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Knoxville [Tennessee] Register
Knoxville Register:
February 21, 1863 - Thomas' Legion
The Indian Legion.--Major Thomas,
commanding the Legion of Cherokee
Indians, who have rendered much service to the Confederate
cause in East Tennessee,
was in our city yesterday. The Major is now with
his aboriginal allies in the mountains on the border between this State
and North Carolina, where he is in reality conciliating the tories. Let us
mention a fact or two communicated to us
by Major Thomas, to the credit of
these dusky warriors.
They excel any troops in either the Northern or Southern armies
for
subordination--an Indian always executes an order with religious fidelity.
They scrupulously respect private property--there
are no reports of
depredations where they are encamped. They are the best scouts in the world,
and hence the good
that they have accomplished among the mountain tories
and bush-whackers. A notice that Maj. Thomas' Indians are in a section
of
country brings in the dodgers at once, for they know that hiding out will not
avail against the Cherokees. By their
aid the Major has enlisted without
bloodshed, a great many men in his corps of sappers and miners, who have
thus been
converted from mischievous tories and bush-whackers into useful
employees of the Confederate Government. The Major, if
the war lasts,
will yet be of infinite service to the Government.--Knoxville Register,
[February] 21st.
Highly
Recommended Reading:
Storm in the Mountains: Thomas' Confederate
Legion of Cherokee Indians and Mountaineers (Thomas'
Legion: The Sixty-ninth North Carolina Regiment). Vernon H. Crow, Storm in the Mountains,
spent 10 years conducting extensive Thomas Legion's research. Crow was granted access to rare manuscripts, special collections, and
privately held diaries which add great depth to this rarely discussed Civil War legion. He explores and discusses the
unit's formation, fighting history, and life of the legion's commander--a Cherokee chief and Confederate colonel--William
Holland Thomas. Continued below...
Numerous maps
and photographs allow the reader to better understand and relate to the subjects discussed. It also contains rosters
which is an added bonus for researchers and genealogists. Crow, furthermore, left no stone unturned while examining the
many facets of the Thomas Legion and his research is conveyed on a level that scores with Civil War students and scholars
alike. [Z]ero bias...numerous nicely drawn maps...handsome photographs make this volume a welcome addition for buffs, Native
American history libraries, and for students of the Eastern Theater.
Advance to:
Recommended
Reading: The
Blue, the Gray, and the Red: Indian Campaigns of the Civil War (Hardcover: 288 pages). Description: Inexperienced Union
and Confederate soldiers in the West waged numerous bloody campaigns against the Indians during the Civil War. Fighting with
a distinct geographical advantage, many tribes terrorized the territory from the Plains to the Pacific, as American pioneers
moved west in greater numbers. These noteworthy--and notorious--Indian campaigns featured a fascinating cast of colorful characters,
and were set against the wild, desolate, and untamed territories of the western United
States. This is the first book to explore Indian conflicts that took place during the Civil
War and documents both Union and Confederate encounters with hostile Indians blocking western
expansion. Continued below...
From
Publishers Weekly: Beginning with the flight
of the Creeks into Union territory pursued by Confederate forces (including many of Stand Watie's Cherokees), this popular
history recounts grim, bloody, lesser-known events of the Civil War. Hatch (Clashes
of the Cavalry) also describes the most incredible incidents.... Kit Carson, who fought Apaches and
Navajos under the iron-fisted Colonel Carleton, arranged the Long Walk of the Navajos that made him infamous in Navajo history
to this day. The North's "Captain" Woolsey, a volunteer soldier, became a brutal raider of the Apaches. General Sibley, a
northerner and first Governor of Minnesota, oversaw the response to the Sioux Uprising of 1862 that
left several hundred dead. The slaughter of Black Kettle's Cheyennes at Sand Creek in
1864 by Colorado volunteers under Colonel Chivington,
a militant abolitionist whose views on Indians were a great deal less charitable, “forms a devastating chapter.”
Hatch, a veteran of several books on the Indian Wars that focus on George Armstrong Custer, has added to this clear and even-handed
account a scholarly apparatus that adds considerably to its value.
Recommended
Reading: East
Tennessee and the Civil War (Hardcover: 588 pages). Description:
A solid social, political, and military history, this work gives light to the rise of the pro-Union and pro-Confederacy factions.
It explores the political developments and recounts in fine detail the military maneuvering and conflicts that occurred. Beginning
with a history of the state's first settlers, the author lays a strong foundation for understanding the values and beliefs
of East Tennesseans.
He examines the rise of abolition and secession, and then advances into the Civil War. Early in the conflict, Union sympathizers
burned a number of railroad bridges, resulting in occupation by Confederate troops and abuses upon the Unionists and their
families. The author documents in detail the ‘siege and relief’ of Knoxville.
Although authored by a Unionist, the work is objective in nature and fair in its treatment of the South and the Confederate
cause, Complete with a comprehensive index, this work should be in every Civil War library.
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