Battle of Locust Grove

What the surprise cost the Confederacy showed up in the Cherokee Nation. Men who escaped the camp fled toward Park Hill and Tahlequah, and the panic they carried set off large desertions among pro-Confederate Cherokees. Col. William Weer's force of about 250, from the Ninth Kansas Cavalry and the First Indian Home Guard, took about a hundred prisoners, Col. James J. Clarkson among them, with sixty wagons and sixty-four mule teams. Weer's men spent the Fourth of July dividing the captured clothing. In 1864 a court-martial convicted Weer of drunkenness and neglect of duty, and he was dismissed.

What the plaque says

Battle of Locust Grove Federal troops suddenly attacked a Confederate camp along the ridge near here at dawn, July 2, 1862. The surprised Confederates hardly returned fire before their officers and heavy supplies were captured. Yet, hot fighting in the woods lasted nearly all day. Oklahoma Historical Society 160-1995

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Saline Courthouse Museum — 7.8 mi
  The one Cherokee district courthouse of nine still standing, an 1884 building near Rose that the Cherokee Nation bought back and opened as a museum in 2019.
• Cabin Creek Battlefield — 20 mi
  The Texas Road ford in the Cherokee Nation where Stand Watie twice struck at Union supply trains for Fort Gibson, losing in July 1863 and winning 130 wagons in September 1864.
• Cherokee National History Museum — 22 mi
  The Cherokee Nation's own history museum, in the brick capitol it built on Tahlequah's square after the Civil War, a short walk from its 1844 supreme court and its 1875 prison.

More markers nearby

• Chouteau's Post — 6.5 mi
• Wagoner — 21 mi
• Cabin Creek Battlefield — 21 mi
• Red Bird — 33 mi