SKETCH OF SECOND CHOCTAW REGIMENT.

Tom Collins, an old citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, who was born in Caldwell County, Kentucky, and came to the Indian Territory in 1857, has the following to say concerning the Second Choctaw Regiment, of which he became a member at the breaking out of the war.

We publish his account word for word: "I enlisted in Company A, Captain Theodore Watkins, under command of Colonel Sim Folsom, early in April, 1863, at Black Jack Point, near Atoka, the headquarters at that time being Camp Waitey, some ten miles distant. One hundred and two of us left the camp in June and proceeded to Brazil, where we met with the Kansas troops under General Cloud, and had a fight with them, driving them back in fifteen minutes.

After this we followed General Steele to Fort Smith, but finding the fort garrisoned, retreated back toward Camp Waitey. At Gaines' Creek we had a fight with the Iowa troops, and while retreating the Federals pursued us and captured or killed Hamilton's Company D, composed of sixty-eight men, bringing up the rear.

Neither Captain nor men were ever afterward heard of. We retreated on to Perryville, and meeting the Federals at night, had a lively brush, drove them back, and proceeded to Camp Waitey, where we remained till September 1. Hearing that Col. Stan Waitey had captured a steamboat on the Arkansaw [sic] River, and that the negro infantry from Fort Smith were advancing to "cut him off," we marched to the mouth of the Sans Bois, on the South Canadian, and meeting with the blue-coat freedmen, drove them back to quarters and retreated to Fort Jackson on the Canadian River.

A few days afterward we were apprised of the advance of a body of Federal cavalry. At night we crossed the Canadian nine hundred strong and surrounded a body of four hundred blue coats, who turned out to be Quantrell and his band, but which fact we did not discover until after he had formed to fight us the following morning.

The great guerrilla and his men returned with us to camp, where we remained for two weeks, when we went into winter quarters till November 1 close to Alex. McKinney'' place, near Stringtown. The April following we renewed the campaign; entered the suburbs of Fort Smith; defeated the Union soldiers at "Nigger Hill," and burned the entire commissary.

Here we made a bad move, for although the Federal soldiers fled, we beat a retreat when we might have captured the town without difficulty. After this act General Maxey was put in command, and we proceeded to Camden, Arkansas, where met the Sixth and Ninth Kansas and some negro regiments.

The fight commenced early in the morning; we broke their lines, and a terrible hand-to-hand struggle was engaged in, covering fully three miles of ground. One negro regiment was completely decimated, only one escaping to tell the tale, Old John, afterward in the employment of Henry La Flore.

A Choctaw boy named Willie Folsom alone slew eight negroes. Two hundred and thirty white prisoners were captured by the command. No engagement of any consequence took place until the following June, when the Choctaw regiments, after leaving winter quarters, proceeded to Cabin Creek and attacked a large train of wagons and the escort, capturing an abundance of supplies, fifteen hundred head of mules, sixty wagons, clothing, etc., etc. Some fifty Federals were killed in the fight.

Thence we moved to the Canadian and camped till the fall, when we moved upon Elkhorn and attacked the Federals under General Blount. But here we met with an unfortunate repulse, for our powder was bad and we failed to do and execution, though almost in personal contact with the enemy. Colonel Bass, of Texas, lost sixty of his men, and many of the command were drowned or killed while crossing the stream in rapid retreat. In the October... [end of available text; page missing in original document]

Back to Excerpts from "Leaders and Leading Men in the Indian Territory"