The Second Battle of Cabin Creek was part of a plan conceived by Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie, who had been promoted from colonel after the First Battle of Cabin Creek. The plan was to have a Confederate force attack central Kansas from Indian Territory, raiding Union Army facilities and encouraging Indian tribes in Western Kansas to join in an attack on the eastern part of the state. Watie presented the plan to his superior, General S. B. Maxey on February 5, 1864. Maxey approved the plan on the condition that the attack would start by October 1, to coincide with an attack on Missouri already planned by General Sterling Price.
Brigadier-General Richard M. Gano and Watie met at Camp Pike in the Choctaw Nation on 13 September 1864, to make plans for the coming expedition. Gano, commanding several Texas Confederate units, had agreed to join Watie as co-leader of the campaign. Watie, however, knew that most of the Texans hated all the Indians, including their allies, and resented his promotion in the Confederate Army. According to one account, "...Colonel Charles DeMorse of the 29th Texas Cavalry Regiment refused to serve under him." Watie, therefore, deferred to Gano as commander of the expedition. Both Gano and Maxey commended Waite for this act of solidarity. Moreover, Gano had more seniority as a Confederate general than did Watie. Watie would continue to command the Indian Brigade, composed of about 800 men. Gano's brigade comprised Texas cavalry and artillery units containing about 1,200 men.
The raid had targeted a wagon train that left Fort Scott on 12 September. It carried supplies and provisions intended for Native Americans who had fled their homes and camped near Fort Gibson. It was led by Major Henry Hopkins. The train was escorted by 80 soldiers of the 2d Kansas Cavalry, 50 men from the 6th Kansas Cavalry and 130 men of the 14th Kansas Cavalry regiments. A group of 100 pro-Union Cherokees joined the train at Baxter Springs, Kansas, but half were left at the Neosho River junction to guard the rear. The escort was to be increased by 170 Union Cherokees of the 2nd Indian Regiment, based at Cabin Creek, and 140 Cherokees of the 3d Indian Regiment en route from Fort Gibson
Major Hopkins received a message to move the train to Cabin Creek as fast as possible and await further orders. The message also said that Major John A. Foreman, six companies of men and two howitzers were en route as a relief force. The train arrived at Cabin Creek station during the afternoon of September 18.
On 16 September, as they were waiting for the supply train, the Confederates happened to encounter a detachment of black Union soldiers conducting hay-making operations at Flat Rock, near the confluence of Flat Rock Creek and the Grand River, about 5 miles (8.0 km) northeast of present-day Wagoner, Oklahoma and 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Fort Gibson. Captain E. A. Barker leading a small group of the 2d Kansas Cavalry and a detachment from the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry, who were guarding the operation, were soon surrounded and attacked from all sides. In desperation, Barker ordered his men with horses to attempt a breakout. Only 15 of the 65 men who attempted to break out reached the fort. The Union troops lost all their hay-making equipment, several hundred tons of hay and over 100 casualties (including prisoners). There were unconfirmed reports that many of the black troops were killed by the Texans. These killings led to one historian's calling the action one of Watie's three most infamous actions of the war.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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