page_title: Choctaw in the American Civil War
section_title: Western Theater
hierarchical_section_title: Choctaw in the American Civil War / Aftermath / Western Theater
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of John Blakeley, Confederate veteran from Newton County, Mississippi, Spann's Independent Scouts, American Civil War.
context_page_description: The Choctaw in the American Civil War participated in two major arenas— the Trans-Mississippi and Western Theaters. The Trans-Mississippi had the Choctaw Nation. The Western had the Mississippi Choctaw. The Choctaw Nation had been mostly removed west prior to the War, but the Mississippi Choctaw had remained in the east. Both the Choctaw Nation and the Mississippi Choctaw would ultimately side with the Confederate States of America.
  After thirty years of development, the Choctaw Nation had begun to flourish in their new western environment. Their economic system was identical as the American South and based upon slave labor. Their upper class was engaged in the cotton trade with networks reaching as far as New Orleans. Confederate envoy Albert Pike successfully persuaded much of "Indian Country" to side with the newly formed Confederate states. He conducted treaties for the Confederacy and later commanded a combined force of Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole troops.
  The Mississippi Choctaw led a tougher existence. Through treaty provisions, they elected to stay in Mississippi while the majority of the Indians moved west.
context_section_description: In Meridian, Mississippi and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the Indian Confederates surrendered after several years of service in the Confederacy. Some individuals may have served as early as 1861. Jack Amos, in his Mississippi pension, stated that he first enrolled in April of 1861. The last of the Indian Confederates surrendered in May of 1865.
  Decades after the War, many Confederate veterans established U.C.V camps. Spann was elected commander of U.C.V. Camp Dabney H. Maury in Newton, Mississippi. John Blakeley, a white teenager during the War, was made camp adjutant and wrote about the Choctaw soldiers.
  Blakeley wrote in The Meridian Press, a Meridian, Mississippi newspaper, concerning the few surviving Indian members of Camp Maury. He wrote: "On the first Saturday in February, 1901, Camp No. 1312 was organized with ... nineteen Indian braves ... If there is enough interest yet felt by our people for these unfortunate and only genuine Americans yet remaining in Mississippi and of noble record, will it be too much to ask you to please hand this to your excellent paper, the Press, and send a copy of it to Camp Dabney H. Maury."
  The veterans attended many national reunions. In 1903, Spann and some Indian veterans attended the New Orleans reunion. At the New Orleans reunion, Jack Amos was interviewed by a Louisiana journalist.
  "FAMOUS INDIAN SCOUT ... Jack Amos of the Choctaw Tribe is Here. One of the Heroic Red Men of the Stormy Period. First With Pearce, and Later With Spann's Battalion. Mississippi Is Planning to Honor the Indian ... He is of the Choctaw tribe, and belonged to a heroic band of red men who gave splendid aid to the Confederacy, and who suffered much as a result of their loyalty to the Southern cause. Amos is now a citizen of Mississippi, and has resided in that State since the war. He is an attractive figure among the reunion visitors, and, while well advanced in years, is entering into the spirit of the occasion with a fine enthusiasm. He is a full-blooded Choctaw Indian, and is a native of Mississippi. Amos is now seventy-three years old. He talks well of himself and of the part he and other Indians played in the war."
  — The Times-Democrat, Friday, May 22, 1903
  Jack Amos died a few years later in 1906.
caption: John Blakeley, who was a private in Spann's Independent Scouts, wrote a number of affidavits for Indians who applied for a Mississippi pension.
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