The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 49, July 1945 - April, 1946 Page: 159
717 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Texas Collection
course, is not now so designated. Members of the Association
should send all possible information regarding the Ninth Texas
Confederate Cavalry and the Battle of Bird Creek to Mrs. Whit-
ham. Here is an opportunity to participate in a worth-while
Texas history enterprise.
I am soliciting your cooperation in an effort to establish the identity of
several members of the Texas Cavalry, mainly the Ninth, who died in the
battle of Bird Creek, Indian Territory on December 9, 1861. You will find
a comprehensive report on the three actions, of which this was the second,
in an effort to hold a non-sessionist body of Creeks from reaching Kansas,
in The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Vol. I. The engage-
ment is referred to by Col. D. H. Cooper, who made the main report, as
Chusto-Talasah or Caving Banks.
I am writing the Adjutant General, Washington, D. C., to get a list of
the Confederate dead and wounded if such a list was reported to the Con-
federate government. However many other angles of investigation remain
and it seems to me that "the human side" of the story can only be found
in Texas - from the families who sent young men to this northern frontier
of the Confederacy. It is in this line that I am soliciting your advice and
help.
Let me recount some of the activities of our society in respect to this
battle area and the unknown soldiers who lie in a hillside facing Bird
Creek, some six miles north of Tulsa. Col. D. H. Cooper states that he
ordered fifteen Confederate dead buried on the day following the battle
(Dec. 10). Until now that land has never been plowed. The graves are
still slightly mounded, the central long grave which may have held eight
or nine men, shows a curve of about eighteen inches above the surround-
ing level. The property is in a large pasture and we hope to secure title
to about five acres and to erect a shaft with the names of the Texas men
if they can be ascertained.
The Tulsa Historical Society is limited to Seniors in High School who
elect a course in Community History and who seek through their organiza-
tion to render some civic service as well as to add to their own knowledge
of local history. We are aided by a group of adults, historically minded,
whom we call our Advisory Board. About five years ago we began serious
research into the Civil War battles of Indian Territory, knowing that one
of the engagements took place near here. To finance our activities we have
put out a series of local historical postcards, which have sold by the
thousands. From this fund we have bought books, made a contour map of
the battle areas, had an artist, Frank von der Lancken, paint the scene of
Bird Creek as it appears from the graves, and we have recently, April 15,
erected two monuments, one on the roadway 1000 feet east of the graves,
and the other, for informational and locational purposes, in the more
accessible and much patronized, Mohawk Park, which is down-stream from
the battle site. We regarded that as the conclusion of our project until one
of those curious happenings that make us wonder why things happen as
they do, came to light.
Tulsans had generally figured that this was largely "an Indian fight"159
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 49, July 1945 - April, 1946, periodical, 1946; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth146056/m1/170/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.