Hi Ken,
Thanks for including my book in your bibliography, I don't know about the distinguished part, though! Chapter 2 of African Creeks covers the role that African Creeks played in the 1st Indian Home Guard and the 1st and 2nd Kansas Colored regiments. The 79th USCT (New)or 1st Kansas Colored had one company that was composed almost entirely of African Creeks--Company I. They were recruited from the Creek refugees at the Sac Fox Reserve in Kansas in the spring of 1863. Benjamin Van Horne was a Kansas contracter who had a contract to deliver supplies to the refugees there when he noticed a number of African Creek men at the reserve who had not enlisted in the 1st Indian Home Guard. Van Horne notified Gen. Blunt about the situation and Blunt supplied him with a wagonload of supplies and uniforms and Van Horne enlisted them. Van Horne was made captain of the company and relates some very vivid descriptions of the First Cabin Creek and Honey Springs in an autobiographical manuscript that is at the Kansas State Historical Society. The 2nd Kansas Colored (83rd USCT) also had a company of African Creeks--Company G--recruited at Ft. Gibson in the fall of 1863 from refugees coming into FT. Gibson following the Battle of Honey Springs. I also noticed a number of African Cherokees in both companies. Yes, I am finishing a manuscript on the 1st Indian Home Guard and the Civil War in the Indian Territory that should be finished by this fall and delivered to the University of Oklahoma Press. This book goes beyond the material that I included in Chapter 2 of African Creeks and I think will be a major contribution (I hope, anyway)to the history of the Civil War in the Indian Territory. After all the last major contribution to the Union side of the story was Wiley Britton's Union Indian Brigade, published in 1922. I have spent a lot of time with the Regimental papers and order books of the regiment and the stuff I found in Army Continental Command records at the National Archives. I have also benefitted enormously from reading the postings here, Ken and really appreciate what you and the other people who post here are doing.

There was a really interesting discussion here some time ago about the rifles used by the Indian Home Guard regiments. As I recall there seemed to be a consensus about the rifles used by the 2nd and 3rd regiments, but not the 1st. The Office of Indian Affairs documents mention a shipment of "Indian trade rifles" (2,000 of them!) that were shipped from Ft. Leavenworth to supply the Indian Expedition in April 1862. Does anyone have information about this shipment? I assume that the rifles came from the federal arsenal in St. Louis or Springfield, MO. The Museum of the Fur Trade in Chadron, NE (this is really a great place and has one of the best collections of early weaponry anywhere in the country) has some examples of these Indian trade rifles, and I'm wondering which one to include as an illustration in the book. Ok, thanks again for all you do. More later.

Gary