On July 3, Colonel Benjamin Weer’s 200 to 300 Union troops surprised Colonel James J. Clarkson’s Confederate Missourians at Locust Grove, Indian Territory. Clarkson and 110 Confederates were captured, 100 were killed, and a large amount of ammunition and provisions were seized. Some Confederate Indian soldiers, especially Cherokees, deserted and enlisted in Colonel Ritchie’s 2d Kansas Indian Home Guards.

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The expeditionary force pressed on, launching a successful two-pronged assault against Confederates on July 16 near Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, in eastern Indian Territory, and capturing Tahlequah itself. Next the force seized Fort Gibson, to the southeast, on July 18. There, according to the July 15 Leavenworth Daily Conservative, Ritchie, with 300 of his own 2d Indian Regiment and one company of the 6th Kansas Cavalry had a brush with Cherokee Confederate Colonel Stand Watie’s men. Ritchie spoke of his Union Indian troops in glowing terms, stating that they “make good soldiers, easily controlled, and they conduct and deport themselves well generally….”

Taking possession of Fort Gibson had been the prime objective of the First Expedition. After this initial success, however, the expedition’s fortunes soon changed. Weakened by internal bickering and poor leadership, exhausted by the summer heat, and running low on salt and other supplies, the Federal invasion ground to a halt. Colonel Weer was removed from command, and Colonel R.W. Furnas was left in charge of the Indian Brigade.

Furnas sent out 300 to 400 troops to scout the area between Tahlequah, Fort Gibson, and Parkhill. On July 27, at nearby Bayou Manard, the troops encountered an equal force of Watie’s Choctaw-Cherokee Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas F. Taylor. Taylor, Captain Hicks, and two Choctaw captains were killed. Total Confederate losses were estimated at 36 dead and more than 50 wounded.

This battle was probably the one Falleaf described when he wrote to Washington, D.C., attempting to collect pay owed to him and his men for their service. He wrote, “We saw the enemy, the Chocktaw Indians, the halfbreed, we play Ball with them, 50 we laid on the ground, 60 we took prisoners, even the Chocktaw General, him I took myself alone; he was a big secesh; 100 union men he had killed. I brought him to the [Unionist] Cherokees [and] they killed him; they gave him no time to live.”

After the Fort Gibson expedition, the 2d Indian Home Guard remained attached to the Department of Kansas and participated in Blunt’s campaigns in Missouri and Arkansas. During a September 20 engagement at Shirley’s Ford on Missouri’s Spring River, Ritchie was, for the first time, unable to control his men. For some reason, the men of the 2d Home Guard began fighting with other Union troops. Ritchie blamed the confusion on a stampede of 1,500 women and children who had crowded into camp for protection. Nevertheless, he lost his command over the incident.

Before his dismissal, Ritchie gave Falleaf a medical furlough. When Falleaf left for Kansas, his men followed him. To these Delawares, war party leadership took precedence over any and all Union military regulations. They needed their “captain” to interpret orders and direct them in battle.

After returning home, Falleaf’s Delawares left to hunt buffalo. Soon, the men of Falleaf’s company were classified as deserters. For more than a year, Falleaf, aided by the Indian agent in Kansas, attempted to straighten out the mess. Eventually, General Blunt accepted Falleaf back as a scout, and the Indian leader served in campaigns against the Cheyennes and Arapahos. Some of his men were allowed to join the 6th and 14th Kansas Cavalry, and others became scouts for the 15th Kansas.

From 1863 on, Falleaf had to contend less with the army and more with tribal matters at home in Kansas. Life for the Delawares in Kansas had deteriorated badly during the war. They were harassed by bushwhackers, who, according to oral history, “robbed them and then shoveled live coals from the fireplaces onto their mattresses, setting fire to their cabins.”

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