<P> By 1863, the flight of many Cherokee voters to refuge in Kansas and Texas provided the pro-Confederate Treaty Party an opportunity to elect Stand Watie as principal chief without them . Pro-Union National Council members declared the election invalid . Watie that fall raided Ross's home, Rose Cottage . The home was looted and burned . Ross lost all his belongings . Ross's daughter Jane and her husband, Andrew Nave, were living at Rose Cottage at the time . Nave was shot and killed . Only the prior intervention of Watie's wife seems to have prevented the killing of additional Ross relatives . Ross's oldest son, James, who had gone to Park Hill searching for supplies, was captured and sent to prison in the Confederacy, where he died . Ross remained in exile . However, within a week of the burning, the National Council convened and restored Ross as principal chief . </P> <P> Ross took his wife Mary and the children to Philadelphia so she could see her family . Ross returned to Washington, where he had an inconclusive meeting with President Lincoln and other supporters . When he returned for Mary in 1865, he found her gravely ill with what was diagnosed as "lung congestion" (likely tuberculosis). She could not travel, so he remained with her for more than a month . Mary died of her illness on July 20, 1865 . She was buried in her native Delaware . Ross returned to Indian Territory after her funeral . </P> <P> After the war, the two factions of the Cherokee tried to negotiate separately with the US government Southern Treaty Commission . The commissioner of Indian Affairs, Dennis N. Cooley, was persuaded to believe allegations by Stand Watie and Elias Cornelius Boudinot that Ross was a dictator who did not truly represent the Cherokee people . Even though his health was worsening, Ross left Park Hill, where he was staying with his niece, on November 9, 1865, to meet with President Andrew Johnson . Johnson instructed Cooley to reopen negotiations with the Cherokee and to meet only with the pro-Union faction, headed by John Ross . Ross died on August 1, 1866 in Washington, D.C. while still negotiating a final treaty with the federal government . However, Ross had by then persuaded Johnson to reject a particularly harsh treaty version favored by Cooley . </P> <P> Initially, Ross was buried beside his second wife Mary in Wilmington, Delaware . A few months later, the Cherokee Nation returned his remains to the Ross Cemetery at Park Hill, Indian Territory (now Cherokee County, Oklahoma) for interment . </P>

Chief little john and the trail of tears