Saturday Shorts Block

North or South, whichever side controlled Indian Territory, controlled the fate of slavery west of the Mississippi.

In the end, the battle at Honey Springs would be remembered as the climatic engagement within Indian Territory and the most diverse battle in American Civil War history. On July 17, 1863, Major General James G. Blunt marched 3000 Union soldiers through rain and river and initiated a brazen attack against a Confederate Army twice his number. Led by the 1st Kansas, the Union forces drove the rebels from their stronghold at the Honey Springs depot, securing the major supply route known as the Texas Road. “The Battle of Honey Springs” takes you inside the fight, from the Generals and their warfare tactics to the men on the ground including the 1st Kansas, made up of all freed black slaves, eager to show their worth and bravery in the fight to emancipate all their southern brothers. And to the Creek, Cherokee and other tribes of Oklahoma, Native Americans divided by a white man’s war, fighting to return to the lands they once called home.