The First Battle of Cabin Creek occurred from July 1 to July 2, 1863, Mayes County, Oklahoma during the American Civil War. Confederate forces, led by Colonel Stand Watie, sought to ambush a Union supply convoy commanded by Colonel James Monroe Williams. However, Williams received advance warning of the attack. Despite the swollen waters of the creek due to rain, Williams launched a successful assault on the entrenched Confederate position, forcing them to retreat. Although a Confederate Army detachment attempted to raid a Union Army supply train bound for Fort Gibson in July 1863, they were unable to impede the Union detachment, which contributed to the Union's victory in the Battle of Honey Springs later that month. Notably, this battle marked the first instance of African American troops fighting alongside their white comrades.
Two Civil War military engagements were fought at the Cabin Creek battlefield in the Cherokee Nation within Indian Territory. The location was where the Texas Road crossed Cabin Creek, near the present-day town of Big Cabin, Oklahoma. Both the First and the Second Battle of Cabin Creek were launched by the Confederate Army to disrupt Union Army supply trains.
The second engagement, in September, 1864, again a Confederate raid on a Union supply train. During this raid, the Confederates managed to capture mules, wagons, and supplies valued at over a million dollars. However, by this time, such actions had little strategic impact on the outcome of the war. Confederate General Stand Watie led the attackers during both raids.
Colonel James M. Williams had charge of the escort of a Union supply train from Fort Scott, Kansas to Fort Gibson, Oklahoma (which was then in Indian Territory). His force marched along the Texas Road and consisted of detachments of the 2nd Colorado Infantry Regiment, 3rd Wisconsin Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, 6th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, 9th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, 3rd Regiment, Indian Home Guard, 1st Kansas Colored Infantry and the 2nd Kansas Artillery.
Confederate Colonel Stand Watie had intended to ambush Williams' convoy and had 1,600 to 1,800 men lying in wait at the Cabin Creek crossing. Watie had counted on 1,500 additional men, led by Brigadier General William L. Cabell to strengthen his force prior to the attack but Cabell's troops were delayed by high waters on the Grand River.
Williams arrived at the crossing on 1 July and learned of the intentions of Watie's force from captured Confederate soldiers. Watie's battle line extended around one mile either side of the crossing in trenches dug into the brush lining the creek. Owing to the unusually high water level in the creek, which reached above shoulder height, Williams chose to delay his attack on the Confederates until the following day and corralled his wagons defensively on a nearby prairie.
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.
This page covers First Battle of Cabin Creek. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.