A confederate soldier, pioneer merchant, rancher, newspaper publisher, and town builder, George Washington Grayson also served for six decades as a leader of the Creek Nation. His life paralleled the most tumultuous events in Creek Indian and Oklahoma history, from the aftermath of the Trail of Tears through World War I.

As a diplomat representing the Creek people, Grayson worked to shape Indian policy. As a cultural broker, he explained its ramifications to his people. A self-described progressive who advocated English education, constitutional government, and economic development,...

Winner of the 2014 Pate Award from the Fort Worth Civil War Round Table.
When the peoples of the Indian Territory found themselves in the midst of the American Civil War, squeezed between Union Kansas and Confederate Texas and Arkansas, they had no way to escape a conflict not of their choosing--and no alternative but to suffer its consequences. "When the Wolf Came" explores how the war in the Indian Territory involved almost every resident, killed many civilians as well as soldiers, left the country stripped and devastated, and...