Dr. LeRoy H. Fischer's accounts of [1] "Civil War in Indian Territory" and [2] "Battle of Honey Springs" are both available at http://www.honeysprings.org .

The G. W. Grayson book [edited by Brad Agnew] entitled "Creek Warrior for the Confederacy" gives a history of the Creek Regiments' involvement at Honey Springs.

Here are two quotes from that source:

"We could hear the fighting going to our front and right. We stood all day in battle formation awaiting the order to attack -- but the order never came." [Captain G. W. Grayson, Company commander, later Regimental Adjutant]

[In Brigadier General Douglas H. Cooper's report we read "I sent a rider to tell the McIntoshes to come up and support the Texans on my left, but the rider never got there."]

Chilly McIntosh, in a speech to his men the morning of the battle, said:

“When you first saw the light, it was said of you a man child is born. You must prove today whether or not this saying of you was true. The sun that hangs over our heads has no death – no end of days. It will continue indefinitely to rise and to set. But with you it is different. Man must die sometime and since he must die he can find no nobler death than that which overtakes him while fighting for his home, his fires, and his country.”

The chaplain of the Union army's 2nd Colorado Infantry, included the following statement in what he wrote to his hometown newspaper:

"The Creeks didn't fight, they ran. The Cherokees fought a little, then they ran."

In Cooper's report he states: "Too much praise cannot be awarded the troops for the accomplishment of the most difficult of all military movements--an orderly and successful retreat, with little loss of life or property, in the face of superior numbers, flushed with victory. The retreat of the forces under my command eastward instead of south completely deceived the enemy, and created, as I anticipated, the impression that the re-enforcements from Fort Smith were close at hand, and that by a detour in rear of the mountain east of Honey Springs our forces might march upon Gibson and destroy it while General Blunt was away with almost the whole Federal force. Under the influence of this reasonable fear, General Blunt withdrew forces and commenced a hurried march for Gibson. North Fork, where we had a large amount of commissary stores, was then saved, as well as the whole of the train, except one ambulance purposely thrown in the way of the enemy by the river. A quantity of flour, some salt, and sugar were necessarily burned at Honey Springs, there being no transportation for it."