The Last Confederate General to Lay Down His Arms

Heather Cox Richardson

It is a pet peeve of mine that most people think the Civil War ended at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General U. S. Grant.

It didn’t.

Brigadier General Stand Waite

General Lee surrendered only his own Army of Northern Virginia that day. There were still more than a hundred thousand Confederate soldiers in the field. True, everyone knew that Lee’s surrender marked the beginning of the end. But the last major Confederate army did not quit until May 26, when General Kirby Smith surrendered his Army of the Trans-Mississippi to Major General Edward Canby in Louisiana.

But here’s another little-known fact related to the end of the war that seems to me should be as widely known as the events at Appomattox: The last Confederate general in the field to surrender was Brigadier General Stand Watie, who did not lay down his weapons until June 23, 1865.

Why is this significant? Because Stand Watie was a member of the Cherokee Nation. He commanded the First Indian Brigade of the Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi.

It’s a stretch to say that Indians were at the heart of the American Civil War, but it’s not at all a stretch to say that the West was. Eastern Americans from the North and the South fought to control the economic system the nation would impose on the West. Easterners had lived with slavery in their midst since the very beginnings of European settlement on the Atlantic coast; it was only when the slave system threatened to spread across the lands of the old Louisiana Purchase that the inhabitants of the two eastern regions came to blows.

Indian Frontier to 1890 (from Bedford St. Martin's). Click to enlarge.

The West over which the North and South fought was not, of course, uninhabited. The people who had lived there for generations had a profound interest in the national events of 1861-1865, and participated accordingly. Once the easterners had stopped smashing at each other, the Indians continued to be active participants in American events whether they wanted to be or not. Many Plains Indian bands went to war with the U.S. government in the post-Civil War years, but even those that didn’t found themselves tangled in eastern concerns. The question of who would be welcome as a citizen in the rebuilding nation was hotly contested, and in that contest Indians became important players (the Fourteenth Amendment, anyone?).

When Stand Watie took for himself the status of being the last Confederate general to surrender, he claimed the historical significance of the West and of Indians in the American Civil War.

That, it seems to me, is worth noting in the same breath that we use to talk about what happened at Appomattox.

Roundup: TED Talks by Historians

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David Christian: Big History, April 2011

Backed by stunning illustrations, David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is "Big History": an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline.

George Dyson: The Birth of the Computer, June 2008

Historian George Dyson tells stories from the birth of the modern computer -- from its 17th-century origins to the hilarious notebooks of some early computer engineers.

Alice Dreger: Is Anatomy Destiny? June 2011

Alice Dreger works with people at the edge of anatomy, such as conjoined twins and intersexed people. In her observation, it's often a fuzzy line between male and female, among other anatomical distinctions. Which brings up a huge question: Why do we let our anatomy determine our fate?

Niall Ferguson: The 6 Killer Apps of Prosperity, September 2011

Over the past few centuries, Western cultures have been very good at creating general prosperity for themselves. Historian Niall Ferguson asks: Why the West, and less so the rest? He suggests half a dozen big ideas from Western culture — call them the 6 killer apps — that promote wealth, stability and innovation. And in this new century, he says, these apps are all shareable.

Edward Tenner: Unintended Consequences, September 2011

Every new invention changes the world — in ways both intentional and unexpected. Historian Edward Tenner tells stories that illustrate the under-appreciated gap between our ability to innovate and our ability to foresee the consequences.

Jared Diamond: Why Societies Collapse, October 2008

Why do societies fail? With lessons from the Norse of Iron Age Greenland, deforested Easter Island and present-day Montana, Jared Diamond talks about the signs that collapse is near, and how -- if we see it in time -- we can prevent it.

Developments in World History: A Roundup on Western Dominance, Lactose Tolerance, and Writing

Randall Stephens

Several provocative "big questions" essays recently appeared in full, on-line. These span over world history, east to west, and cover prehistory as well. I wonder how many other historians who read Ian Morris's, "Latitudes not Attitudes: How Geography Explains History," History Today, 20 October 2010, are wondering, as I am: Don't ideas matter?! Anyhow, his essay and these other two got the rusty gears in my head a'turnin'. (Hat tip to Arts & Letters Daily for the great culling work it does. Click image to enlarge this map of Asia in the 15th century.)

Ian Morris, "Latitudes not Attitudes: How Geography Explains History," History Today, 20 October 2010.

Explaining why the West rules calls for a different kind of history than usual, one stepping back from the details to see broader patterns, playing out over millennia on a global scale. . . .

You may have noticed that all the historical examples I have mentioned – Italy, Greece, Israel, India, China – lie in a narrow band of latitudes, roughly 20-35° north, stretching across the Old World. This is no accident.>>>

Matthias Schulz, "How Middle Eastern Milk Drinkers Conquered Europe," Speigel Online, 15 October 2010.

* At around 7000 BC, a mass migration of farmers began from the Middle East to Europe.
* These ancient farmers brought along domesticated cattle and pigs.
* There was no interbreeding between the intruders and the original population.

Mutated for Milk

The new settlers also had something of a miracle food at their disposal. They produced fresh milk, which, as a result of a genetic mutation, they were soon able to drink in large quantities. The result was that the population of farmers grew and grew.>>>

Geraldin Fabrikant, "Hunting for the Dawn of Writing, When Prehistory Became History," New York Times, 19 October 2010.

The new exhibition by the institute, part of the University of Chicago, is the first in the United States in 26 years to focus on comparative writing. It relies on advances in archaeologists’ knowledge to shed new light on the invention of scripted language and its subsequent evolution. . . .

To Christopher E. Woods, associate professor of Sumerology at the University of Chicago and the curator of the show, it was important to include examples from all four cultures because the goal of the exhibition was “to present and describe the four times in history when writing was invented from scratch.”>>>