The Indian Home Guard were volunteer infantry regiments recruited from the Five Civilized Tribes of Indian Territory to support the Union during the American Civil War.
The leaders of all of the Five Civilized Tribes signed treaties with the Confederacy at the start of the Civil War. Many of the tribal members, however, did not support the Confederacy, and, not being organized, were driven from Indian Territory with a large loss of life. Most fled to Kansas and Missouri. Many of the "Loyal" Indians volunteered for Union duty in order to get control back from the Confederate generals. The Indian Home Guard regiments fought mostly in Indian Territory and Arkansas. It was mainly due to these Loyal Indians that the Five Civilized Tribes were able to retain any of their lands following the end of the Civil War.
Famous quotes containing the words indian, home, guard and/or civil:
“Sabra Cravat: I should think you’d be ashamed of yourself. Mooning around with an Indian hired girl.
Cim Cravat: Ruby isn’t an Indian hired girl. She’s the daughter of an Osage chief.
Sabra Cravat: Osage, fiddlesticks.
Cim Cravat: She’s just as important in the Osage nation as, well, as Alice Roosevelt is in Washington.”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)
“Don’t stand by the water and long for fish; go home and weave a net.”
—Chinese proverb.
“One should never intend to do harm to others, but should always guard against the harm others might do to him.”
—Chinese proverb.
“The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)