18651776 Club
Stand Watie signs the last Confederate surrender, at Doaksville in the Choctaw Nation
The Cherokee general and principal chief lays down arms nearly two months after Appomattox, his First Indian Brigade of Cherokee, Muskogee, and Seminole fighters the final force to quit the field.
Nearly two months after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, the Civil War still had one general in the field. Stand Watie — Cherokee politician, principal chief, and the only Native American to hold Confederate general rank — laid down arms at Doaksville in the Choctaw Nation on June 23, 1865, signing a cease-fire with Union representatives for his First Indian Brigade of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi. His men were mostly Cherokee, Muskogee, and Seminole. The war that had split a nation had also, in Watie's case, split a tribe — and no treaty after the surrender would put it back together…
