In the summer of 1862, eighty-two Mississippians filed a petition to Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus. The petitioners urged the conscription of the Indians. In that petition, John Harrison, a white planter, was noted to have enrolled about two companies of the Indians. Harrison's Indian companies likely merged with John W. Pierce's unit. John W. Pierce and Samuel G. Spann, both of whom were white planters, organized the Mississippi Choctaw as Confederates starting in 1862.
