeat the Confederates at Prairie Grove Dec. 7, 1862. Another Union army of 1200 under Col. William Phillips defeated Stand Watie at Fort Davis Dec. 22. By the end of 1862, Union forces had secured the western flank of the Mississippi to allow Grant's river offensive to continue. Confederate forces had been defeated and pushed south of the Arkansas River.



The Indian Expedition of 1863 under James Blunt captured Fort Gibson. At the Battle of Honey Springs July 17, Blunt defeated Cooper's Confederate Indians and Blunt crossed the Arkansas River and captured Fort Smith Sept. 1, 1863, ending the Union offensive in the Indian Territory. On Sept. 10, Little Rock fell to a Union force under Frederick Steele, and Sterling Price abandoned the Arkansas River and retreated to Arkadelphia in southwest Arkansas. Stand Watie conducted raids in 1863 and 1864, as did other irregular units such as Charles Quantrill who sacked Lawrence Aug. 21, 1864, but Watie focused only on military targets and distributed captured supplies to his people.

In Nov. 1863, he attacked the Union Cherokees at Tahlequah, destroyed the town, and burned the Rose Cottage of John Ross at Park Hill. In December, Gen. Samuel Maxey began to rebuild Confederate Indian forces in the Territory and Watie was ordered to increase his raids to force a Union withdrawal from Fort Gibson. From his bases south of the Canadian River in 1864, he captured hundreds of horses from Fort Gibson and deprived the Union cavalry of fresh mounts. On May 10, he was promoted to Brigadier General. In June 1864 at Pleasant Bluff just below the mouth of the Canadian River he captured the steamer J. R. Williams carrying supplies to Fort Gibson. In September 1864 he captured 300 supply wagons at the Cabin Creek crossing on the road to Fort Gibson


Surrender of General Stand Watie

Watie was promoted to brigadier general on May 6, 1864, and given command of the first Indian Brigade. He was the only Indian to achieve the rank of general in the Civil War. Watie surrendered on June 23, 1865, the last Confederate general to lay down his arms.

After the war, Watie served as a member of the Southern Cherokee delegation during the negotiation of the Cherokee Reconstruction Treaty of 1866. He then abandoned public life and returned to his old home along Honey Creek. He died on September 9, 1871.

Thanks to FReeper stand watie whose Freeper name inspired my interest in finding out more about General Stand Watie

[SAMWolf]

Cherokee Stand Watie exhibited bravery and leadership while fighting for two lost causes.

Always a clear-thinking man, even on a day when kinsmen were murdered and vengeful fellow Cherokees dogged his heels, Stand Watie knew that he had to maintain a straight face and stay calm if he wanted to remain alive.

The son of an old friend had ridden from one of three murder scenes and brought him a warning. The youth remained collected and spoke calmly with Watie, who was inside a small store he kept in northeastern Indian Territory. Knowing that enemies could be listening, the young man bargained loudly for sugar and softly told Watie what had happened and where to find the horse called Comet standing bridled and ready. Deliberately, Watie left the store and rode off safely. He would remain in jeopardy for almost six years.

The murders, which took place on the morning of June 22, 1839, pushed Watie into the leadership of a small and unpopular Cherokee faction for the rest of his life. The tribal majority blamed Watie and his faction for the removal of the Cherokees along what became known as the Trail of Tears. Watie's uncle, the prominent chief Major Ridge, Watie's cousin John Ridge and Watie's brother Elias Boudinot (also known as Buck Watie) all died that day in the new Cherokee Nation in the West. Stand Watie faced few worse days in his adventurous and violent life that saw him become a Confederate brigadier general. On the losing side twice in his life, he had intimate familiarity with dashed hopes and lost causes.

The Cherokees, linguistic kinsmen of the Iroquois, numbered about 30,000 in 1605 and lived in what is now Georgia, Tennessee and western North Carolina. Smallpox and other diseases struck often in the 1700s. By 1800, the Cherokee population was probably about 16,000. In the Georgia Compact of 1802, Georgia gave up the land that became Alabama and Mississippi with the understanding that the federal government would force the Cherokees west. The Cherokees refused, and Washington stalled. Most of the tribe decided that assimilation gave them the best hope to stay in their homeland. Cherokees began to take on white ways, seeking education, material profit and cultural interchange. Assimilation, though, didn't work as planned. Growing economic power on the part of the Cherokees enraged white Georgians, who redoubled expulsion efforts.

Major Ridge

To some natives the solution was obvious, and one-third of the tribe had moved west of the Mississippi River by 1820. They were eventually pushed all the way to what would become Oklahoma. The bulk of the tribe went to court, and the debate over relocation simmered. Meanwhile, the tribe (which numbered about 14,000 in the Southeast in the mid-1820s) began to suffer a debilitating internal split. Perhaps 20 percent of the Cherokee people successfully adapted to white lifestyles, some becoming affluent Southern slave-owning planters.

Among the most prominent slave-owning Cherokee aristocrats were the Watie and Ridge families. The faction of the tribe headed by the Ridges and Waties owned most of the estimated 1,600 slaves held by tribesmen. Cherokee slave owners tended to work side by side with their chattels, children were born free, and intermarriage was not forbidden. Only about 8 percent of tribal members (1 percent of full-blooded families) actually owned slaves. Because of the influence of mission schools, many Cherokees were intensely anti-slavery. Poorer than the Ridge-Watie faction, the traditionalists had neither the money nor the inclination to move West.

In 1827, the Cherokees created their first central government to better deal with the white world. At a convention the next year, John Ross was elected principal chief--a post he held until his death in 1866. Ross, born in 1796 in Tennessee, was mostly Scottish, having only one-eighth Cherokee blood. But he was Cherokee to the core and enormously popular.

His rivals turned out to be the sons of old-time full bloods. Major Ridge and his brother, David Watie (or Oowatie), were descended from warrior chiefs. Both men married genteel white women and rose in society, dressing and acting like planters. The family was close, and family members wrote more often and better than most whites of the time. Some 2,000 family letters were found in 1919. Following Sequoyah's development of a syllabary in 1821, Cherokees took enthusiastically to reading and writing. When Stand Watie began writing is not certain, but his only surviving letters date to the Civil War.

Stand Watie was born in Georgia, probably in 1806; his early life is obscure. He was educated at a mission school, but less thoroughly than his brother Elias Boudinot, who was born Buck Watie but took the name of a white benefactor. Elias became a newspaper editor, and Stand held the job briefly during his brother's absence. Stand Watie married several times, losing a number of wives and children to disease. The family did not record dates and details.

Watie's rivalry with John Ross, whose bywords were unity and opposition to removal, slowly began to grow after 1832. Most of the Cherokees who had not moved West in the removal treaties of 1817 and 1819 continued to be against relocation, and Ross was their spokesman. The Ridge faction thought relocation to be in the best interests of the people. Major Ridge, a full-blooded Cherokee, and his son John Ridge felt that the educated and wealthy Cherokees could probably survive in Georgia but that the others would be led into drunkenness and then cheated and oppressed. War would be the inevitable result. Each faction thought the other was corrupt. The Ridge-Watie party allied itself with U.S. President Andrew Jackson and his supporters, and connived behind the backs of the Cherokee councilmen, who usually opposed them.

Saladin Ridge Watie, son of Stand Watie, enlisted in the Confederate service at fifteen and rose to the rank of captain in his father's Confederate Indian brigade. He was cited for exceptional bravery by Gen. D.H. Cooper at the 1864 attack on Union forces at Fort Smith AR. He served on the Southern Cherokee delegation to Washington in 1866. Saladin died of a sudden illness at Webber's Falls in 1868 -- only 21 years old.

The atmosphere became poisonous as rival Cherokee delegations went to Washington, D.C., with different plans, and President Jackson played both sides against each other--fostering allegations of bribe-taking. In 1835 the issue came to a head. Ridge's faction helped draft a treaty that would require Cherokee removal west of the Mississippi in return for about $5 million. Ross and the council rejected the treaty, holding out for $20 million and other terms; they would not move on Ridge-Watie terms. By October it was clear that most Cherokees sided with Ross. It was also clear that the government would not pay $20 million.

Then, in December 1835, the Ridge-Watie party committed what amounted to suicide. Major Ridge, John Ridge and the Watie brothers were the only prominent Cherokees to sign the Treaty of New Echota, in Georgia, on December 29. A free-blanket offer attracted some 300 to 500 people--probably 3 percent of the tribe--to the signing place. Only about 80 to 100 people eligible to vote were present. Ross and the legitimate council were nowhere near. The treaty was roundly denounced--even by such unlikely allies as Davy Crockett and Daniel Webster. Cherokees in the East had to leave the Southeast in return for a payment of $15 million and 800,000 acres in Indian Territory (in what would become northeastern Oklahoma and part of Kansas). The Cherokees were to be removed within two years. The Ridge-Watie faction ("treaty party") thought the terms generous--that they had gotten a good price.

Whether or not the terms were generous, the treaty was a disgrace, as it was opposed by some 90 percent of the tribe. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the treaty invalid, but President Jackson refused to void it. The Martin van Buren administration did likewise. Ross and his "anti-treaty party" fought a losing court battle, and they were not well-prepared for removal when it began. In 1837, only about 2,000 Cherokees went West; most of the others held out, perhaps not believing they would be forced to leave their homeland.

[SAMWolf]

The so-called Trail of Tears (the Cherokees called it Nunna daul Tsuny, "Trail Where We Cried") came in 1838, when Federal troops and Georgia militia removed the holdout tribe members to Indian Territory (about 1,000 avoided capture by hiding in the mountains). As many as 4,000 Cherokees may have died from disease, hunger, cold and deliberate brutality by volunteer Georgia troops and regulars led by a reluctant General Winfield Scott. The Ridge-Watie parties had been among the first to depart to the new country, arriving in 1837. They had gone in comfort and had located themselves on choice Indian Territory land. Because most of the Cherokees who followed suffered during the migration and after their arrival in the West, resentment against the Ridges and Waties grew.

More than 100 members of the anti-treaty party met at Double Springs on June 21 and pronounced death sentences in secret--outside the council and without vested authority--purportedly to keep John Ross from finding out about their plans. Either Ross had reached the end of his patience with his enemies--or he simply could do nothing to stop the killings.


On June 29, 1995, the U.S. Post Office issue a set of 20 commemorative stamps showign 16 individuals and 4 battles of the U.S. Civil War. Brigadier General Stand Watie (1806-1870) was one of the individuals selected to appear on the stamps. He is pictured here, on horseback, following a raid on a Union river boat.

Death came early and with ritual touches for John Ridge at his Indian Territory home on Honey Creek, near the northwest corner of Arkansas. About 30 killers dragged him from his bed and into his front yard around dawn on June 22. They knifed him repeatedly before his distraught family. Old Major Ridge, John's father, was ambushed a few hours later while riding past a small bluff on the road to Washington County, Ark. Rifle-toting bushwhackers opened fire, hitting him five times. Boudinot, at about the same time, was going about his daily work, helping a friend build a house near Park Hill, some miles from John Ridge's house. Three Cherokees approached him and told him they needed to get medicine. Because Boudinot's tribal responsibilities included providing medicine, he followed, unsuspecting. One of the men quickly dropped behind him and stabbed him in the back. Another axed him in the head.

Boudinot's brother, Stand Watie, was also apparently marked for death that day. But Boudinot's cries on being stabbed were heard by friends. The youth who delivered the warning to Watie was probably the son of the Reverend S.A. Worcester, a family friend. Watie's store was close to John Ridge's home.

Because John Ross was proud of his ties to the average Cherokee and was very popular among them, he was in a difficult position. He repudiated the murders, but he did not turn the killers in and may actually have hidden some of them. He denied complicity and does not appear to have been directly involved. Former President Jackson wrote to Watie and condemned "the outrageous and tyrannical conduct of John Ross and his self-created council....I trust the President will not hesitate to employ all his rightfull [sic] power to protect you and your party from the tyranny and murderous schemes of John Ross."


Old Cherokee National Capitol Building, Tahlequah, Oklahoma

Jackson didn't curb his habit of speaking from both sides of his mouth. He urged Watie to make peace but endorsed seeking vengeance if Watie didn't get what he wanted. Watie formed a band of warriors, and Ross complained to Washington that he had to go armed among friends. The government ordered Watie to disband his followers, to little avail.

Until 1846 the Cherokees were involved in a murderous internal feud. As chief of his segment of the tribe, Watie authorized retaliation, and vengeance murders were common. Legend has encrusted Watie's activities, giving him heroic courage and coolness and deadly fighting skills. His most documented exploit occurred in an Arkansas grocery where he confronted James Foreman, an alleged killer of Major Ridge. The two men had threatened each other frequently, but this day they bought each other a drink. A challenge was quickly issued, and the drinks were hurled aside. Foreman had a big whip, which he used against Watie. Watie stabbed Foreman when Foreman tried to hit him with a board. He then shot and killed the escaping Foreman. Watie successfully argued self-defense at his trial.

The tribal situation was brutal. In one letter to Watie, a relative recounted family news that included four treaty-related killings (and two scalpings), three hangings for previous killings and two kidnappings. The letter said that intertribal murders were so common "the people care as little about hearing these things as they would hear of the death of a common dog."



The Cherokees made internal peace in 1846--Watie and Ross reputedly shaking hands--and sought to rebuild tribal prosperity in the West. Times were improving until the Civil War. Stand Watie was a member of the Cherokee Tribal Council from 1845 to 1861. He declared his support for the Confederacy early on, but Ross resisted at first. The Confederacy was successful in seeking alliances with Comanches, Seminoles, Osages, Chickasaws, Choctaws and Creeks. Ross was finally forced into the Confederate alliance.

Watie raised a cavalry regiment and served the South with distinction and enthusiasm. Another Cherokee regiment served under John Drew. In all, about 3,000 Cherokee men served the Confederacy during the war. Watie was beloved by die-hard Confederates. Judge James M. Keyes of Pryor, Okla., said: "I regard General Stand Watie as one of the bravest and most capable men, and the foremost soldier ever produced by the North American Indians. He was wise in council and courageous in action."

Watie fought most of the war at the head of a band of very irregular cavalry. He led with dash and imagination as they ambushed trains, steamships and Union cavalry. He also fought in one major battle.

On March 7-8, 1862, Watie was part of Confederate Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn's army of 16,000 men. They were in the region of Fayatteville, Ark., trying to encircle the right flank of Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis' 12,000-man army. Curtis, who was on the defensive about 30 miles northeast of Fayatteville at Pea Ridge, discovered the plan and spoiled the offensive. Van Dorn withdrew after two days of stubborn fighting, but Pea Ridge cemented Watie's reputation. He captured a Union battery after a dramatic charge, and also proved skillful in withdrawal, helping to prevent a disaster. One of his soldiers said: "I don't know how we did it but Watie gave the order, which he always led, and his men could follow him into the very jaws of death. The Indian Rebel Yell was given and we fought like tigers three to one. It must have been that mysterious power of Stand Watie that led us on to make the capture against such odds."



After the Battle of Pea Ridge, Drew's regiment deserted the Confederacy. Watie, though, stuck to the Southern cause. Untrained as a soldier, he had good sense and cunning and was an effective guerrilla. "Stand Watie and his men, with the Confederate Creeks and others, scoured the country at will, destroying or carrying off everything belonging to the loyal Cherokee," wrote 19th-century anthropologist James Mooney. Watie was promoted to brigadier general on May 10, 1864, and on June 23, 1865, was the last Southern general to capitulate. Watie returned to absolute devastation. (According to Mooney, the Cherokee population during the war was reduced from 21,000 to 14,000.) Watie then fought some losing postwar battles. He was rebuffed in his bid for federal recognition as Cherokee chief and was also rebuffed in efforts to rebuild his fortunes.

Watie's last years were careworn as his family dropped around him. All his sons died before he died on September 9, 1871, and his two young daughters followed in 1873. But Confederate veterans and sympathetic writers kept Watie's legend alive. He became the example of devotion to "the Cause." Even enemy Cherokees came to respect his devotion to his beliefs, and "Stand" and "Watie" became common Cherokee first names.

Watie had displayed unfailing courage, devotion, constant optimism and good humor--at least according to his friends. He never, they say, had a harsh word for his family and never gave way to despair or dejection. In reality he was not a shining cavalier--his Indian troops sometimes reverted to scalping and torture. He clearly was involved in shameful political skullduggery. But he was a man who fought hard for his beliefs and stuck to his guns even when the odds were against him. He had supported two lost causes--the Ridges and then the Confederacy--but he had never given up.

JIM STEBINGER (WILD WEST magazine)

Additional Sources:

members.cox.net/confed
www.lsb.state.ok.us
cherokeehistory.com
www.nostalg66.com
www.georgiahistory.ws
nativeamericans.com
ngeorgia.com/people
www.starshiplight.com
www.civilwaralbum.com
www.turtletrack.org
www.ehistory.com
www.south-art.com
www.ok-history.mus.ok.us
www.cville.com

[SAMWolf]

Meaning of the Cherokee Braves Flag



The flag of the Cherokee Braves was a First National Confederate with eleven stars to represent the eleven states of the Confederacy. The five red stars within the circle represented the five civilized tribes that served the Confederacy. The Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaws, and the Seminoles each had one representing red star. It was used as the Regimental colours by several the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles and other Cherokee units who served the Confederacy. Just as there were other star variants of the First Confederate Flag there were other variants of the Cherokee Braves flag. The 13 star variants included stars for Missouri and Kentucky.

[SAMWolf]

Veterans for Constitution Restoration is a non-profit, non-partisan educational and grassroots activist organization. The primary area of concern to all VetsCoR members is that our national and local educational systems fall short in teaching students and all American citizens the history and underlying principles on which our Constitutional republic-based system of self-government was founded. VetsCoR members are also very concerned that the Federal government long ago over-stepped its limited authority as clearly specified in the United States Constitution, as well as the Founding Fathers' supporting letters, essays, and other public documents.

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[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone in The FOXHOLE.

[snippy_about_it]

FALL IN to the FReeper Foxhole!



Good Monday Morning Everyone


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[Aeronaut]

Good morning Snippy.

[Humal]

Another excellent article, SAMWolf. The Cherokee involvement in the War Between the States was not something I learned in school. It was long after I left school, and from my own study, that I learned of it.

Your posts would be an excellent source of history for anyone, but especially home schoolers. They give just the facts without the PC bias that text books have. "History is written from the perspective of the victor".

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Freeper Foxhole.

Congradulations to LSU on winning the Sugar Bowl and to OU on an excellent season. We'll try again in '04.

[snippy_about_it]

Thank you Sam for educating us about Stand Watie. Fighting for two lost causes, and all the despair he faced with his family. No wonder they made him a legend. I'm glad the Foxhole was able to remember him, too.

[snippy_about_it]

Good morning feather.

[snippy_about_it]

Good morning Aeronaut.

[The Mayor]

You are the salt of the earth. —Matthew 5:13

A salty Christian makes others thirsty for Jesus, the Water of Life.

[snippy_about_it]

Your posts would be an excellent source of history for anyone, but especially home schoolers.

Good morning Humal.

Thank you for your kind words about the Foxhole. We do know folks who use these threads to educate their children and we enjoy gathering the information and putting it together for everyone.

Like you, I didn't learn a lot of this in school but thank goodness even for those of us older, we can still learn.

[snippy_about_it]

Good morning Mayor.

[snopercod]

Thanks for another excellent article. I never knew all this before now.

I live not far from Cherokee, NC., although I've never been up there. The casinos there are run by the "Eastern Band of Cherokees", so would that make them the ones that didn't join with Stand Watie?

[The Mayor]

Mornin Snippy, a little snow here today and only 25 degrees.

[snippy_about_it]

We are at 34 but dropping to 19. Low of 9 tomorrow. I have no idea why I put up with this. 9 degrees...arrggh!

[snippy_about_it]

Morning EGC. I'm looking forward to baseball season. Only 'cause it means warmer weather. :-)