When the peoples of the Indian Territory found themselves in the midst of the American Civil War, squeezed between Union Kansas and Confederate Texas and Arkansas, they had no way to escape a conflict not of their choosing–and no alternative but to suffer its consequences.
When the Wolf Came explores how the war in the Indian Territory involved almost every resident, killed many civilians as well as soldiers, left the country stripped and devastated, and cost Indian nations millions of acres of land. Using a solid foundation of both published and unpublished sources, including the records of Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek nations, Mary Jane Warde details how the coming of the war set off a wave of migration into neighboring Kansas, the Red River Valley, and Texas. She describes how Indian Territory troops in Unionist regiments or as Confederate allies battled enemies–some from their own nations–in the territory and in neighboring Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas. And she shows how post-war land cessions forced by the federal government on Indian nations formerly allied with the Confederacy allowed the removal of still more tribes to the Indian Territory, leaving millions of acres open for homesteads, railroads, and development in at least ten states.
Enhanced by maps and photographs from the Oklahoma Historical Society’s photographic archives, When the Wolf Came will be welcomed by both general readers and scholars interested in the signal public events that marked that tumultuous era and the consequences for the territory’s tens of thousands of native peoples.
Mary Jane Warde is the author of Washita and George Washington Grayson and the Creek Nation.
Winner of the 2014 Oklahoma Book Award for nonfiction
Winner of the 2014 Pate Award from the Fort Worth Civil War Round Table.
“…[A] fine and thorough overview of the military history of the Civil War in the Indian Territory, one that captures the different levels of politics, culture, and history that were pulling on Native communities at the time of the war, and that ultimately makes a good case for the long-term links between the war and Native history in both Oklahoma and the nation as a whole. I would strongly recommend it to those with an interest in Oklahoma history, Trans-Mississippi history, Native American history, Civil War in the West and the Removal Period.”
—Field Notes, July–August 2016
“One of the only works to date to document the experiences of Indians on the battlefield and at home in such rich detail. Scholars interested in the American Civil War, Indigenous military history, or the nineteenth-century history of the Five Nations will find the text especially useful.”
—Native American and Indigenous Studies
“Warde has succeeded in crafting the definite history of the Civil War in Indian Territory. Blending federal documents, traditional archives, secondary sources, and oral histories, When the Wolf Came is highly recommended to students of the Civil War, the American South, American Indians, and federal Indian policy.”
—Robert Wooster, The Journal of Southern History
“This book is highly recommended to anyone wanting to know more about the events and consequences of the Civil War in Indian Territory and its surrounding territories.”
—The Chronicles of Oklahoma
“A solid work of scholarship that is essential for scholars of the Trans-Mississippi theater of the war and for Civil War enthusiasts.”
—Arkansas Historical Quarterly
“Will stand for decades as the most comprehensive and thoughtful study of the Civil War’s impact on Indian Territory …. very fine scholarship indeed, carefully crafted, abundantly researched, and told with an eye to both detail and clarity.”
—Daniel Herman in Civil War Book Review
“When the Wolf Came is a deeply researched and engagingly corrective addition to the sparse or dated existing studies of a critical period in the history of the Indian Territory; it is especially valuable for its extensive incorporation of the perspectives of those inside rather than outside the Territory. Occupying the intersection between the history of the Civil War and of the American West, it deserves careful reading by military historians interested in irregular warfare and students of the history of the United States generally and Oklahoma in particular.”
—Michigan War Studies Review
“The Civil War in the West has a single goal: to promote historical writing about the war in the western states and territories. It focuses most particularly on the Trans-Mississippi theater, which consisted of Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, most of Louisiana (west of the Mississippi River), Indian Territory (modern day Oklahoma), and Arizona Territory (two-fifths of modern day Arizona and New Mexico) but encompasses adjacent states, such as Kansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi, that directly influenced the Trans-Mississippi war. It is a wide swath, to be sure, but one too often ignored by historians and, consequently, too little understood and appreciated.
Topically, the series embraces all aspects of the wartime story. Military history in its many guises, from the strategies of generals to the daily lives of common soldiers, forms an important part of that story, but so, too, do the numerous and complex political, economic, social, and diplomatic dimensions of the war. The series also provides a variety of perspectives on these topics. Most importantly, it offers the best in modern scholarship, with thoughtful, challenging monographs.
Secondly, it presents new editions of important books that have gone out of print. And thirdly, it premieres expertly edited correspondence, diaries, reminiscences, and other writings by participants in the war.
It is a formidable challenge, but by focusing on some of the least familiar dimensions of the conflict, The Civil War in the West significantly broadens our understanding of the nation’s most pivotal and dramatic story.”
—Daniel Sutherland, from the preface of I Do Wish This Cruel War Was Over
Adopted at: University of Iowa
Course: The Civil War Era and the Remaking of America: A Multicultural Approach
Course Description: Using primary sources and the latest in cutting-edge historical scholarship, explores the fascinating and often rarely examined diverse cast of characters that were part of the transformation of America during the Civil War Era.
Professor: Dwain Coleman
Term: Spring 2020
Adopted at: University of Maine
Course: HTY 464 America at the Crossroads: the Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1840-1877
Course Description: This course examines how the United States, which was less than a century old, lost half of its territory to politics and a different way of life. Students will explore the intersections of national events, specifically the intensified sectional conflict, with the significance of these turbulent decades among specific groups of people, including African-Americans (both slave and free), Native peoples, women, and recent immigrants.
Professor: Micah Pawling
Term: Spring 2020
