- Joined
- Feb 23, 2013
- Location
- East Texas
Fort Gibson National Cemetery, Oklahoma
Until very recently, the National Cemetery at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, was the only one in the state, but the pressing need for the WWII Greatest Generation and subsequent veterans of Vietnam to the present Gulf Wars have resulted in others. The original dates to the period Oklahoma was Indian Territory and Fort Gibson was the principal military post there. Until it was expanded to accommodate more recent veterans, it remained a rather small cemetery although containing the graves of Indian Wars and Civil War soldiers who had been relocated from scattered locations all over the territory. At the center of the oldest part Officers' Circle surrounds a flagpole; the oldest graves are of two infantry lieutenants who died in accidents in the pre-Civil War period, one who drowned while attempting to ford a creek during a flood. The two graves pictured here are of two of the more notable persons buried in Officers Circle:
Major Joel H. Elliott was second-in-command of Lt. Col. George A. Custer's 7th Cavalry on the morning of Nov. 27, 1867, when it attacked the sleeping village of Cheyenne "peace chief" Black Kettle in the Battle of the Washita in what is now far western Oklahoma. During the fight Elliott led approximately twenty men away from the village chasing a band of fleeing Indians when he was hit by a counterattack that overwhelmed his small party, killing all. Custer's failure to find Elliott led to recriminations that echoed all the way to the Little Big Horn nine years later. Two weeks after the battle the badly mutilated bodies were discovered in a "last stand" circle; Elliott's was finally moved to the National Cemetery.
The grave below is even older and is that of the Indian wife of later general and president of the Republic of Texas and governor and senator of the State of Texas, Sam Houston. In the early 1830's, however, all that lay in the future for the former brief governor of Tennessee who was living with the Cherokee Indians in the vicinity of Fort Gibson; known by them alternately as The Raven or less flatteringly as Big Drunk, Sam took Talihina as his common-law-wife. She was the daughter of a local Cherokee chief and little is known about her other than that she died before Houston's coming to Texas in 1835 at the behest of his mentor, President Andrew Jackson.
Until very recently, the National Cemetery at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, was the only one in the state, but the pressing need for the WWII Greatest Generation and subsequent veterans of Vietnam to the present Gulf Wars have resulted in others. The original dates to the period Oklahoma was Indian Territory and Fort Gibson was the principal military post there. Until it was expanded to accommodate more recent veterans, it remained a rather small cemetery although containing the graves of Indian Wars and Civil War soldiers who had been relocated from scattered locations all over the territory. At the center of the oldest part Officers' Circle surrounds a flagpole; the oldest graves are of two infantry lieutenants who died in accidents in the pre-Civil War period, one who drowned while attempting to ford a creek during a flood. The two graves pictured here are of two of the more notable persons buried in Officers Circle:
Major Joel H. Elliott was second-in-command of Lt. Col. George A. Custer's 7th Cavalry on the morning of Nov. 27, 1867, when it attacked the sleeping village of Cheyenne "peace chief" Black Kettle in the Battle of the Washita in what is now far western Oklahoma. During the fight Elliott led approximately twenty men away from the village chasing a band of fleeing Indians when he was hit by a counterattack that overwhelmed his small party, killing all. Custer's failure to find Elliott led to recriminations that echoed all the way to the Little Big Horn nine years later. Two weeks after the battle the badly mutilated bodies were discovered in a "last stand" circle; Elliott's was finally moved to the National Cemetery.
The grave below is even older and is that of the Indian wife of later general and president of the Republic of Texas and governor and senator of the State of Texas, Sam Houston. In the early 1830's, however, all that lay in the future for the former brief governor of Tennessee who was living with the Cherokee Indians in the vicinity of Fort Gibson; known by them alternately as The Raven or less flatteringly as Big Drunk, Sam took Talihina as his common-law-wife. She was the daughter of a local Cherokee chief and little is known about her other than that she died before Houston's coming to Texas in 1835 at the behest of his mentor, President Andrew Jackson.
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