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| John Ross. |
August 2, 1861. |
August 24. |
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earnestly urged them to observe a strict neutrality, and to maintain a trust that God would not only keep from their borders the desolation of war, but stay its “ravages among the brotherhood of States.”
But Ross and his loyal adherents among the Cherokees and Creeks were overborne by the tide of rebellion, and were swept on, powerless, by its tremendous current.
The forts on the frontier of Texas (Gibson, Arbuckle, and Washita), used for their defense, had, as we have observed, been abandoned by United States troops, in consequence of the treason of Twiggs, and the Indians were threatened by an invasion from that State.
Fort Smith, on the boundary-line, between Arkansas and the Indian Territory,1 had also been evacuated, and was now in possession of the insurgents.
Their immediate neighbors, the Choctaws and Chickasaws, with wild tribes westward
of them, were rallying to the standard of the conspirators; and the National troops in Missouri were unable to check the rising rebellion there.
Isolated and weak, and perceiving no hope for relief by their Government, the chief men of the Cherokees held a mass meeting at Tahlequah in August,
and with great unanimity declared their allegiance to the “Confederate States.”
Ross still held out, but, finally yielding to the force of circumstances and the teachings of expediency, he called on the Council, of the Cherokee Nation to assemble at Tahlequah on the 20th of the same month, when he sent in a message, recommending the severance of their connection with the National Government, and an alliance with the “Confederates.”
Four days afterward,
he sent a note2 to an officer of the insurgent forces, covering dispatches to Ben McCulloch, under whom the Indians and some Texan troops were to act, informing him that the Cherokee Nation had espoused the cause of the conspirators.
The wife of Ross, a young and well-educated woman, still held out; and when an attempt was made to raise a “Confederate” flag over the Council
1 The boundary-line runs through the fort. It is at the confluence of the Arkansas and Poteau Rivers, and near it is the city of Fort Smith, at which an immense trade with the Indians and New Mexicans was carried on before the war. It was next to Little Rock, the capital of the State, in population.
2 The following is a copy of Ross's note:--
Scanned printed text.
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