During the ACW the Confederacy was able to benefit from large nos. of native American soldiers of pro-Southern pro-slavery sections of the 5 Civilised Tribes in the Indian Territory, who played a very active part in the western campaigns from the Battle of Wilson's Creek (1861) onwards, esp with such prominent battles as Pea Ridge, Arkansas (1862), and the Confederacy also benfeitted from Brig-Gen Stand Watie of the Cherokee, the highest-ranking native American officer in the Confederate Army, and IIRC the last to surrender his command in the west a few mths after Appomattox.
The Union also had it share of American Indian soldiers and leaders, such as Gen Samuel Ely Parker of the Seneca in upstate NY, a trained lawyer and engineer who became Grant's chief-of-staff by the war's end,pro-Union Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw Home Guardsmen who served in the western theatre protecting Kansas and Missouri, and Chippewa soldiers serving in Wisconsin regts during Sherman's March thru Georgia. However, AFAIK the Union didn't make on the whole as extensive use of Indians as did the CSA, in such ways as IIRC Parker proposing the formation of several NY volunteer regts comprising exclusively Iroquois, which was rejected by Congress. Of course, Union troops also had their hands full quelling insurrections by hostile Indians in the West, such as during the 1862-63 Sioux uprising in Minnesota, campaigns in the southwest against the Apaches, and against the Cheyenne in Colorado (resulting in the tragic and uncessary Sand Creek massacre in 1864). How could the Union have made more extensive use of native Americans during the CW, and what might've been the result ? Could the North perhaps have somehow co-opted these rebellious tribes into the Union's war effort instead of having much-needed Western state volunteer regts to fight them, in addition to ATL allowing the recruitment of Iroquois regts from upstate NY as proposed by Parker ? What about if Northern gens decided to entice other Indian tribes who had grievances against the CSA, such as the Comanches in Texas, Lumbees in North Carolina, or black Seminoles in Florida, to conduct a guerilla war against the South ?
The Union also had it share of American Indian soldiers and leaders, such as Gen Samuel Ely Parker of the Seneca in upstate NY, a trained lawyer and engineer who became Grant's chief-of-staff by the war's end,pro-Union Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw Home Guardsmen who served in the western theatre protecting Kansas and Missouri, and Chippewa soldiers serving in Wisconsin regts during Sherman's March thru Georgia. However, AFAIK the Union didn't make on the whole as extensive use of Indians as did the CSA, in such ways as IIRC Parker proposing the formation of several NY volunteer regts comprising exclusively Iroquois, which was rejected by Congress. Of course, Union troops also had their hands full quelling insurrections by hostile Indians in the West, such as during the 1862-63 Sioux uprising in Minnesota, campaigns in the southwest against the Apaches, and against the Cheyenne in Colorado (resulting in the tragic and uncessary Sand Creek massacre in 1864). How could the Union have made more extensive use of native Americans during the CW, and what might've been the result ? Could the North perhaps have somehow co-opted these rebellious tribes into the Union's war effort instead of having much-needed Western state volunteer regts to fight them, in addition to ATL allowing the recruitment of Iroquois regts from upstate NY as proposed by Parker ? What about if Northern gens decided to entice other Indian tribes who had grievances against the CSA, such as the Comanches in Texas, Lumbees in North Carolina, or black Seminoles in Florida, to conduct a guerilla war against the South ?