Osage Battalion

The Osage Battalion was a Native American unit of the Confederate States Army. Recruited from among the Osage tribe, whose loyalties were split between the Union and Confederacy, it did not meet its 500-man establishment. From early 1863 a four-company battalion of 200 men served under Brigadier General Douglas H. Cooper in the Trans-Mississippi Department. In 1864 the unit was transferred to the First Indian Brigade under Native American Brigadier General Stand Watie and fought under his command at the Second Battle of Cabin Creek on September 19, 1864. The battalion surrendered to Union forces on June 23, 1865, one of the last Confederate units to lay down its arms.

Background

By the start of the American Civil War in 1861 most of the Osage tribe lived in Southeastern Kansas, a newly admitted state which remained generally in Union hands throughout the war. The Indian Territory, modern Oklahoma, lay immediately to the south of Kansas and had recently been designated a home for the Five Civilized Tribes of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. The Osage were split into two major groups, the Great Osage and the Little Osage, and then into separate semi-autonomous bands. Prior to the war the two major American influences upon the Osage were the Jesuit mission at Osage Mission's post in Neosho County, whose members generally favored the Union, and the prominent merchant John Allen Mathews, who favored the Confederacy.

After the outbreak of the war, the Confederacy was keen to sign military treaties with the Indian tribes to secure their western frontier and diplomatic advances were made towards the Osage.