At Tahlequah in Indian Territory, the Cherokee Nation publishes its Declaration of Causes for alliance with the South

The Executive Council of the Cherokee Nation issued its long official statement giving the reasons why they had made their recent alliance with the Confederate States. These included an affinity with the South and a conviction that the North had violated theU.S.  Constitution in invading the Confederacy.  The tribes concluded that "Menaced by a great danger, they exercise the inalienable right of self-defense, and declare themselves a free people, independent of the Northern States of America, and at war with them by their own act."  (By John Osborne)