This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(January 2013) |
Battle of Old Fort Wayne | |||||||
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Part of the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United States of America (Union) | CSA (Confederacy) | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
James G. Blunt | Douglas H. Cooper | ||||||
Units involved | |||||||
1st Division, Army of the Frontier | 1st Indian Brigade | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
1 division | 1 brigade | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
14 | 150 |
The Battle of Old Fort Wayne, also known as Maysville, Beattie's Prairie, or Beaty's Prairie, was an American Civil War battle on October 22, 1862, in Delaware County in what is now eastern Oklahoma.
Confederate Major General Thomas C. Hindman, commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, had ordered his troops to put down bushwhackers in southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas. At the time, Colonel Douglas H. Cooper and his Indian Brigade were stationed near Newtonia, Missouri, preparing to move to Springfield, Missouri. Hindman ordered Cooper to hold Newtonia until he could move other troops to surround Springfield. There were several skirmishes between Confederate and Union forces from September 30 and October 3. On October 4, Blunt's troops surrounded Newtonia on three sides. Cooper and his Indian forces beat a hasty retreat back to Indian Territory. [1]
Brig. Gen. James G. Blunt and his Cherokee, Indiana, and Kansas troops from the First Division of the Army of the Frontier attacked Col. Douglas H. Cooper and his Confederate command on Beatties Prairie near Old Fort Wayne at 7:00 a.m. on October 22, 1862. The Confederates put up stiff resistance for a half-hour, but overwhelming numbers forced them to retire from the field in haste, leaving artillery and other equipment behind. This was a setback in the 1862 Confederate offensive that extended from the Tidewater in the East to the plains of the Indian Territory of the West.
1st Division, Army of the Frontier [2] – Brigadier General James G. Blunt.
1st Brigade, 1st Division, I Corps, Army of the Trans-Mississippi– Colonel Douglas Cooper
In mid-July 1862, the Confederate Army started concentrating forces at Fayetteville, Arkansas, for a planned raid into Missouri. Concurrently, Douglas Cooper was to raid Kansas with his force of Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Lower Creeks. After weeks of recruiting to bolster their numbers, Cooper led his men through Indian Territory to Old Fort Wayne, an abandoned pre-war Federal military garrison on the southern edge of the sprawling Beatties Prairie. He positioned pickets 4 miles (6.4 km) to the north in Maysville, a small village directly on the Arkansas - Indian Territory boundary (23 miles (37 km) west of Bentonville). He was within supporting distance of John S. Marmaduke's small 4,000-man force of mostly Texans, which was positioned at Cross Hollows (near Lowell, Arkansas).
The nearest Federal troops were from John Schofield's Army of the Frontier, encamped at Pea Ridge, Arkansas. Word had been received that Cooper, accompanied by Stand Watie's two Cherokee Indian Regiments, was at Maysville, and scouts reported his total force to be about 7,000 men. James Blunt's First Division was relatively small (3,500 men), but was better trained and equipped than many of the recently raised Confederate units. At 7 p.m. on October 20, Blunt departed camp with the Second and Third Brigades. His command consisted of the 2nd Kansas Cavalry in the lead, followed by the 6th Kansas Cavalry, 10th Kansas Infantry and 11th Kansas Infantry, the 1st and 3rd Cherokee Regiments, the 1st Kansas Battery, 2nd Indiana Battery, and four mountain howitzers. After a night march southward, he arrived in Bentonville shortly after sunrise and paused until 5 p.m. to wait for his cumbersome supply wagons to arrive. He was anxious to surprise the Confederates, who were unaware of his advance. After a forced march of 25 miles (40 km) westward late on October 21, he stopped his column at 2 a.m. and allowed most of his men to rest.
However, he pushed forward the 2nd Kansas Cavalry, which struck the Confederates at 5 a.m. at Maysville, while the balance of the division was sleeping, nearly 7 miles (11 km) back. After driving in the pickets at Maysville, the Union cavalry followed them three and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) into the Indian Territory, where they encountered Cooper's main Confederate battleline, aligned along an east and west road, facing north, with a dense wood at their backs. Despite early Federal reports that he had as many as 7,000 men, Cooper in reality had roughly 1,500 men at his disposal, with Howell's Texas Battery of four artillery guns in the center of his three-quarter mile line. Blunt positioned howitzers in place to duel with the Confederate artillery, then deployed the 2nd Kansas, which soon pushed back Confederate skirmishers from a ridge fronting their main battleline. When the balance of Blunt's division arrived, he attacked, concentrating his men on the center of the thinly spread Confederate battleline. His howitzers silenced the lone enemy battery, and the Kansans and Cherokees opened a wide hole in Cooper's center. Within a half-hour, much of Cooper's ill-trained force was in full retreat (minus their artillery), with Blunt in pursuit for nearly 7 miles (11 km) before halting. Blunt lost 14 men; Cooper approximately 150, including a reported 50 dead who were buried on the battlefield. [3]
The Confederates retreated nearly 70 miles (110 km) to Fort Gibson. The Union Army once again had undisputed possession of Indian Territory north of the Arkansas River. For his decisive victory, Blunt was appointed major general of volunteers.
The State of Arkansas erected a commemorative marker in Benton County at the northwest corner of state routes 43 and 72 in Maysville.
The battle of Cane Hill was fought between Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War on November 28, 1862, in northwestern Arkansas, near the town of Cane Hill. Confederate Major General Thomas C. Hindman had made an abortive offensive into southwestern Missouri from Arkansas earlier in the year, but had withdrawn to Arkansas. Union troops under Brigadier General James G. Blunt had followed Hindman into northwestern Arkansas, and the Confederate general saw an opportunity to attack Blunt while his division was separated from the rest of the Union Army of the Frontier. Hindman then sent a force under Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke to Cane Hill, which was also known as Boonsboro, to collect supplies. In early November, a detachment of Blunt's command led by Colonel William F. Cloud defeated a small Confederate force commanded by Colonel Emmett MacDonald in the Cane Hill area.
The Army of the Frontier was a Union army that served in the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the Civil War. It fought in several minor engagements in Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Kansas. In June 1863 the Army was discontinued but many of its regiments were formed into the District of the Frontier.
The First Battle of Newtonia was fought on September 30, 1862, between Confederate soldiers commanded by Colonel Douglas H. Cooper and a Union column commanded by Brigadier General Frederick Salomon near Newtonia, Missouri, during the American Civil War. Cooper's force had moved into southwestern Missouri, and encamped near the town of Newtonia. The Confederate column was composed mostly of cavalry led by Colonel Joseph O. Shelby and a brigade of Native Americans. A Union force commanded by Brigadier General James G. Blunt moved to intercept Cooper's force. Blunt's advance force, led by Salomon, reached the vicinity of Newtonia on September 29, and attacked Cooper's position on September 30. A Union probing force commanded by Colonel Edward Lynde was driven out of Newtonia by Cooper's forces on the morning of the 30th.
The Second Battle of Newtonia was fought on October 28, 1864, near Newtonia, Missouri, between cavalry commanded by Major General James G. Blunt of the Union Army and Brigadier General Joseph O. Shelby's rear guard of the Confederate Army of Missouri. In September 1864, Confederate Major General Sterling Price had entered the state of Missouri with hopes of creating a popular uprising against Union control of the state. A defeat at the Battle of Pilot Knob in late September and the strength of Union positions at Jefferson City led Price to abandon the main objectives of the campaign; instead he moved his force west towards Kansas City, where it was badly defeated at the Battle of Westport by Major General Samuel R. Curtis on October 23. Following a set of three defeats on October 25, Price's army halted to rest near Newtonia on October 28.
James G.Blunt was an American physician and abolitionist who rose to the rank of major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was defeated by Quantrill's Raiders at the Battle of Baxter Springs in Kansas in 1863, but is considered to have served well the next year as a division commander during Price's Raid in Missouri.
Price's Missouri Expedition, also known as Price's Raid or Price's Missouri Raid, was an unsuccessful Confederate cavalry raid through Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas in the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War. Led by Confederate Major General Sterling Price, the campaign aimed to recapture Missouri and renew the Confederate initiative in the larger conflict.
The Battle of Honey Springs, also known as the Affair at Elk Creek, on July 17, 1863, was an American Civil War engagement and an important victory for Union forces in their efforts to gain control of the Indian Territory. It was the largest confrontation between Union and Confederate forces in the area that would eventually become Oklahoma. The engagement was also unique in the fact that white soldiers were the minority in both fighting forces. Native Americans made up a significant portion of each of the opposing armies and the Union force contained African-American units.
The 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles was a cavalry formation of the Confederate States Army in the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War.
Samuel Johnson Crawford was a Union Army officer during the American Civil War, and the third Governor of Kansas (1865–1868). He also served as one of the first members of the Kansas Legislature.
During the American Civil War, most of what is now the U.S. state of Oklahoma was designated as the Indian Territory. It served as an unorganized region that had been set aside specifically for Native American tribes and was occupied mostly by tribes which had been removed from their ancestral lands in the Southeastern United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. As part of the Trans-Mississippi Theater, the Indian Territory was the scene of numerous skirmishes and seven officially recognized battles involving both Native American units allied with the Confederate States of America and Native Americans loyal to the United States government, as well as other Union and Confederate troops.
The Department of Kansas was a Union Army command department in the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the American Civil War. This department existed in three different forms during the war.
William Weer was a lawyer, attorney general for Kansas and an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He is notable for his service in the Trans-Mississippi Theater early in the war and later for being dismissed from the army following a court-martial.
The 10th Kansas Infantry Regiment served in the Union Army between April 3, 1862, and September 20, 1865, during the American Civil War.
The 6th Kansas Cavalry Regiment was a cavalry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
1st Independent Battery Kansas Light Artillery was an artillery battery that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
2nd Indiana Battery Light Artillery was an artillery battery that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
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