By T.S. Akers
It is well established that Albert Pike was a general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War and that he was a prominent Freemason. Whilst he is the best-known Freemason who served the Confederacy in the Indian Territory, albeit briefly, he is not the sole Freemason to do so in the Indian Brigade.
Albert Pike joined the Fraternity in Western Lodge No. 2 of Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1850. He was elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite in 1859.[1] An attorney, Pike was sent to the Indian Territory by the Confederacy in March of 1861 to negotiate treaties of alliance with the Five Tribes.[2] He had represented the Muscogee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Nations in legal claims against the federal government, so the headmen of the Five Tribes were familiar with Pike.[3] The treaties that Pike negotiated with the Five Tribes required each nation to raise regiments to serve the Confederacy.[4] By early 1862, he had been commissioned a brigadier general and given command of the newly formed Indian Brigade.[5]
One of the regiments of the Indian Brigade was the 1st Choctaw & Chickasaw Mounted Rifles. The regiment’s original colonel was Douglas H. Cooper. A veteran of the Mexican War, Cooper had served as a captain in the Fifth Mississippi Militia Regiment under Jefferson Davis. In 1853, then Secretary of War Davis appealed to President Franklin Pierce on Cooper’s behalf, lobbying for Cooper to be made agent for the Choctaw Nation. After the political separation of the Choctaws and Chickasaws into two nations, Cooper remained as agent for both with a new agency established at Fort Washita. He was kept on as Confederate agent to the Choctaws and Chickasaws in 1861.[6]
Douglas H. Cooper raised the 1st Choctaw & Chickasaw Mounted Rifles following the summer of 1861 at the request of Confederate Secretary of War LeRoy P. Walker. After Albert Pike resigned his commission in late 1862, Cooper assumed command of the Indian Brigade and was made brigadier general in 1863. He was appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs in 1865. Cooper remained an ally of the Choctaws and Chickasaws after the war, assisting in reconstruction negotiations. He died from pneumonia at Fort Washita in 1879.[7]
In no biography of Douglas H. Cooper is any mention ever made of Freemasonry. However, the proceedings of the Grand Lodge of the Indian Territory from 1877 provide a lone reference on this subject. Because the membership was so small at this time, rosters of each lodge’s membership were easily reproduced for publication. These rosters also include a listing for “Unaffiliated Masons,” that is Brethren residing within the territorial bounds of a lodge but not holding membership in that lodge. Under this heading for Caddo Lodge No. 3, there is listed one D.H. Cooper.[8] Fort Washita, roughly twenty miles from Caddo, would have certainly been within that lodge’s territorial jurisdiction. It is unknown as to when and where Cooper received the degrees of Freemasonry. He was born in Wilkinson County, Mississippi in 1815 and attended the University of Virginia before his arrival in the Indian Territory.[9]
There were numerous other men who served under Pike and Cooper who were either Freemasons during the War or became Freemasons after. The following list, comprised from notes in Charles E. Creager’s History of Freemasonry in Oklahoma and the annual proceedings of the Grand Lodge of the Indian Territory, indicates field officers who were Masons, but should not be considered exhaustive.
1st Choctaw Mounted Rifles
1st Choctaw & Chickasaw Mounted Rifles
1st Battalion Chickasaw Cavalry
1st Regiment Seminole Mounted Volunteers
1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles
