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Article: Indians in the Civil War
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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INDIANS IN THE CIVIL WAR
INDIANS IN THE CIVIL WAR.
American Indians who fought in the Civil War did so only reluctantly and almost all of them with the hope that federal officials would reward them by protecting them in their homelands. This was certainly true of the Ojibwes and Ottawas from Michigan and the Senecas from New York, who, at the outbreak of the war, saw their small land bases continually reduced. Others, like the Pequots and Mohegans from Connecticut, may have joined the war effort for purely economic reasons, hoping that service in the war would lead them out of poverty.
In the West, the war had unintended tragic consequences. Because regular army troops were called east ...