Author: Al Fonner – The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable

The Nancy Harts

By Al Fonner
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in February 2025.

On April 17, 1865, fresh off the capture of Fort Tyler, Union Colonel Oscar H. La Grange led a force of 3,000 cavalry to LaGrange, Georgia. Did the colonel find it curious that the town bore his name, or vice versa? Still more curious, I am sure, was that initially there was no Confederate opposition to prevent his entry into the town until the colonel came face to face with some 40 women in line formation just outside of the town at the LaGrange Female College. The women were bedecked in ruffled skirts and floral hats and armed with a variety of old muskets and flintlocks that likely saw better days during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. So befuddled was Colonel La Grange that he was quoted to remark that the women arrayed before him “…might use their eyes with better effect upon the Federal soldiers than their rusty guns (Horton, 14).” It looked as if the colonel had a fight on his hands after all. So who were these stalwart Southern belles standing valiantly against the Yankee invaders?

Surrender? A Better Word Would Be Quit: Eastern Cherokee and the Confederacy

By Al Fonner
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2024, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in December 2024.

When we think of the American Indian’s support of the Confederate States in the American Civil War, we most often think of what occurred west of the Mississippi River and in the Southwest. One name that often comes to mind is General Stand Watie, who raised and commanded a contingent of Cherokee fighters for the Confederate States, operating in the Indian Territory, Kansas, and Missouri. Although not as celebrated as Watie and his Cherokee, the Eastern Cherokee who remained in western North Carolina also threw their lot in with the Confederate States. This remnant formed the backbone of what became known collectively as Thomas’s Legion of Indians and Mountaineers. The Cherokee contingent of the Legion served primarily in the defense of the Appalachian Mountain region of western North Carolina, although they had some involvement in early operations in eastern Tennessee.

A Valorous but Fruitless Service: Native Americans of Co. K, 1st Michigan Sharpshooters

By Al Fonner
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2024, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in May 2024.

When civil war broke out in the United States, a bloody struggle began that stretched on for four years. The causes, stated and unstated, were many: preeminence of states’ rights, preservation of the Union, abolition of slavery, even freedom itself. Native Americans warily viewed hostilities amongst the whites with mixed responses. Some, like the Chiricahua Apache, preferred to remain neutral. Others, such as the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw who had been forced from their ancestral lands by the U.S. Federal Government to live on reservations in the Oklahoma Territory, would throw their lot in with the Confederacy. Northern tribes, such as the Ottawa, sided with the Union in hopes that their loyalty would help preserve their shrinking land and way of life. Chippewa Chief Nock-ke-chick-faw-me, in Detroit, motivated the young men of his tribe to join the colors by warning, “If the South conquers you will be slave dogs…. There will be no protection for us; we shall be driven from our homes, our lands, and the graves of our friends” (Gordon Berg, 2016).