East
The Confederacy wanted to recruit Indians east of the Mississippi River in 1862, so they opened up a recruiting camp in Mobile, Alabama "at the foot of Stone Street." The Mobile Advertiser and Register would advertise for a chance at military service.
| “ | A Chance for Active Service. The Secretary of War has authorized me to enlist all the Indians east of the Mississippi River into the service of the Confederate States, as Scouts. In addition to the Indians, I will receive all white male citizens, who are good marksmen. To each member, Fifty Dollars Bounty, clothes, arms, camp equipage &c: furnished. The weapons shall be Enfield Rifles. For further information address me at Mobile, Ala. (Signed) S.G. Spann, Comm'ing Choctaw Forces. | ” |
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—Jacqueline Anderson Matte, They Say the Wind is Red |
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General Arnold Spann organized the first battalion of Choctaws in Mississippi in February 1863. After a train wreck, referred to as the Chunky Creek Train Wreck of 1863, near Hickory, Mississippi, the Choctaw Battalion, which had been organized days earlier, led rescue and recovery efforts. Spann described the scene, "the engineer was under military orders, and his long train of cars was filled with Confederate soldiers, who, like the engineer, were animated with but one impulse—to Vicksburg! To victory or death! Onward rushed the engineer. All passed over except the hindmost car. The bridge had swerved out of plumb, and into the raging waters with nearly one hundred soldiers the rear car was precipitated. 'Help!' was the cry, but there was no help." Boggan writes of the rescue, "help came quicker than expected. The First Battalion of Choctaw Indians, under the command of Major S. G. Spann, was based at a Confederate military training camp near the crash scene. Led by Jack Amos and Elder Williams, the Indians rushed to the scene, stripped, and plunged into the flooded creek. Many of the passengers were rescued due to their heroic acts." Noted Choctaw Historian Clara Kidwell writes, "in an act of heroism in Mississippi, Choctaws rescued twenty three survivors and retrieved ninety bodies when a Confederate troop train plunged off a bridge and fell into the Chunky River."
Major S. G. Spann, Commander of Dabney H. Maury Camp of Meridian, Mississippi, wrote about the deeds of the Choctaw years after the Civil War had ended.
| “ | Many earnest friends and comrades insist that the Choctaw Indian as a Confederate soldier should receive his proper place on the scroll of events during the American Civil War. This task having been so nearly ignored, I send some reminiscences that will be an exponent of the extraordinary merit of the Choctaw Indian on the American Continent. My connection with the Choctaw Indians was brought about incidentally: Maj. J.W. Pearce, of Hazelhurst, Miss., organized a battalion of Choctaw Indians, of Kemper, DeKalb, Neshoba, Jasper, Scott], and Newton Counties, Miss., known as "First Battalion of Choctaw Indians, Confederate army." | ” |
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—Maj. S. G. Spann- Confederate Veteran Magazine Volume XIII |
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Read more about this topic: Choctaw In The American Civil War
Famous quotes containing the word east:
“We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.”
—Philip Guedalla (1889–1944)
“The East is the hearthside of America. Like any home, therefore, it has the defects of its virtues. Because it is a long-lived-in house, it bursts its seams, is inconvenient, needs constant refurbishing. And some of the family resources have been spent. To attain the privacy that grown-up people find so desirable, Easterners live a harder life than people elsewhere. Today it is we and not the frontiersman who must be rugged to survive.”
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)