Last To Surrender

June 23,1865. When the leaders of the Confederate indians learned that the government in Richmond had fallen and the Eastern armies had been surrended,they,too,began making their plans to seek peace with the Federal government. The chiefs convened the Grand Council June 15 and passed resolutions calling for Indian commanders to lay down their arms and for emissaries to approach Federal authorities for peace terms. The largest force in Indian Territory was commanded by Confederate Brig.Gen. Stand Watie, who was also a chief of the Cherokee Nation. He kept his troops in the field for nearly a month after Lt. Gen.E.Kirby Smith surrendered the Trans- Mississippi May 26. On June 23 Watie rode into Doaksville near Fort Towson in Indian Territory and surrended his battalion of Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, and Osage Indians to Lt.Col.Asa C.Matthews, appointed a few weeks earlier to negotiate a peace with the Indians. Watie was the last Confederate general officer to surrender his command.