Regular reader and valued ID commenter, Outside Looking In, recently asked of me (here) which part(s) of my native State comprise the Confederate part(s).

This is a great question I have been asked, and have answered, many times over the last fifteen or so years. However, when I’m pressed for time and/or space (such as in a combox), my answer to the question is always woefully incomplete; it is very simply to procure a map of the state and, beginning at the state’s northeast terminus, to draw an imaginary line from there to the southwest terminus of same. The territory south and east of the line being the Confederate part; the territory north and west (including the panhandle) being the Unionist part of the state.

Now, there is some irregular overlap on both sides of the line in the foregoing demarcation, but the model is nevertheless a close approximation. If you are one familiar with the old pre-statehood (pre-November, 1907) maps of the Indian and Oklahoma Territories, they give an even closer approximation, distinguishing those areas of the state originally settled by Southerners, versus those parts originally settled by their Northern counterparts. On those maps in particular, the Indian Territories previously allotted to the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee and the Creek tribes, are all Confederate territories for purposes of answering the question.

There are a number of reliable ways by which one may verify this information, one of which is the 13th United States Census taken in the counties and precincts scattered about in Oklahoma in 1910. One column (column #30) on that document having been devoted explicitly to enumerating “Whether a Survivor of the Union or Confederate Army or Navy.” Survivors who served the Union being identified in the column by the initials “Ua” (Union Army) or “Un” (Union Navy); whereas survivors who served the right side of that conflict are alternatively identified as “Ca” (Confederate Army) or “Cn” (Confederate Navy) on the document. County-by-county and precinct-by-precinct examinations of these documents for the State of Oklahoma (1910 Federal Census) verify the lines of demarcation as above alluded to. Here is a sample:

Earl Township, Jefferson Co, OK, 1910

Another way of verifying the information previously given is to examine the list of “Confederate Cards” on file in the State’s Historical Society database, and to compare the locations in the state of the pensioners in that file to the lines of demarcation previously established. A typical card in the file is seen below. I chose this particular card as my example because it was issued in the name of my 2nd great-grandmother on my father’s side of the family, Elizabeth Jane Singleton Pruitt, who received a Confederate Widow’s Pension in Oklahoma from 1924-1941, as entered on the card:

1910 was also the year construction of the Confederate Home of Ardmore, OK was completed. The home was opened in 1911. The home’s location in the heart of that area of the State once commonly referred to as “Little Dixie” is further confirmation of the facts given above. I wrote about the home at this site, October 19, 2020; I later wrote about two of the home’s most active and important benefactors on March 15, 2021, here.

As a crow flies, the home of my 2nd great-grandmother above-mentioned was between five and six miles almost due west of where the Confederate Home of Ardmore still stands, although she was taken care of by family in her extreme old age, and was therefore never an inmate there. A section of Rose Hill Cemetery of the same city (Ardmore) contains the graves of upwards of four hundred (400+) of Confederates and/or their widows who were inmates of the home and who died while residing there. Here is a photo of the home at its dedication ceremonies in 1910:

Forts Washita (Durant) and Gibson, as well as Confederate supply depots such as Boggy Depot near Atoka and Bugtussle Depot near McAlester, etc., also bear witness to the facts previously given. And speaking of McAlester, for many years the town was known as the Capitol of Little Dixie, no doubt due to its central location in the heart of Little Dixie, coupled with its founding by prominent ex-Confederates and their sons. Additionally, McAlester served as the base of operations from which Commander Daniel M. Hailey published the annual Record of Confederate Veterans of the State of Oklahoma until his death:

Of course the number of Confederate graves and those of their spouses and children that grace the many cemeteries within the boundaries of Little Dixie also bear witness to the facts as given above.

There you have it, brothers and sisters, the southern and eastern parts of Oklahoma are in fact Southern and Confederate, by the Grace of God! My eternal thanks to Outside Looking In for the question as he posed it, and to our worthy editor for publishing my answer to the query. If ever I am asked the question in the future, I will simply direct the inquisitor to this article.

God Bless Little Dixie!

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