He marched endlessly across parched, hot land, through mud and slash-ing rain, always hungry, always dirty and dog-tired.Īnd, Jeff, plain-spoken and honest, made friends and enemies. He saw the green fields of Kansas and Okla-homa laid waste by Watie's raiding parties, homes gutted, precious corn deliberately uprooted. He learned how it felt never to have enough to eat, to forage for his food or starve. Amid the roar of cannon and the swish of flying grape, Jeff learned what it meant to fight in battle. He was probably the only soldier in the West to see the Civil War from both sides and live to tell about it. Jeff came to know the Watie men only too well. A hero to the rebel, a devil to the Union man, Stand Watie led the Cherokee Indian Na-tion fearlessly and successfully on savage raids behind the Union lines. In the Indian country south of Kansas there was dread in the air and the name, Stand Watie, was on every tongue. It was 1861 in Linn County, Kansas, and Jeff was elated at the prospect of fighting for the North at last. Jeff Bussey walked briskly up the rutted wagon road toward Fort Leavenworth on his way to join the Union volunteers.
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