Not Kinky

No, that’s not another picture of Kinky Friedman – More about who it is later.

Perhaps because of the Lincoln series on PBS, and Daniel Day Lewis winning at Sunday night’s Oscars, I got to wondering what the American Indians did about the War Between the States.  I have learned that they fought on both sides; some tribes, like some Anglo families, splitting down the middle.

On the Southern side tribes like the Choctaw and the Cherokee formed their own units, while in the Union Army, Native Americans were more likely to be  added to established “Colored” regiments.  A member of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, for example, was just about as likely to be of Iroquois ancestry as African.

Back to the picture - 

The man in the photograph is Ely Parker, a Seneca lawyer and a Union General.  He is the man who wrote the terms of surrender signed by Robert E. Lee.  At Appomattox, Lee is said to have remarked to Parker, “I am glad to see one real American here”, to which Parker replied, “We are all Americans.”

Asa-Luke Twocrow, an Oglala Sioux, was working behind the scenes as a rigger on Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln film when he was cast as Parker.  He called playing Parker a great honor, saying "As a Native American, he did a lot of things -- working as a lawyer, an engineer -- and achieved what many Native Americans were striving for, to be recognized as an intelligent human being."

Parker was one of two Native Americans who reached the rank of Brigadier General during the Civil War. 

The other was on the Confederate side.

Stand Watie, a Cherokee chief, was considered to be the an expert at guerilla warfare, and the most successful Confederate commander West of the Mississippi. 

He achieved one of his greatest successes at Pleasant Bluff, Arkansas on June 10, 1864, capturing the Union steamboat J.R. Williams. which was loaded with supplies valued at $120,000. At the Second Battle of Cabin Creek, (Indian Territory), Watie’s cavalry brigade captured 129 supply wagons and 740 mules, took 120 prisoners, and left 200 casualties