Cabin Creek Battlefield

The Confederates still had to get the wagons home. With 130 salvaged wagons and 740 mules in line, Gen. Richard M. Gano's column was attacked at Pryor's Creek by Col. James M. Williams's brigade, marching up from Fort Gibson. At nightfall Gano had his men light campfires and drive an empty wagon repeatedly over rocky ground, so the Federals believed the train was parking for the night. Under darkness the wagons rolled northwest and away. The victory let Stand Watie, the Cherokee general, keep campaigning until June 23, 1865, when he became the last Confederate general to surrender.

What the plaque says

Cabin Creek Battlefield On Sept. 18, 1864, a Confederate force of 2,000, mainly Gen. Stand Watie's Indian Brigade, intercepted a Union supply train enroute from Kansas to Ft. Gibson. The convoy of 130 wagons with supplies worth $1.5 million was captured after a heavy engagement. Last major Civil War engagement in Indian Territory. Oklahoma Historical Society 159-1995

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cabin Creek Battlefield — 7.4 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.
• Saline Courthouse Museum — 24 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.
• 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

• Chouteau's Post — 15 mi
• Battle of Locust Grove — 21 mi
• Claremore Mound — 22 mi
• Oklahoma's First Waterflood — 24 mi