William Penn Boudinot was Stand Watie's nephew. He was educated in Philadelphia, returning to the Nation in 1850. He became clerk of the National Council in 1851. He was the older brother of Elias C. Boudinot who was secretary for the Arkansas secession convention, Watie's second in command in 1861 and '62, Hindman's aide-de-camp at Prairie Grove AR, and the Cherokee Nation's delegate to the Confederate Congress. Their younger brother, Frank, stayed in the East after his education, enlisted in the Union Army, and was killed in the fighting before Richmond near the end of the war.