Laurence M. Hauptman

Huaptman's topic is of strong interest, and he covers the obscure well. However, he does not go far enough. During the American Civil War, American Indian tribes participated--many for the Union, but most for the Confederacy. Huaptman divides his book into 3 major sections: the Trans-Mississippi West, the South, and the North.

Across the Mississippi River, the Delaware contributed to the Union cause. The celebrated Cherokee Stand Waite has a chapter of his own and deservedly so. Waite was one of the last to surrender and the only Confederate General of a strong degree of American Indian blood.

In the Southern section (the section I consider obscure and highly captivating), he covers the Pamunkey and Lumbee Unionist, the Catawba, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee. Disappointingly, he includes a small one paragraph mention of the 1st Choctaw Battalion out of Mississippi. Huaptman could have gone a little further with them. In fact, there is enough material about them for a whole book, so a chapter about them would have been an integral part of this book.

In the last part, he investigates the Unionist roles of Northern tribes like the Ottawa, Ojibwa, Pequot, and Mohegan Indians. Ely S. Parker, the Seneca, was an interesting re-read as he is well known. Parker was on the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant.

Overall, he did an admirable job. I notice a number of discrepancies in the notes while doing my own research. On page 215, the letter from "John A. Davis to Major Memminger, April 12, 1863" ... The letter was actually from Brig. Gen. John Adams to Memminger. Also, on the same page, J. W. Pierce was the writer than a "J. N. Pierce."… (meer)