Chustenahlah was a Civil War engagement fought in Oklahoma, 1861. It was a Confederate victory.
Confederate troops had undertaken a campaign to subdue the Native American Union sympathizers in Indian Territory and consolidate control. They had attacked Chief Opothleyahola's band of Creeks and Seminoles earlier at Round Mountain and Chusto-Talasah. Now, they wanted to finish them off by assaulting them in their camp at Chustenahlah in a well-protected cove on Battle Creek. Col. James McQueen McIntosh and Col. Douglas H. Cooper, commanding the Indian Department, planned a combined attack with each of their columns moving on the camp from different directions. McIntosh left Fort Gibson on December 22, with 1,380 men. On the 25th, he was informed that Cooper's force could not join for a while, but he decided to attack the next day, despite being outnumbered. McIntosh attacked the camp at noon on the 26th. The Union defenders were secluded in the underbrush along the slope of a rugged hill, but as the Confederate attack came forward, the Native Americans began to fall back, taking cover for a while and then moving back. The retreat became a rout as the Federals reached their camp. They attempted to make a stand there but were forced away again. The survivors fled; many went all the way to Kansas where they found loyal Unionists. Chief Opothleyahola's band of Creeks and Seminoles mounted no resistance again.
On December 26, 1861, Confederate and Union forces clashed at Chustenahlah, located in what is now Osage County, Oklahoma but was then part of Indian Territory, amid the broader conflict of the American Civil War. The engagement led to 9,000 Native Americans loyal to the Union being driven northward into Kansas, forced through harsh, snowy conditions in an ordeal that came to be remembered as the Trail of Blood on Ice.
Southern forces launched a campaign aimed at crushing Native American factions loyal to the Union within the federal Indian Territory, an area that would not become the state of Oklahoma until 1907, while also tightening the Confederacy's grip on the region. Their targets included the band of Creek and Seminole followers under Chief Opothleyahola, with Chief Halek Tustenuggee leading the Seminole contingent, whom they had already clashed with at Round Mountain and Chusto-Talasah. Seeking a final blow against these Indians, the Confederates set their sights on the encampment at Chustenahlah, a name derived from the Cherokee term "U-s-ta-la-na" referring to a shoal or sandbar in a stream, situated within a sheltered cove along Bird Creek. Col. Douglas H. Cooper (1815-1879), who headed the Confederate Indian Department, coordinated with Colonel James M. McIntosh to strike the camp using two columns approaching from separate directions. On December 22, McIntosh set out from Fort Gibson in the eastern part of the territory, leading a force of 1,380 men.
Confederate forces emerged victorious, seizing 160 women and children along with 20 black captives. Their haul included 30 wagons, 70 yoke of oxen, roughly 500 horses taken from the Indians, several hundred cattle, 100 sheep, and vast stores of supplies. On the Confederate side, 9 men died and 40 suffered wounds. Col. McIntosh, writing afterward, put Union Indian losses at around 250.
The following works provide additional background: a massive federal publication compiling wartime records from both sides, produced by the U.S. War Department across 70 volumes and four series between 1880 and 1901, with the relevant material found in Series 1, Volume 8, Part 1, spanning pages 8 through 15, and issued by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.
Also useful is a study by Christine Schultz White and Benton R. White titled Now The Wolf Has Come: The Creek Nation in the Civil War, published by Texas A & M University Press in 1996 and carrying the ISBN 0-89096-689-3.
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