Jim Martin
I make no distinction!
Sat Jul 21 10:05:13 2001


Dear Quinn,

I make no distinction of who is a Native-American (American Indian) Civil War participant based on Degree of Indian Blood. Most of the books and articles on participation of NA's in the Union and Confederate armies focus on identifiable units composed entirely, or almost entirely, of people who were recognized according to their Indian race. To expand this identification of Native-American participation in the Civil War, I'd like to accumulate additional information on people who were legally recognized by the Federal government as Indians, but who were represented as "white" on census and muster information or whose Native-American background was overlooked, ignored or hidden at enlistment and fought during the war shoulder-to-shoulder with white troops.

Though I have two grandfathers and numerous uncles and cousins who were members of Watie's 1st Cherokee Mounted Volunteers, I also have a ggg-grandfather who was a Cherokee "Old Settler" in Arkansas who appears on the 1860 Polk County, AR census as "white", was for about six months a member of the 13th Kansas Infantry (US), ultimately deserted and fled to the Cherokee Nation in the Indian Territory to join his brothers who were all Confederate Cherokees.

In another part of my family, my Martins were residents of Claiborne County, TN until the 1830's when they moved as a family group, including Martins, Sextons, Arwines and others to Lawrence County in South Indiana. These families lived along the recognized border area between white settled Tennessee and the Cherokee Nation along the Holston River. Written family information from the time states that my ggg-grandmother, a Rebecca SEXTON Martin was "part Indian". This family, coincidentally relocated to Southern Indiana at approximately the same time as other of my ancestors were being forceably removed from their homes in East Tennessee and Northern Georgia. I've always wondered if the move of this part of my family was to avoid forced removal to the Indian Territory, as people in the area were aware of my ggg-grandmother's heritage?

Recently, books have been written identifying "hispanic" surnames in Confederate service, Scandinavians, and even African-Americans. Because of my heritage, I'd like to know the Native-Americans, full or mixed-blood, who fought in "white" units of both the Union and Confederate armies.

Jim Martin