June 23, 1865

The Bitter End: Or the Surrender of the Last Confederate General.

While many remember April 9th, 1865 as the day Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, some forget that day was not the end of the American Civil War. Lee surrendered only the famous Army of Northern Virginia to Grant that day, and while he effectively ended major combat, he did not surrender the Confederacy itself. In fact, several generals in the South's Western departments kept their armies operational for the rest of the spring.







Brigadier General Stand Watie, C.S.A., Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.








The last of these generals to surrender was Stand Watie, a Cherokee Indian who had risen to command the cavalry of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi. After the Battle of Doaksville on June 23, 1865, a full 75 days after Lee's surrender in the East, Watie finally surrendered his command to Union forces at Fort Towson, Indian Territory, modern-day Oklahoma.

Watie, however, is a pretty interesting guy. As mentioned, he was a full-blooded Cherokee, and his cavalry force was made up almost entirely of Native American riders. A good read for young historians is the novel Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith, the title of which refers to our Watie. While the events in Keith's book are mostly fictional, they do justice to the guerrilla tactics Watie's cavalry was known for in the war's far western theater. It's fair to say Watie stood with other Confederate horsemen Nathan Bedford Forrest and J.E.B. Stuart in gray hairs given to Federal commanders.

When the war broke out, some leaders of the Cherokee decided to remain loyal to the government in Washington. Others felt that past treatment by the United States did not warrant such loyalty, and saw the Confederacy as a chance for a better future for Indian Rights. When the Chief of the Cherokee Nation fled to the North in 1862, Watie was elected as the new Chief. Watie was as against these pro-Union Cherokee as he was against the U.S. itself, and even after the war he advocated for a split of the Cherokee Nation on those lines. One of only two Native Americans to rise to the rank of general during the Civil War, Chief of his people, and as fierce a politician as he was a fighter. An interesting guy to say the least.

Oh, and the Battle of Doaksville? Watie's men won the fight, but low on provisions and with all other Confederate resistance disbanded, were forced to surrender. It's a cool piece of trivia that the last battle of the Civil War was actually won by the South.