Civil War in the Indian Territory (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Civil War in the Indian Territory, by Steve Cottrell. (Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing, 1995. Pp. in. $8.95.) Steve Cottrell has written a most readable summary of a civil war within the national Civil War—the conflict in Indian Territory, 1861 to 1865, which degenerated into an intertribal conflict as tribe fought tribe and an intratribal conflict as members in any one tribe fought each other. In all ofthe Five Civilized Tribes, leaders and warriors were torn—some supporting the Union, some supporting the Confederacy. The volume examines thirty-one major battles or skirmishes in which members of the Civilized Tribes participated. Coverage of the various campaigns is to the point, well written, and informative. The narrative flows smoothly from the Battle of Wilson's Creek in Missouri, August 10, 1 861, to the skirmish on Snake Creek, April 24, 1865. Highlighted are the actions of major leaders such as Stand Watie, Albert Pike, Douglas Cooper, James Mcintosh, Chief Opothleyoholo , William Weer, James Blount, John Ross, and many others. The author also does well covering the hardships of war, cowardliness, desertions, bravery, victory, and defeat. Cottrell's volume is not perfect. The rather short bibliography lists only secondary sources; therefore, a reader must conclude that the author used only secondary sources. For a truly authoritative account, a researcher would need to consult the many primary records available, some of which are available in any good research library. The volume is not endnoted. The reader has no way of knowing the specific sources from which the author drew his material. The index is only an "index to battles and skirmishes." A thorough index listing historical terms—especially individual names, military units, places, and key events—would have been greatly useful. The author could have given the reader more analysis to complement the narrative. The reader is left with this question: Other than dealing much death, did the civil war in Indian Territory mean anything to the larger Civil War between the North and South? Were there any national ramifications to actions taken, to battles lost and won, in what appears to be a backwater of the larger war? What was the significance of the war to the future of Indian Territory? On a more positive note, the author gives much detail on the war within the larger war, and he synthesizes the material in many secondary accounts. The BOOK REVIEWS34I book will stand as a good introduction to the topic, will be appreciated by undergraduate college students, and should be examined by teachers (at the high school and college levels) wanting a good overview of the war in Indian Territory. James Smallwood Oklahoma State University The Civil War Memoir of Philip Daingerfield Stephenson. D.D. Edited by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, Jr. (Conway, Ark.: UCA Press, 1995. Pp. xi, 411. $32.95·) This is a very good read if your purpose is to enjoy a well-written memoir of military service. If you are researching the Civil War in the West, you must be judicious in assessing the reliability ofrecollections completed forty years after the events described. Stephenson, a Saint Louis native of Confederate sympathies, enlisted at age fifteen in the 13th Arkansas Volunteer Infantry. He fought at Belmont, Corinth, Missionary Ridge, Dalton, and Nashville, serving under Braxton Bragg, Joseph E. Johnston, and John Bell Hood. When his initial term of service expired, he reenlisted in the famous Washington Artillery, finishing his war in the defense of Mobile. The memoir was started in 1865 when the author was a restless and bitter veteran. In 1896, now a settled, successful Presbyterian minister, Stephenson revised and expanded the manuscript from two to ten volumes. This text has been radically reduced for modern publication. Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, a seasoned historian, has done a finejob of providing a smoothly edited text with notes and comment bridging omissions in the narrative. But this is not the text as the author desired it. Stephenson shared the soldiers' distrust of Bragg as a strategist and an administrator. He felt that Missionary Ridge was lost not only because Rebel numbers were inadequate to hold the siege lines but because the forces were badly disposed and were debilitated from...