Historical Marker · No. 56
Drum Creek & the Civil War
Montgomery County · Kansas
Erected by State of Kansas
The Osage stood on both sides of the war. The nation favored the Union by about five to one, yet it signed a treaty with the Confederacy in October 1861 to try to buy some peace, and roughly 200 Osage men formed the Osage Battalion under the Cherokee Confederate general Stand Watie. The Jesuit priest Father Schoenmakers recruited Osage fighters for the Union. Meanwhile Creek and Caddoan refugees from Indian Territory crowded into Osage country in Kansas, straining the resources of a people already struggling to survive famine and war.
What the plaque says
Drum Creek & the Civil War During the Civil War, militias from both the Union and Confederate sides were stealing the Osages' cattle, harassing their villages, and blaming the Indians for raids actually committed by Americans. Osage leader Charles Mongrain cautioned everyone to leave his people alone: "I most earnestly warn all intruders, trespassers, and others not citizens of the Osage nation to leave the nation immediately." In May 1863, a few miles east of here, an Osage hunting party confronted about 20 strangers riding through their territory. A shot was fired, and one of the Osage went down. His comrades chased the trespassers about 15 miles and finally overtook them near Drum Creek, kill- ing all but two (who escaped). The strangers turned out to have been Confederate officers, marching west with orders to recruit volunteers and encourage rebellion in New Mexico & Colorado. The Osage had foiled the plot. Erected by the State of Kansas
Where it stands
37.22509, -95.67241 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Little House on the Prairie Museum — 11 miThe Ingalls family's claim of 1869 and 1870 southwest of Independence, a squatter's homestead on the Osage Diminished Reserve, with a replica cabin, schoolhouse and post office.
- Dalton Defenders Museum — 13 miCoffeyville's museum named for the four townsmen killed on October 5, 1892, when the Dalton gang tried to rob two banks at once, across the street from the bank where the plan fell apart.