Civil War Battle Drum Creek Treaty - Independence, KS
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 37° 13.507 W 095° 40.353
15S E 262886 N 4123192
Two separate incidents occurred here in this place.
Waymark Code: WMNDRB
Location: Kansas, United States
Date Posted: 02/23/2015
Views: 2
County of Marker: Montgomery County
Location of Marker: US-160 & CR-4410, roadside turnout, 1 mile east of Independence
Marker Erected by: Kansas Historical Society AND State Highway Commission
Memorial text:
CIVIL WAR BATTLE
DRUM CREEK TREATY
In May, 1863, a mounted party of about twenty Confederates, nearly all commissioned officers, set out from Missouri to recruit troops in the West. Several miles east of here they were challenged by loyal Osage Indians. In a running fight two Confederates were killed and the others were surrounded on a gravel bar in the Verdigris River about three miles north of this marker. Ignoring a flag of surrender, the Osages scalped and cut the heads off all but two of the party. These, wounded, hid under the riverbank and escaped.
After the war when settlers began staking claims on the Osage reservation, Congress authorized removal of the tribe to present Oklahoma. In 1870 a treaty was signed in a grove on Drum creek, three miles southeast. Ironically, the cheap lands to which the Osages were removed became a great oil field and for a time they were the wealthiest people per capita in the world.