Battle of Chustenahlah

The people McIntosh routed were Opothleyahola's followers, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole and others who disputed their nations' alliances with the Confederacy, and many of them were women and children. After the fight at Chusto-Talasah, ice and the loss of horses and supplies stopped them beside Shoal Creek, now Battle Creek. Their men gave ground slowly up a steep, brushy hillside for about four hours so families could escape. Unknown hundreds died of wounds, hunger and cold during the campaign, yet many survivors returned as soldiers in the Union's Indian Home Guard regiments.

What the plaque says

Battle of Chustenahlah This site, 3.5 miles N.W. is where Col. Jas. McIntosh, 2nd Ark. Mtd. Rifles, routed Loyal Union Indian forces, Dec. 26, 1861. The battle opened with fire from the Indian line on Patriot's Hill, 2 mi. S.W. The Loyal Union Indians finally fled to Kansas. Oklahoma Historical Society 167-1995

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Greenwood Rising — 15 mi
  The history center at Greenwood and Archer that tells how Tulsa's Black Wall Street was built, how white mobs burned it in 1921, and how its people rebuilt it.
• Creek Nation Council Oak Park — 17 mi
  The oak on a south Tulsa hill where the Lochapoka Muscogee lit their fire in 1836 after removal from Alabama, the ceremonial ground from which Tulsa took its name.
• Philbrook Museum of Art — 18 mi
  Waite Phillips's 1927 Italian villa and its Villa Lante-inspired gardens, given to Tulsa in 1938 and open as an art museum since October 1939, strong in Native American art.
• Will Rogers Memorial Museum — 24 mi
  The limestone memorial and museum on the Claremore hilltop Will Rogers bought for his retirement, opened on his birthday in 1938 and holding his papers, his films and his tomb.

More markers nearby

• Booker T. Washington High School — 15 mi
• International Petroleum Exposition — 18 mi
• First Oil Well, Tulsa County — 18 mi
• Battle of Round Mountain — 21 mi