Jesse Russell, aka Gayasquani, was a prominent Cherokee of the Flint District and member of the Keetoowah Society (an organization of predominately full-blood Cherokee, allied with Chief John Ross, and generally at opposition to the mixed blood and white tribal citizens, particularly the Southern Rights Party led by Stand Watie). Russell served two terms as senator for Flint District, 1845-1849, and two terms as a justice on the Cherokee Supreme Court, 1855-1859. He was also the interpreter for religious services at the Fairfield Mission (five miles southwest of present Stillwell, OK.)
Russell enlisted in the Confederate Army on July 12, 1862 at Frozen Rock, Cherokee Nation (east side of present Muskogee about two miles south of the US Hwy 62 bridge). He joined Col. Stand Watie’s 1st Cherokee Mounted Volunteers and served in Company E, commanded by Capt. Alexander Foreman. He enlisted as a private but was quickly promoted to orderly sergeant of the company.
When war seemed imminent, the New England based mission societies began recalling their missionaries with one notable exception, Rev. Worcestor Willey at Dwight Mission (about 6 miles north-northwest of Sallisaw). At Willey’s request, supported by a petition of his parishioners, he was allowed to remain and continue the mission.
Below is Willey’s story, as told to Mrs. E.P. Howland, of the execution of Jesse Russell:
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Among those who had nominally gone over to the South, inasmuch as they had entered the Southern army, was a prominent Cherokee judge.
He had been taken by the missionaries in his former wild condition, and trained until he had the ability to occupy the positions which he afterward held. He used to say, “When I left school I began life for myself with simply an ax and a hoe.”
He became a successful farmer, acquired a fair property, and became one of the best jurists in the Cherokee Nation. He was systematic and prompt in everything he had to do. He was long employed as interpreter in the National Legislature, and otherwise in national business. He was also for many years interpreter in all the religious services of a church at one of the Mission stations [Fairfield]…
Into the hands of a woman to whose undesirable qualities were added strong Southern sympathies had the Judge fallen. By human law she was his wife. In accordance with the law of some mystic power she had persuaded him to enter the Confederate army…
He entered the Southern army. He served there but a short time, however, when, finding he could not sympathize with them, he left and came home.
During his absence his wife had moved into one of the [Dwight] Mission houses.
The course he took in going into the Southern army, and in assisting in forming a government for the nation in the interest of the South, rendered him very obnoxious to the loyal party he had left. He had broken some very strong obligations that had bound him to the Pins [the militants of the Keetoowah Society], and they could not overlook it.
The neighboring women became very anxious about him, and undertook to bring about reconciliation between him and the Pins. That they might have time to do this, they advised that he should hide in the mountains. He went out one day, but found it lonely and came home. The next day this rush of Pins came, and he was in his house.
He saw them coming, and a sense of his danger flashed over him. With a quick instinct of life preservation he stepped into a space where two doors being thrown open and against each other concealed him.
In rushed the Pins. He was not in sight, and they passed him. But his wife, throwing back the door and pointing to his place of retreat said, “Here he is,” and he was taken.
While the raiders were packing their plunder, the prisoner was allowed to go to an upper room in the house of the missionary, and talk with the interpreter.
Meanwhile Kanawiski [Rev. Willey] plead with the Pins, vainly urging that the sympathies of the prisoner were decidedly with them, that there was no reason why they should injure him; but he met only a firm determination of purpose.
When they were ready to leave they called to the Judge. He came down and walked out at the Mission gate and into the crowd, and they left. His bloodless face told plainly that he knew his fate. It was not with his usual firm step that he passed out at the gate. He was going to meet the unerring Judge of the future. He walked into the face of death. His step faltered.
The vision of that pale face has scarcely grown less vivid through time to those who witnessed it.
He was taken a mile up the road, then half a mile to the top of a mountain overlooking the surrounding country, and there he was shot. There were five or six bullet wounds, and doubtless he was killed instantly. The pulled off his shoes and took his overcoat, and left him where he fell. The guns were heard by some women living near.
His Mission friends did not find him until three days after he was killed, though they knew on the day following that he was dead, and searched for his body.
When the body was found, the place was approached as near as possible with a team; then Kanawiski and a young man placed the body in a blanket and carried it down the mountain to the wagon.
At the Mission they made a rude coffin and placed him in it, and buried him by the side of the grave of a revered missionary father.
Only five hours after the killing of the Judge, a large Union force, under Colonel Wm. A. Phillips [commanding the Union Indian Brigade], reached the Mission, and encamped for the night. If they had arrived before he was killed, doubtless his life would have been saved.
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Some weeks later, a squad from Watie’s Confederate Cherokee encountered and killed a prominent Keetoowah (Pin) of the Union Indian Brigade. In his pocket was found a letter written by Jesse Russell which was forwarded to Confederate Brigadier General D.H. Cooper with the notation “…the ink could not have more than dried upon his letter before he was taken by a party of Pin Indians and killed, stripped, and left before his letter reached the headmen as alluded too. He died a vile traitor by the hand of his own party.”
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November 11, 1862.
I write to you. I greatly desire that you should come after me. I am in a very bad condition. I could tell you a great many things which I have seen and observed, also the reasons which induced me to leave my home. I was made an officer in robbing expeditions, and if I failed in doing my duty I would have been killed, and if I attempted to go where you were scattered through the country as you were then, I would have been robbed immediately, and if concluded to remain at home they would have served me like they did James Pritchett [former senator of Flint District]. I was not in the least afraid of you, though someone told my wife you would kill me at first sight. When I heard that I took alarm, at that time Pritchett was already killed. It was time that I should do something one way or the other. At that time even my wife did not know the relation existing between us. I only told her this when I left home, that whenever anyone, man or woman, visited her, to treat them kindly. About my connection with the other side, you may think that I found many close friendships, but it is not so. [Captain] Alexander Foreman is the only one that I made friend with, and that only on outside subjects, but nothing compared to the close friendship between the Keetoowah Society and myself. I noticed everything that happened around me, I remember it, they have not the remotest idea of what is kept secret in my heart. But I have great hopes that you will come or send for me. If you conclude to come after me, I would like to see only one first, and after we all see one another we will then have time to talk. Nothing more, this letter you must send to some one of the headmen.
JESSE RUSSELL
My Friends in the Keetowah Society:
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