Photo of Coosa River from Wikiwand. Exact location of Camp Scott unknown.
This article is adapted from "Cherokee Removal: Forts Along the Georgia Trail of Tears" by Sarah H. Hill.
Information about Camp Scott at Rome is incomplete and does not offer clues to the specific location of the post. Useful resources are relatively evenly divided between the letter book of Gen. Wool, the governor’s correspondence at the Georgia Department of Archives and History, and the microfilm records of the Cherokee removal housed at the National Archives Records Administration in East Point, Georgia. However, because the camp was occupied more than once, hope remains that considerably more information can be found. Georgia chapter member Doug Mabry has been researching deeds at the Floyd County courthouse with the hope of finding land transfers that include information about Camp Scott, and he remains optimistic that he can locate the site.
Sometime before 1836, Camp Scott (doubtless named for Gen. Winfield Scott, who was serving in the Seminole War in 1836) was established in Rome, Georgia, in the Etowah District of the Cherokee Nation. Several factors made Rome an important place to the military. Located at the confluence of three rivers -- the Coosa, the Etowah, and the Oostanaula -- Rome was geographically close to the Creek as well as the Cherokee Nations, and was the community leaders of the so-called Treaty Party, their property was given a measure of protection until after they departed from Georgia. John Ross was not as fortunate.
In mid-March, 1835, William N. Bishop authorized one Stephen Carter to take over the lot where Ross had made his home. Situated at the head of the Coosa River, the two-story house with four fireplaces and a veranda that spanned the length of one side of the house was valued at more than 3 thousand dollars. The lot included at least 16 additional buildings such as a kitchen, slave quarters, stables, corncribs, a blacksmith shop, and a smokehouse. By the fall of 1835, the dispossessed Ross had moved into the Cherokee Nation in Tennessee. Although his Georgia home site has been developed, a Trail of Tears marker could be placed in the vicinity to identify Ross’s role in leading a brilliant protest against removal to the west.
The homes and properties of the wealthiest men in the Cherokee Nation became available to the Georgians following the 1832 Cherokee lottery. In the Rome area, such homeowners included Ross, the two Ridges, and several members of the Vann family. Since the Ridges were
Like Spring Place, Camp Scott had early ties to the Georgia militia. In 1836, anxiety about the Creeks who had been expelled from Georgia in 1826, led the leaders of the so-called Treaty Party, their property was given a measure of protection until after they departed from Georgia. John Ross was not as fortunate.
Like Spring Place, Camp Scott had early ties to the Georgia militia. In 1836, anxiety about the Creeks who had been expelled from Georgia in 1826, led the governor to place 200 men at the head of Coosa River under the command of then-Major Charles H. Nelson of the Georgia Guard and the Highland Mounted Battalion. Nelson had previously participated (or led) the arrest and confinement of the missionaries at Spring Place. The battalion remained until late September, and then mustered out. By the fall of 1836, the post was called Camp Scott.
Floyd County citizens became appraising agents, carrying pens and notebooks from one house to another to assess properties Cherokees would be forced to abandon. Philip Hemphill and James Liddell began work in their assigned section on September 1, 1836, filling more than forty pages with notes of Cherokee possession and loss. Among prosperous households such as those of Ross and the Ridges, they examined dwelling houses, spring houses, stables, shops, kitchens, slave cabins, hen houses, fish traps, fenced lots, mills, orchards, and smoke houses. Their work took them to John Fields's inn, "a good stand at the forks of the road leading to Ross and Ridges homes" and Yonah Killer's ferry on the Oostanaula, the apple trees of Brush in the Water, Little Nelly's cook house, the garden lot of Susan Peacock, and Tarloke's loom house.52 From Vann's Valley past Head of Coosa and Running Waters, Dirt Town to Raccoon Town and Armuchee, and through Chattooga and Spicewood valleys, the agents eyed fields, farms, and homes, placing a value of eighty cents on each good peach tree and three dollars on every cleared acre of good land. They estimated most cabins at four dollars unless they had plank floors, shingle roofs, or brick chimneys that added a half dollar or more to the value. Earning four dollars a day as federal employees, Floyd County denizens moved from lot to lot assessing Cherokee economic worth.
In the adjacent section of Floyd County, Joseph Watters and Samuel Burns recorded more than one hundred additional pages of possession and loss. They repeatedly noted Cherokees had been divested of fields, homes, ferries, mills, livestock, money—everything they had built or cultivated. Dispossessions had begun soon after the extension of Georgia laws in 1830 and accelerated each year, becoming particularly widespread in 1836. It is little wonder the appraisers occasionally encountered resistance to their prying. On the Etowah River, Watters and Burns reported Chunahyahee or John Longfoot "refused to show his improvement, does not believe he will be paid for it." Nearby, Chuqualalagee, his mother, and brother "all refused to show any part of their improvements or give the number of their families." Their neighbors on either side had already been dispossessed. When the Floyd County evaluators finished their work in December, they turned over their records to James Hemphill, who delivered them to commissioner Lumpkin at New Echota.
A review of the compensation claims submitted in 1842 by Cherokees indicated that the phrase “head of Coosa” commonly referred to a residential community. Te ses ke, Nah che yah, Kah too wa lah ta, Noisy Water, Celia, and Leaf Bow, for example, all claimed property left at their homes at the head of Coosa.
Military Occupation. Stationed in Rome by the governor, Nelson and his troops fell under the command of Gen. John E. Wool in late July 1836. Wool’s confidence in Nelson was demonstrated by the orders given for Nelson to examine the militia command in Cherokee County, Georgia and Cherokee County, Alabama, to investigate the seizure of Major Ridge’s ferry in Rome, and to proceed with the capture of refugee or escaped Creeks. Before his term of service expired in the fall, Nelson was authorized to investigate the possible seizure of John Ridge’s ferry. No members of Nelson’s troops have been identified other than Lt. Elias Henderson, the quartermaster at Camp Scott.[cccxci] In September, 1836, Gen. Wool ordered Maj. M. M. Payne to Camp Scott to muster out Nelson and his regiment, and to await Capt. McClellan who was escorting Creeks to Gunter’s Landing.
Three other Rome volunteer companies were organized by the time of Cherokee removal, but none seems to have been stationed in Rome. Samuel Stewart, commanding Colonel of a regiment raised in 1837, was responsible for investigating rumors of Indian hostilities, but apparently was not otherwise involved in the removal process.
In May 1838, John T. Story (also spelled Storey) and Edward Stuart, both of Rome, reported that they had raised a regiment to assist with Cherokee removal and offered their services to Gen. Scott. Six days later, the order for the distribution of militia companies placed Story in Rome along with Capt. (Charles H.?) Campbell, but no mention is found of Stuart. [cccxcv] More than 150 men camped at Scott during its second occupation, and on June 9, Floyd ordered them to return to New Echota for mustering out.[cccxcvi]
