Fort Wool Cherokee Internment Fort

Drawing by William courtesy of www.wsharing.com

This article is adapted from "Cherokee Removal: Forts Along the Georgia Trail of Tears" by Sarah H. Hill.

Commanders.
Troops stationed at New Echota served under numerous commanders. Gen. Wool traveled frequently, often through the Cherokee Nation and to other posts, and in his absence, the command was variously assumed by Maj. M.M. Payne, Capt. Derrick, Maj. Dulaney, Col. Lindsay.When Gen. Wool left for good in July 1837, Lt. Col. Powell took command. Toward the end of February 1838, Lindsay decided to make New Echota the headquarters for removal.[xcviii] On May 24, 1838, Gen. Charles Renatus Floyd arrived from his home in Savannah to assume command of the Middle Military District with headquarters at New Echota. Floyd’s correspondence contains one reference to a visit by Gen. Winfield Scott, in early June 1838.[xcix[

Despite of the ample time allowed to prepare for the removal of Cherokees, conditions at New Echota seemed remarkably disorganized. The post lacked axes, spades, shovels, camp and garrison equipage, nails, broadaxes, mattocks, and stationary.c Quartermaster Hoskins returned to Tennessee and Col. A. Cox of the Tennessee Volunteers assumed charge of the increasingly important quartermaster department. Soon after, he was given the added responsibilities of overseeing the quartermasters and stores of the posts in the counties of Murray (Ft. Hoskins and Ft. Gilmer), Walker (Ft. Cumming), and Paulding (camp at Cedar Town). In late May 1838, he was in charge of Canton (Ft. Buffington), New Echota (Ft. Wool), Spring Place (Ft. Hoskins), Paulding and Walker. ci As late as mid- May, one company at Ft. Wool lacked camp and garrison equipage, and the quartermaster did not have adequate mess pans, wall tents, camp kettles, and cii common tents. Just five days before the roundup, Cox received word that a special order for Ft. Wool had been made for hundreds of mess pans, camp kettles, and muskets, and thousands of musket cartridges and flints, as well as kegs of rifle powder, lead, and 1,600 havre sacks.ciii It is possible and even likely that wagons of supplies and detachments of troops and prisoners passed each other on the Federal Road leading to and from New Echota.

Companies.
Just as the commanders and quartermasters at Ft. Wool changed, so too did the companies posted there. Capt. Vernon’s name drops out of the Ft. Wool records. The first two Georgia companies stationed at New Echota left to establish other posts. Capt. Buffington’s company went to Ft. Buffington in the fall of 1837, and about the same time Capt. Derrick’s company marched to Ellijay to establish Ft. Hetzel. Capt. Tuggle’s company arrived in March 1838, and was soon joined by Capt. Farriss’s company from Walker County. By late May, just prior to the roundup of Cherokee prisoners, Capts. Storey, Campbell, Stell, Ellis, Bowman, Hamilton, Daniel, Horton, Brewster, and Vincent, and their companies, were encamped at New Echota. In the 48 hours prior to the roundup, a total of 18 companies left Ft. Wool.civ The number of men sleeping in tents, building fires, digging latrines, washing mess pans, cooking provisions, and loading guns at New Echota must have ranged from 1,000 to 2,000.

Prisoners.
At each post in Georgia, the commanding officer or his subaltern was told to report the number of Indians living within a ten- mile radius. Capt. Tuggle estimated 316 Cherokees, none of whom evidenced any hostility and all of whom agreed to emigrate if Principal Chief John Ross directed them to do so.cv Early in the morning of May 26, 1838, Gen. Floyd led nine companies out to collect the Cherokees along the Coosawattee River approximately twelve miles from Ft. Wool. Leaving the baggage and provision wagons at Lowrey’s ferry, they crossed the river and divided into small detachments that fanned out to prevent escape. By evening, they returned to their post with 209 Indians in captivity.cvi

Over the next week, approximately 3,000 Cherokees were captured and sent to Tennessee camps.cvii By June 19, Gen. Floyd could report that no Indians remained in the Middle Military District except those who were too ill to travel and they were in the possession of the troops.cviii Most of the Georgia militia volunteers were discharged at New Echota by July 1, 1838, and Gen. Floyd left on July 9 to return to Savannah.cix All that remained for the removal armies in Georgia was the sale of the public property. At New Echota, the sale occurred Aug. 13.

Many detachments of Cherokee prisoners were marched to New Echota en route to Tennessee, and virtually all commanders of posts in Georgia reported to Ft. Wool to be mustered out. Companies from Rome, Kingston, Cedar Town, Sixes, Canton, and Forsyth County all took their prisoners to Ross’s Landing via headquarters at New Echota. Each post had at least one wagon and wagon master to transport baggage for the prisoners, and another wagon would have been necessary to carry the militia equipment and provisions. What is now called the Trail of Tears extended from each Cherokee home and settlement across Cherokee Georgia to the Federal Road at New Echota and on to Ross’s Landing.

On March 5, 1842, the widow of Sweet Water, named Ooloocha, submitted a claim for lost property in Georgia. “The soldiers came and took us from home,” she claimed, “they first surrounded our house and they took the mare while we were at work in the fields and they drove us out of doors and did not permit us to take anything with us not even a second change of clothes, only the clothes we had on, and they shut the doors after they turned us out. They would not permit any of us to enter the house to get any clothing but drove us off to a fort that was built at New Echota. They kept us in the fort about three days and then marched us to Ross’s Landing. And still on foot, even our little children, and they kept us about three days at Ross’s Landing and sent us off on a boat to this country.”cx

Sources:
Image source: https://wsharing.com/WSphotosNewEchota6.htm
Trail_of_Tears_Removal_Camp_Cedartown_Georgia

http://sites.rootsweb.com/~itcherok/history/forts-removal.htm

Hill, Sarah H. Cherokee Removal: Forts Along the Georgia Trail of Tears. The National Park Service and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources/Historic Preservation Division. 2011.

lxxxi Wilson Lumpkin, Removal of the Cherokees 2, 10.
lxxxii Gen. John Wool to Capt. Vernon, July 23, 1836, Box 52, File 19, Letterbook July 1836-April 1837, John Ellis Wool Papers, New York State Library, Albany.
lxxxiii Gen. John Wool to Lt. Howe, July 25, 1836, Box 52, File 19, Letterbook July 1836-April 1837, John Ellis Wool Papers, New York State Library, Albany.
lxxxiv Wilson Lumpkin, Removal of the Cherokees 2, 8.


lxxxv Wilson Lumpkin, Removal of the Cherokees 2, 40.
lxxxvi “No. 26 Coltharp and McSpadden 10 Dec. 1836,” John Ellis Wool Papers Box 25 Folders 5-6, New York State Library, Albany.
lxxxvii Coltharp and McSpadden 10 Dec. 1836,” John Ellis Wool Papers Box 25 Folders 5-6, New York State Library, Albany.
lxxxviii See for example Gen. Wool to Lumpkin and Kennedy, March 2, 1837, Box 52, File 19, Letterbook July 1836-April 1837, John Ellis Wool Papers, New York State Library, Albany.
lxxxix Thos. Lyon, Ft. Cass, to Lt. Hoskins Papers of John Ellis Wool, Box 52, File 19, Letter book July 1836-April 1837, New York State Library, Albany, 177.
xc Gen. Wool, New Echota, to Capt. Samuel N. Barnes, Nov. 19, 1836, Ibid, 194-95; Thos. Lyon, New Echota, to Capt. E. Buffington, Dec. 10, 1836, Papers of John Ellis Wool, Box 52, File 19, Letter book July 1836-April 1837, New York State Library, Albany, 213. Each company was to have “50 privates, officers, non commissioned officers, and musicians, and each non com officer, musician, and private must have a good horse, saddle, bridle, martingale and blanket and himself well clothed including an overcoat and blanket and at least one spur. Each officer will be armed with a sword and if practicable with pistols:” Papers of John Ellis Wool, Box 52, File 19, Letter book July 1836-April 1837, New York State Library, Albany, 181.
xci NA RG 93 Entry 350 box 2 vol 1 145-48.
xcii Wilson Lumpkin, Removal of the Cherokees 2, 92-3.
xciii Gen. Wool, New Echota, to Lt. Howe, Jan. 24, 1837, Box 52, File 19, Letterbook July 1836-April 1837, John Ellis Wool Papers, New York State Library, Albany, 254.
xciv Dec. 9, 1836: Thos. Lyon, New Echota, to Cap. Derrick Box 52, File 19, Letterbook July 1836-April 1837, John Ellis Wool Papers, New York State Library, Albany, 211.
xcv Gen. Wool, New Echota, to Gen. R. Jones, Feb. 18, 1838, Box 52, File 19, Letterbook July 1836- April 1837, John Ellis Wool Papers, New York State Library, Albany, 289-90.
xcviWilson Lumpkin, Removal of the Cherokees 2, 144-45.
xcvii March 1, 1838, Col. Lindsay, New Echota, to Gov. Gilmer, Georgia Dept of Archives and History, RG 1-1-5, Drawer 223, Letters and Orders of Gov.
Gilmer Relating to the Removal of Indians.
xcviii Feb. 25, 1838, A. Cox, New Echota, to Lt. A.R.Hetzel, National Archives RG 92 Entry 352 Box 3.
xcix NARA RG 393 m1475 r1, fr 0500-01.
c Feb. 25, 1838, A. Cox, New Echota, to Lt. A.R.Hetzel, National Archives RG 92 Entry 352 Box 3.
ci NA RG 92 Entry 352 Box 3.
cii NA RG 92 Entry 352 Box 3.
ciii NA RG 92 Entry 357, Box 6.
civ NA RG 92 Entry 352 Box 3.
cv NARA RG 393 m1475 r1 fr 0285.
cvi NARA RG 393 m1475 r1 fr 0403-05.
cvii GDAH Gov Gilmer Correspondence RG 1-1-5 Box 19, 335.
cviii NARA RG 393 m1475 r1 fr 0663-64.
cix NARA RG 393 m1475 r1 fr 0847-50, 0953-54.
cx Marybelle Chase, 1842 Claims Skin Bayou District, 210.