ABSTRACT
Civil war unleashes devastating forces on a society, and few experiences are more divisive; however, the experience also creates internal unity. White leaders and combatants in the American Civil War viewed the struggle as a “white man’s war” that excluded minorities. As with previous national wars, minorities would eventually engage in combat, but never on the same terms as whites. Native Americans fought primarily in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, in Indian Territory. They enlisted and fought for their own reasons of kinship, sovereignty, and identity. Their insistence on remaining native within larger majority white armies proved a challenge to everyone involved.
