Home |  PublicationsEncyclopedia |  Chusto-Talasah, Battle of

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

CHUSTO-TALASAH, BATTLE OF.

Also known as the engagement of "Caving Banks" or "Little High Shoals," the Civil War Battle of Chusto-Talasah took place on Bird Creek near present Sperry in Tulsa County. In November 1861 Col. Douglas H. Cooper, Confederate commander of the Indian Territory, set out with Choctaw-Chickasaw, Creek, and Texas units to subdue Creek Chief Opothleyahola and his Creek and Seminole followers, who refused to accept their nations' alliance with the Confederate States of America. The Confederates also hoped to confiscate the dissidents' slaves and enslave all Indian Freedmen. Cooper's first attack on the alerted and fleeing "Union" Indians at the Battle of Round Mountain on November 19 was unsuccessful. The escapees retreated north and took position within the Horseshoe Bend of Bird Creek.

Opothleyahola had perhaps two thousand to twenty-five hundred individuals with him, the majority being women, children, and poorly armed men. The Confederates fielded thirteen hundred soldiers with the addition of two Cherokee regiments. Cooper attacked mid-afternoon on December 9. About dusk a Texas cavalry squadron outflanked the bend while the First Regiment Choctaw-Chickasaw Mounted Rifles penetrated its center. But Cooper did not have enough ammunition to eradicate the defeated refugees as they fled toward Kansas. Cooper suffered fifty-two casualties plus some desertions from Col. John Drew's First Cherokee Mounted Rifles. Opothleyahola lost an estimated 150 to three hundred dead and wounded, plus many noncombatants captured.

Michael A. Hughes

See Also

CIVIL WAR ERA

Browse By Topic

American Indians
Civil War Era

Explore

Events

Learn More

Carter Blue Clark, "Opothleyahola and the Creeks During the Civil War," in Indian Leaders: Oklahoma's First Statesmen, ed. H. Glenn Jordan and Thomas M. Holm (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society, 1979).

LeRoy H. Fischer and Kenny A. Franks, "Confederate Victory at Chusto-Talasah," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 49 (Winter 1971–72).

W. Craig Gaines, The Confederate Cherokees: John Drew's Regiment of Mounted Rifles (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989).

Citation

The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for articles:
Michael A. Hughes, “Chusto-Talasah, Battle of,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=CH066.

Published January 15, 2010

Copyright and Terms of Use

No part of this site may be construed as in the public domain.

Copyright to all articles and other content in the online and print versions of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History is held by the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS). This includes individual articles (copyright to OHS by author assignment) and corporately (as a complete body of work), including web design, graphics, searching functions, and listing/browsing methods. Copyright to all of these materials is protected under United States and International law.

Users agree not to download, copy, modify, sell, lease, rent, reprint, or otherwise distribute these materials, or to link to these materials on another web site, without authorization of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Individual users must determine if their use of the Materials falls under United States copyright law's "Fair Use" guidelines and does not infringe on the proprietary rights of the Oklahoma Historical Society as the legal copyright holder of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and part or in whole.