Home |  PublicationsEncyclopedia |  Middle Boggy, Battle of

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

Reenactment of the Battle of Middle Boggy
(Oklahoma Historical Society Outreach Division, OHS).

Reenactment of the Battle of Middle Boggy
(Oklahoma Historical Society Outreach Division, OHS).

MIDDLE BOGGY, BATTLE OF.

As the Civil War wore on in the Indian Territory, the Union army's Red River campaign targeted Shreveport, Louisiana, in spring 1864. In advance of that offensive, on February 1, 1864, Col. William A. Phillips led a raid into southern Indian Territory. The goal of his force of some fifteen hundred mounted troops was to penetrate into Texas, leaving nothing but scorched earth in their wake, and disrupt the Confederacy's ability to defend Shreveport. Prior to departing Fort Gibson Phillips ordered his men to take no prisoners.

Arriving near Boggy Depot in the Choctaw Nation (in present Atoka County) on February 9, Phillips deployed a detachment to destroy a Confederate outpost at Middle Boggy. Under Maj. Charles Willets, the Union force totaled 350 cavalrymen, including a section of Capt. Solomon Kaufman's artillery. Confederate forces totaled ninety men from Company A, First Regiment Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles, under Capt. Adam Nail and included a detachment from the Twentieth Texas Cavalry. Willets shelled the Confederate camp and ordered an attack. At the beginning of the thirty-minute fire fight Nail sent messengers to secure help from Col. John Jumper's First Regiment Seminole Mounted Volunteers, who were camped nearby. After losing half of his men, Nail and the survivors retreated to the approaching Seminole column a few miles away. Willets returned to Phillips's main camp instead of engaging Jumper's Seminoles.

When Jumper and Nail arrived at the battlefield, they found the Union troops gone. Nail also discovered that Willets had obeyed Phillips's orders and executed the Confederate wounded. Willets reported no causalities from the battle, but the Southern dead totaled forty-seven. Phillips's raid ended on February 17, 1864, twenty-five miles from the Red River. His forces had marched a total of four hundred miles into enemy-held territory. Rather than dealing a blow to Southern resistance, Phillips's treatment of civilians and the wounded merely strengthened Confederate resolve.

The Middle Boggy battlefield has not been precisely located. At one time the Oklahoma Historical Society sponsored a reenactment of the battle every three years.

Steven L. Warren

See Also

CIVIL WAR ERA

Browse By Topic

Civil War Era

Explore

Events

Learn More

Mark Lea Cantrell and Mac R. Harris, ed., Kepis and Turkey Calls: An Anthology of the War Between the States in Indian Territory (Oklahoma City: Western Heritage Books, 1982).

Muriel H. Wright and LeRoy H. Fischer, "Civil War Sites in Oklahoma," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 44 (Summer 1966).

Citation

The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for articles:
Steven L. Warren, “Middle Boggy, Battle of,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=MI006.

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.