Native american history, and she has special interest in the interactions between indigenous people, and people of african descent during the 19th century. So her first book was race in the Cherokee Nation, 17 in the 19th century. Her most recent book is called choctaw confederates, the American Civil War and indian country. If you recognize the title, that book is the subject of tonights talk. Its also basically brandnew. I noticed its official publication date was two years ago. Its a twoweek birthday for your book this evening. Were excited to share it with you. You can find it in all the usual bookstore places, as well as directly from the university of North Carolina press publishers. The top will be around 30 to 35 minutes, also. Well have plenty of time for a discussion at the end. The way we do discussion, if youve been to these events before, we do it all through the q and a feature in zoom. You can type in questions to the q a box at anytime. If something occurs to you during the talk, feel free to type it in then, or wait till the end. Well get to as many of your questions as we can. Well wrap things up in about an hour in 15 minutes. Around 8 15, eastern time. So thats all from me, i just want to say how grateful i am that doctor Fay Yarbrough, is able to be with us tonight. Its a wonderful book, i enjoyed reading it, and looking forward to hearing the authors perspective on the book as well. Without further ado, i will turn over the virtual podium to doctor Fay Yarbrough, so thank you very much for being with us. Thank you so much. Good evening everyone. Its a pleasure to be with you if only virtually. Id like to thank you for spending some of your time with me this evening. Id like to thank professor paul quigley for inviting me. Id also like to thank professor miller, for a fun chat as a prelude to our chat tonight. Ill share some with you in a moment, but first i want to share the introduction of my paper. Then, just as we were starting to leave, here comes something across that little prairie, sure enough. We know they is indians, the way they is writing. The way they is all strong out. They have a flag and it was all red and had a big crisscross on it that looks like a soft horse. The man carrying it, rare back on it, with the wind with it. But it slapped all around the horses head. And the horse pitched and rear like you know somebodys going to happen. By that time and turn kind of dark and began to rain a little. We get out to the big road, and the raid comes down hard. It rained so hard, that we had to stop the ryan wagon. Then come along more soldiers than i ever see before. They all white men, i think. They have on that brown clothes died with walnut and butternut, and old master say their confederate soldiers. Davis, enslaved by offers one of the few existing accounts of the battle of Honey Springs. She described seeing native troops approach carrying the confederate battle flag, the changing battle weather conditions her account goes on to explain the roar of gunfire that sounded like horses. The plank bridge way off somewhere. Davis offers compelling testimony about the farreaching and destructive power of battle on the civilian population and on the landscape. What i am most in interested in tonight is the experience of native soldiers. When we know of those soldiers on horseback whose writing style was so distinctive that davis and her fellow spectators identify them from deep distance. What can we say about their experience and the Confederate Army . To answer these questions, i will turn to the Service Records from national archives, compiled Service Records of confederate soldiers that served organizations raised by the confederate government. From the outset, these records are something of a this title suggests that authorities listed these troops into service, however choctaw legislative documents from the era indicate that choctaw spent a deal of time about their commitment, and raising this for us. Here i will share screen so we can make sure were on the same page about where we are in terms of location. Im most interested in the choctaw nation. You can see here. This is of the southeast corner of indian territory at this time. I focus on the choctaw because of their strong commitment to the confederacy, which is what i explore in the larger book problem project. Here is my moment of shameless self promotion. Doctor paul quigley did some for me, but this talk and more on the subject can be found in my book choctaw confederates. The strength of their commitment which we can talk about in the q as best exemplified by the fact that they pass a statute deeming it treason to say anything about the confederacy. Thats how strongly committed they are to the confederate cause. As a separate sovereign nation with its own constitution, judicial system, choctaw legislators could choose to align or attempt to remain neutral altogether during the war. They early allied with the confederacy and agreed to place a regiment of choctaw troops numbering 1000 man, under confederate officers, with the confederacy committing to pay 500,000 to armed troops. Which authorities, choctaw or confederate then, enlisted these troops is less clear than the records title suggests. Which will often be demonstrated by examining the actual enlistment documents, which ill show you in a moment. In addition, i supplement the Service Record with firsthand accounts from civil war soldiers, more broadly, to create a fuller picture of choctaw soldiers experiences. The majority of these records consist of forms provided by the word important to facilitate rapidly individual eligibility for pensions and benefits. The records include a jacket with the soldiers name, company, and rank, and other cards associated with the rank. There is significant numbers of the choctaw troops that the preprint it also known as calvary, with confederate imprint this. Its the jacket off it contained a villain in the blank Style Company must unroll. The company name and information appear printed on this form as well. The form listed the date, location, and term of enlistment. Here, ill give you an example of one record from privatey of the Second Company k. You can see on his record that hes listed as age 30. He enlisted on june 12th, 1861. For 12 months, he enlisted you can see theres info from his company must unroll from july 26, 1862. These are the records that form the backbone of this talk on military experience for choctaw soldiers, and its also an important part of the book project. If you see the adjustment you to have a little sympathy for me. I looked through thousands of these records in this reverse black background white writing, with the handwriting on there. And compiled them into a database. So, especially useful in these records is the remarks section. In most sections cases it only says if in and with the is present but sometimes it includes rich tidbits about leave, promotion, work duties. Frequently included a payroll farm saying whether the soldier received generally an amount of 25. Sometimes a bounty paid, and receive rolls for 50 is on file as well as long as with petitions for official correspondence regarding the soldier. Less frequently theres other miscellaneous documents often handwritten that are included in the soldiers jacket. I spend a little time giving you this description of these records because there is often this misconception that there arent a lot of records regarding native populations that are available. In fact there are. We can do a number of things in terms of creative reading of the records that we do have or looking more deeply to see if there are other records that we might be able to find and combined with other information to create a fuller picture of native experience. So again, to remind you of the kinds of information that is in these records available through national so given our time constraints all touch briefly on some of the into that you can glean from these records. First, the records indicate that more choctaw served for the confederacy than we previously knew. Second, the records can give us some sense of changes taking place in choctaw society. We can also use the records to him for connections between people who served, and in particular i will look at what the records can tell us about enlistments, how fluctuations and can vary based on battle and political activity. Most importantly the records provide a glimpse at the experiences of common soldiers in the civil war and remind us that the war was not just a rupture between northern and Southern States, but that other groups, native groups, were drawn into the dispute. So the contemporary choctaw nation estimates that approximately 1200 chuck to troops served on the side of the confederacy by the middle of the civil war. I collected the Service Records for the totality of the work. These 3100 troops translate or 20 of the choctaw population if you exclude enslaved persons. In the united states, soldiers accounted for approximately 14 of the northern population, and 8. 3 of the confederacy and border states. If one excludes the enslaved populations of the south, 12. 5 southerners served in the can federer see. I put this out to say that, wow, that 3100 choctaw soldiers might seem like a small number, as a proportion of the population, its actually quite low. And substantial. So this figure, the, of 3100 troops, is much lower than the 10,000 troops that colonel douglas was predicted that the choctaw and chickasaw would prove fried to a letter of the president of the confederacy, jeff davis, and number more astonishing given the combined populations of the choctaw chickasaw populations was less than 23,000 people including their enslaved populations. Cooper wrote, the choctaw and chickasaw can furnish 10,000 warriors if needed. The choctaw and chickasaw are extremely anxious to form another regimen. The deadly and that included in the compiled military records tell us that only individual soldiers, but reveal aspects of the changing nature of chucked a society. For instance, the names on these records can simultaneously demonstrate the influence of euro americans and the resilience of traditional naming practices. Heres an example of some of the names that we can see in these records. Youll see names such as a jefferson davis, private age 25, but also more traditional names like you see these blended names. There is a european route of a name, but then combined with choctaw language names. And then you see sir names are prominent families within the choctaw political arena. So the are important families that produce district chiefs in the choctaw choctaw during the 19th century so something a simple as these names can reveal brighter changes that were taking place in the society. It also provides opportunity for comparison with similar data on american soldiers. I will just summarize to say that chalked a soldiers, the average age of them was just a little older of the age of enlistees, based on what little data we have based on but that we have from confederate soldiers. Again, we can see that they are slightly older than they are american, the counterparts. The age plus name data can also reveal relationships between soldiers. Its suggests relationship when soldiers. There is a cluster of five greenwood enlistees age 20 to 28. We wonder if allen gibson and hogan and greenwood all mustard into the same company one e on the same day, july 30th, 1861, at the same location, at blackjack court ground. If they are all related to each other. Where the brothers . Cousins . Who enlisted together . Similarly, joseph hunter, age 43, and hunter age 18 both joined the company in 1864. Could they have been a father and son in hopes of joining together and branching out for one another . These sources are other data from the indian pioneer History Collection, which is very similar to the wpa slave narratives, the informants and the indian pioneer History Collection are people who lived in indian territory during the 19th century. That data, along with personal papers, can augment some of these military records to confirm relationships. We know for certain that in both the union and confederate armies, family members did join together, cousins, brothers, fathers, sons. So, we should not be surprised that we see similar kinds of patterns in these records in the choctaw nation. Another kind of record that seems, another piece of data that seems fairly straightforward is the question of company assignment. Individuals mustered into company a, to the second k, to the second one. As was common among many other confederate troops, choctaw companies were also known by names connected to their commanding officers. So, captain sent an company was known as a walking state company, also known as company i. We have companies, captain nelsons company, trump didnt gardeners company, captain john gibsons company. These Company Names were preprinted on these enlisted, enlistment records. Reinforce and how frequently they occurred. People knew these companies by these other names. Again, i think of choctaw language and english names is also noteworthy. Sinta nowa means walking snake. Walking snake company and sinta nowas company is a translation of his name. I think its interesting to ponder that the traditional choctaw language name was included. Similarly, it may come from the chalk to word shima, which means to dress up or embellish. Perhaps john gibson also known as captain also a recognition of a traditional choctaw name. Again, the presence of these choctaw traditional names on the civil war military wrecked kurds exemplifies how much this quintessentially american event included other people who did not identify as americans. The date on the record, the date in place of the records reveals patterns about when and where soldiers enlisted into this mountain rifle group. Almost 70 of the records include this information, which only makes sense if you think about trying to keep track of how long the period is opposed to last. You definitely want to keep track of when and where they enlisted so you know when their terms of service should end. We can see in these records that the majority of the enlistments took place in 1861. June and july were especially popular months to enlist. 950 soldiers enlisted in these two months alone. The doctor and louisiana for the confederacy is even more remarkable given that the choctaws did not sign a treaty with the confederacy until july of 1861. The choctaw man who are committing to fight in the war, even before the choctaw lattice later had officially sided with the confederacy. Again, the enthusiasm is high. Historian notes that the work of consolidating indian support began before any formal treaties resigned between the confederate and the choctaw. The choctaw government has passed a resolution in support of the Southern States in february of 1861. The formal Treaty Alliance will not come for five more months. Perhaps getting these men to enlist was not a difficult task. Surely, the choctaw resolution was then response to the february 4th meeting of six Southern States in montgomery to form a provisional government and establish the confederate space states of america. That resolution of support must have been in response to this meeting. The choctaws may have been waiting for this to create a more formal body before expressing choctaw support. U. S. Indian agent douglas age cooper and rolled natives as early as 1861. Again, before unofficial treaty of alliance had been signed. Rules show over 100 troops in listed in 1861, specifically on may 13th. It described you can see here, the Northeast Corner of choctaw nation. Sculleries known as a particularly stronghold for southern support because a long the number of slave holders and that area it explains the high number of enlistments in that area. Or this fervor for enlistment might have been prompted by the neighboring state of arkansass decision to join the confederacy less than one week prior on may 7th of 1861. You can see other locations on this map that were hotbeds of in this mid activity. Fort ouachita, for bible, silver spring, goodwin station, sugarloaf, the depot blackjack grove, harry abel. They were all locations for clusters of enlistment in 1861. Buggy depot each served as capitals of the choctaw nation. They seem like very logical sites for forming companies. In 1862 enthusiasm for the war among chalked and eons was still strong. Nearly 800 men and listed in the regiment of during the second year of the war. January marked and july were especially popular times. The almost 200 men who joined the regiments in january may have been spurred to action by the november and december battles that took place in indian territory. Ground mountain, all three engagements were efforts to subdue and his followers. Initially hoping to remain neutral, the leader disagreed with the creek councils decision to ally with the confederacy. While other native nations were negotiating treaties of alliance with confederate officials, indians loyal to the american federal government were coalescing around though his wife many in the nations run away to the banks have been owned by the greek Mcintosh Family recalled her family joining the gauge as all our family joined up with him. There was lots of greek indians and slaves in the outfit when they made a break for the north the runaways rose riding ponies stowing from the masters. Moreover, many free blacks also favored the unionist stance and joined the local camps which are growing in size. Some estimated that opothleyahola had as many as 9000 followers. Only 2000 would have been fighting them. Colonel cooper lead over 1400 native confederates, supplemented by the ninth texas calgary to pursue chief opothleyahola and has banned. Each of these three battles punctuated the flight to kansas for opothleyahola. There were a number of deaths that were recorded in these records. 105. Four of which were four horses, which is something we can talk about in the q a if you would like. Seven where from this campaign against opothleyahola. Cherokee prosper taryn minister steven foreman wrote in his diary in january of 1862 that he had heard about 14 men who were lost in the fighting. Perhaps the additional deaths noted by four men came from the night forth texas cavalry that colonel cooper had called in as reinforcements. Despite these losses, the Confederate Forces claimed a victory. They had for so many loyal indians into kansas. And then to neutralize