The Beginning:
How Fort Oglethorpe Came To Be
The history of Fort Oglethorpe begins with a few questions:
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Why, in 1904, did the US Army build a cavalry post 9 miles south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in the middle of nowhere among the small farms and forests of Northwest Georgia?
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Why is it attached to the northern border of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park?
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Was it built as a Civil War fort?
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​Believe it or not, Fort Oglethorpe has nothing to do with the Civil War. It was built between 1902-1904, forty years after the Civil War. And yet, it has everything to do with the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park and the City of Chattanooga, and especially the Spanish-American War (1898).
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This website is the story of Fort Oglethorpe...
The Battle of Chickamauga
On September 18-20, 1863, the Union and Confederate armies collided with one another in the sleepy farm fields and silent forests of north Georgia, ten miles south of Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was a three-day desperate struggle for control of the Lafayette Road, the artery that kept the Union army supplied from Chattanooga. The Confederacy won the battle but, truly, both sides experienced horrific losses. Thirty-three thousand killed, wounded, or missing- second only in the entire Civil War to the losses at Gettysburg. The men on both sides agreed that they had witnessed some of the most heroic fighting and brilliant strategic maneuvers of any battle they had ever seen.
The author knows of no photographs of this battle either during or in the immediate aftermath, but Alfred Waud (1828-1891), reporter and illustrator, was embedded with the Union Army and an eyewitness to the battle. He made several pencil sketches recording what he saw first-hand (click pictures to enlarge). Click here to access more drawings at the Library of Congress from Alfred Waud at the Battle of Chickamauga.
Establishment of the Park
In the years that followed the war, the sentiment of veterans from both armies was that a park should be created to memorialize the epic battle. Their sentiments were corralled by two Union generals, Henry V. Boynton and Ferdinand Van Der Veer. On August 19, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed the bill Creating the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. Unfortunately General Van Deveer did not live long enough to see the events that would lead to the creation of Fort Oglethorpe.
Ferdinand Van Derveer,
Brigadier General, US Army
(1823-1892)
Credit: Find-A-grave Website
Henry V. Boyton,
Brigadier General (brevet), US Army, (1835-1905)
Credit: Ohio Department of Veterans Website
(26 Stat. 333)
Photo credit: Tom Bodkin
"...historical and professional military study..."
This is important for the future of Fort Oglethorpe (which still was not a thing in the 1890s) because of the "professional military study," part of the Park's mission. On May 15, 1896, Congress passed additional legislation allowing the Army and National Guards (state militia) to use National Military Parks for training.
The Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park would be the first National Military Park in the country, 5 years before Gettysburg was deemed such. The detail that went into the tablets, markers, and monuments, their locations, and the information contained thereon was as true to the official records and eyewitness accounts of veterans as could be. Most all the monuments and markers we see in the battlefield today were in place by the late 1890s. The Park became a classroom that is still used by the Army today to illustrate battle tactics to officers. ​
(29 Stat. 120-121)
Spanish-American War
Click on the headline to read the entire page 1
On April 24, 1898, Spain declared war on America. The following day, April 25, America responded by declaring war on Spain. The problem with this was that America had a very small army of about 28,000 men, while Spain had amassed more than 200,000 troops on Cuba in their fight against the rebellion. No doubt American strategists asked the question, where are we going to train up an army quickly!?
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Because of the legislation passed two years earlier, Congress looked to the Chickamauga Park, more than 5,000 acres of field and forest whose purpose was military study. Gen. Boynton was instrumental in urging Congress to use the battlefield. The first unit to arrive was the African-American 25th Infantry Regiment from Missoula, MT, on April 15, 1898. This was the beginning of what was called "Camp Thomas" in the Chickamauga Battlefield.
Camp Thomas and Typhoid Fever
Sternberg Hospital setup at the base of Wilder's Tower in the Chickamauga Park to treat the sick and dying. Notice that the tower's construction is not yet complete. Also note the buildings in the background are substantial wooden structures with canvas tents in the foreground.
Throughout that summer of 1898, between 60,000 and 70,000 soldiers encamped and trained at Camp Thomas. Units dug latrine pits that were not only insufficient to handle the number of men, but they were also in some cases located within 150 feet of mess tents. The sanitary conditions grew into a nightmare (see V.J. Cirillo, 2000). Thousands of troops became sick with typhoid fever (a bacterial infection of the small colon that causes ulcers that can rupture, causing internal bleeding, brain swelling, and death in some). More than 800 men died (more than any other similar camps across the country). More men died of disease in the Spanish-American War than died as a result of combat. In spite of this national travesty, the Spanish-American War did more to advance sanitary practices in the military than ever before (see the University of Viginia Historical Collections at the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library). ​
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The definitive work to date about Camp Thomas comes from the manuscript of long-time local resident, scholar, historian, and archaeologist E. Raymand Evans- Camp Thomas: Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park in the Spanish-American War, 2008. This author is fortunate to have had several opportunities to sit and talk with Mr. Evans (1939-2016). Thanks to the former City Manager of Chickamauga, GA, John Culpepper, for the attached copy of Evans' work.
Birth of the Relationship with Chattanooga
The bigger and more important consequence of Camp Thomas was the relationship that developed between the Army's presence in the Chickamauga Park and merchants at all levels of wholesale and retail in Chattanooga. The Army has enormous material needs, such as horse feed and tack, soldier's daily rations, leather, canvas, storage boxes, lumber, stoves, fencing, piping, and the list goes on. Secondly, soldiers get paid and want to spend their money in the big city. Merchants of all sizes benefitted from the establishment of Camp Thomas. The Spanish-American War had been a boon to the Chattanooga economy and locals wanted the Army to stay.
All three of these advertisements were in the Sunday, July 10, 1898, Chattanooga Daily Times, which was when 65,000 troops were encamped in the Battlefield Park.
Between the Spanish-American War in 1898 and the groundbreaking of the new cavalry post in December of 1902, lay four years of intense lobbying led by the tireless General H.V. Boynton. Working in conjunction with Boynton's efforts were the business elite, local politicians, Tennessee governor, and Southeast Tennessee's representative to Congress. It is ironic that, despite the post being situated entirely in Georgia, the people who were working the hardest to convince the Army to establish a permanent post were Tennesseans, which becomes clear when viewed from an economic relationship with Chattanooga.
