The Confederate Cherokees: John Drew's Regiment of Mounted Rifles

Although many Indian nations fought in the Civil War, historians have given little attention to the role Native Americans played in the conflict. Indian nations did, in fact, suffer a higher percentage of casualties than any Union or Confederate state, and the war almost destroyed the Cherokee Nation. In The Confederate Cherokees, W. Craig Gaines provides an absorbing account of the Cherokees' involvement in the early years of the Civil War, focusing in particular on the actions of one group, John Drew's Regiment of Mounted Rifles.

As the war began, The Cherokees were torn by internal political dissension and a simmering thirty-year-old blood feud. Entry into the war on the Confederate side did little to resolve these intratribal tensions. One faction, loyal to Chief John Ross, formed a regiment led by John Drew, Ross's nephew by marriage. Another regiment was formed by Ross's rival, Stand Watie. The Watie regiment was largely por-Confederate, whereas many of Drew's soldiers, though fighting for the Confederate cause, were secretly members of a pro-Union, antislavery society known as the Keetoowahs. They had little sympathy for the southern whites, who had driven them from their ancestral homelands in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Drew's regiment nonetheless earned a degree of infamy during the Battle of Pea Ridge, in Arkansas, for scalping Union soldiers.

Gaines writes not only about the actions of Drew's regiment but about military events in the Indian Territory in general. United action was almost impossible because of continuing factionalism within the tribes and the desertion of many Indians to the Union forces. Desertion was so high that Drew's regiment was effectively disbanded by mid-1862, and the soldiers did not complete their one-year enlistment. Drew's regiment bears the distinction of being the only Confederate regiment to lose almost its entire membership through desertion to the Union ranks.

Gaines's solidly researched, ground-breaking history of this ill-fated band of Cherokees will be of interest to Civil War buffs and students of Native American history alike.

My book details Cherokee internal conflicts in the Civil War
Thank you for considering my book. While growing up in Oklahoma my interest in the Civil War grew to include Native Americans in that conflict. At that time the role of Native Americans in the Civil War was pretty much neglected by historians. Much of what was written was glamorized with more emphasis on glory than truth.

While attending the University of Tulsa I wrote a paper on "The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War" which won a writing contest sponsored by The Military Order of the Loyal Legion, an organization of descendants of Union officers from the Civil War. I received the award in the Lincoln Memorial from President Richard Nixon on Lincoln's Birthday during the Watergate scandal. President Nixon wore his classic blue suit without an overcoat in the bitter cold as cameras rolled and he posed with me, a college student, and said "Congratulations, smile."

My research on "The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War" convinced me there was a story to tell about Drew's Regiment and the complicatons of internal Cherokee politics and family blood feuds. I was living in Tulsa, Oklahoma so I had access to the archives at Gilcrease Museum, the Oklahoma Historical Society, and other collections of Cherokee history.

Louisiana State University Press saw merit in my manuscript and helped nurture the project to publication. As a result of their encouragement I continue to write about the American Civil War and other subjects that are of interest to me.

Today, many Native American tribes continue with ongoing internal political strife that threaten their independence and survival as a people. I only hope that by examining the truths of the past that we, as educated people with the freedom to make choices, can avoid the mistakes of the past and build a bright and rewarding future.

W. Craig Gaines, November 2, 1998