Albert C. Ellithorpe, the First Indian Home Guards, and the Civil War on the Trans-Mississippi FrontierThe Civil War experiences of Albert C. Ellithorpe, a Caucasian Union Army officer commanding the tri racial First Indian Home Guards, illuminate remarkable and understudied facets of campaigning west of the Mississippi River. Major Ellithorpe's unit comprised primarily of refugee Muscogee Creek and Seminole Indians and African Americans who served as interpreters fought principally in Arkansas and Indian Territory, isolated from the larger currents of