efeat of the Confederates at Camp Kansas in February,
1864, departed hurriedly for Texas where he remained for several months as a refugee. Other Confederate sympathizers fled
Horace Pratt, the President of the tribal senate functioned as governor during his absence. The governor returned from Texas
in the fall of 1864 and with the collapse of hostilities in the succeeding year, formally surrendered on July 14, 1865, the
Chickasaws being the last of the Five Tribes to surrender. The Chickasaws entered the war as an independent ally of the Confederacy
and upon its conclusion, made an independent surrender and likewise concluded their terms of peace. Governor Colbert became
active as a participant in the peace negotiations with the Government held at Ft. Smith, Arkansas, in September, 1865 and
the Civil War with its unhappy conditions for the Chickasaws was concluded.
When the Chickasaws entered the Civil War their interest in other activities was suspended but in so doing they ran orthodox
to time-honored customs of the race derived from high ancestral practice. The potentcy and security of government in the Chickasaw
Nation were postponed during hostilities. There was a complete break down in law enforcement. The tribal courts were closed;
no session of the legislature was convened during the war and for a brief period the governor became a fugitive in Texas.
The consequent lawless conditions which ensued were not improved by the presence of Creek and Cherokee refugee Indians camped
around Stonewall and at points further south along the Red River. The years of the Civil War were drab years for the Chickasaws.
On September 27, 1865, Governor Colbert in his initial communication to officials of the Federal Government reported that
"robberies and horse stealing are common occurences in the southern part of the Nation" and requested that "a company or two
of cavalry be sent under a capable officer to afford protection." In the same letter the governor also requested the removal
of the refugee Indians of other tribes from the Chickasaw Nation. The depredations of which he complained may have been committed
in some instances by the refugee Indians driven to necessity, but the arch offenders probably were negroes and renegade white
The first session of the Chickasaw legislature to convene after the beginning of the Civil War met at Tishomingo between the
second and seventh of October, 1865. Governor Colbert addressed
that body in measured terms which challenge comparison with the most erudite Indian leaders of that period;
"The annual meeting of the Legislature of the Chickasaw Nation under the providence of God being again permitted, it becomes
us as a Nation to acknowledge our dependence on His Will and lift our heads in thankfulness for the preservation of our people
amid the dangers and vicissitudes through which our country has passed.
"Since my last message to the Legislature we have experienced the effect of war in its worst form. So rapid has been the change
by the late revolution which has terminated in the submission of all the States of the United States to the authority of the
General Government and so stupenduous its results, present and prospective, that the mind becomes bewildered in contemplating
"It is consolatory however to reflect that under all the trying circumstances under which the Chickasaws have labored, they
have been true to themselves and their plighted national faith. Their course is a matter of history and we refer to the record,
confidently relying upon a favorable verdict, not only from an impartial world but from the government of the United States
itself, which is too powerful and magnanimous to take advantage of a weak people who were compelled by force of circumstances
and the current of events, in order to preserve their existence, to assume a hostile attitude towards that Government to whom,
previously our people had always looked for parental protection and guidance.
"It becomes my duty to inform your honorable body that by special request of the authorities of the United States, the commi