In an interesting twist of history, General Ely S. Parker, a member of the Seneca tribe, drew up the articles of surrender which General Robert E. Lee signed at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Gen. Parker, who served as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's military secretary and was a trained attorney, was once rejected for Union military service because of his race. At Appomattox, Lee is said to have remarked to Parker, "I am glad to see one real American here," to which Parker replied, "We are all Americans."
Read this intriguing account of Native American contributions to the war effort for a fuller understanding of what the conflict meant to "all Americans."
Allegiance to the Federal Government
Approximately 20,000 Native Americans served in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War, participating in battles such as Pea Ridge, Second Manassas, Antietam, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and in Federal assaults on Petersburg. By fighting with the white man, Native Americans hoped to gain favor with the prevailing government by supporting the war effort. They also saw war service as a means to end discrimination and relocation from ancestral lands to western territories. Instead, the Civil War proved to be the Native American's last effort to stop the tidal wave of American expansion. While the war raged and African Americans were proclaimed free, the U.S. government continued its policies of pacification and removal of Native Americans.
The Delaware Nation had a long history of allegiance to the U.S. government, despite removal to the Wichita Indian Agency in Oklahoma, and the Indian Territory in Kansas. On October 1, 1861 the Delaware proclaimed their support for the Union. Seeking favor from Washington, 170 out of 201 Delaware men volunteered in the Union Army. A journalist from Harper's Weekly described them as being armed with tomahawks, scalping knives, and rifles.
In January, 1862, William Dole, U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, asked Native American agents to "engage forthwith all the vigorous and able-bodied Indians in their respective agencies." The request resulted in the assembly of the 1st and 2nd Indian Home Guard that included Delaware, Creek, Seminole, Kickapoo, Seneca, Osage, Shawnee, Choctaw and Chickasaw. The Delaware demonstrated their "loyalty, daring and hardihood" during the sacking of the Wichita Agency in October, 1862. Considered a major Union victory, Native American cavalrymen killed five Confederate agents, took the Rebel flag and $1200 in Confederate currency, 100 ponies, and burned correspondence along with the Agency buildings.
