Fort Wayne

The fight the plaque ends on came at dawn. After the Confederate retreat from Newtonia, Missouri, in October 1862, Col. Douglas H. Cooper's command camped at the old post, under orders to strike into southern Kansas. After a long night march, Maj. Gen. James Blunt's Union troops hit the camp early on October 22. A charge by the Second Kansas Cavalry and shelling from two batteries broke the camp, and Blunt took its whole battery of cannon, the supply train and about fifty prisoners. That night a half-inch of snow fell on the retreating men.

What the plaque says

Fort Wayne Established in autumn 1839 by Lt. Col. R.B. Mason and 1st Dragoons, U.S. Army, and named in honor of Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne. Aban- doned on May 15, 1842. Here in July 1861 Col. Stand Watie established a Confederate Army post and orga- nized the Cherokee Mounted Rifles. Captured by Federal troops Oct. 22, 1862 in engagement known as Battle of Fort Wayne. Oklahoma Historical Society 155-1995

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Saline Courthouse Museum — 26 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.

More markers nearby

• Fort Wayne — 22 mi