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The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

CAMP PIKE.

Named to honor Confederate Brig. Gen. Albert Pike, Camp Pike was a Confederate Civil War campsite. Located in Haskell County, the former Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, Camp Pike was situated south and east of the Canadian River near a spring and covered roughly one square mile of flat, forested terrain. Presently the site is found north of U.S. Highway 9, approximately one mile northeast of Whitefield. Camp Pike was used temporarily and had no buildings or structures.

A fight occurred near Camp Pike on August 28, 1863, when the rear guard of Brig. Gen. William L. Cabell's eastward-bound Confederate army engaged Union scouts from Col. William F. Cloud's detachment. Cabell's force of about two thousand soldiers had bivouacked at Camp Pike following the Honey Springs engagement of July 17, 1863. The Camp Pike skirmish was the first of several encounters between Cabell's and Cloud's forces, with the latter representing the forward elements of Maj. Gen. James G. Blunt's command.

Some twelve hundred Confederate troops led by Brig. Gens. Stand Watie and Richard M. Gano rendezvoused at Camp Pike in September 1864. Watie's First Indian Cavalry Brigade combined with Gano's Texas Brigade and moved north of the Canadian River on September 14. Their joint operation resulted in the Southern victory at Cabin Creek on September 19, 1864.

Jon D. May

Bibliography

Wilfred Knight, Red Fox: Stand Watie and the Confederate Indian Nations During the Civil War Years in Indian Territory (Glendale, Calif.: A. H. Clark, 1988).

Muriel H. Wright and LeRoy H. Fischer, "Civil War Sites in Oklahoma," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 44 (Summer 1966).

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Citation

The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for articles:
Jon D. May, “Camp Pike,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=CA028.

Published January 15, 2010

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