Archaeologists find relics at Georgia fort

Final battle of War of 1812 fought at Point Peter

updated 7:53 p.m. ET May 20, 2005

SAVANNAH, Ga. - On a narrow peninsula along Georgia's marshy coast, archaeologists have uncovered relics from a forgotten piece of American history — the fort where British and U.S. troops waged the final battle of the War of 1812.

Point Peter, where cannons once pointed from the city of St. Marys toward Cumberland Island, fell to British forces days after Gen. Andrew Jackson's victory in the Battle of New Orleans on Jan. 8, 1815.

The fort was burned down by British troops and its remains had been buried until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers required an archaeological survey by developers of Cumberland Harbour, a 1,014-acre waterfront subdivision being built on the site. Only a state historical marker, placed on the site in 1953, pointed out the fort's location.

Story continues below ↓

"A few historians knew about this. But this event, which is really significant in the War of 1812, is mostly forgotten to the public," said Scott Butler, who led the excavation for the Atlanta archaeology firm Brockington and Associates. "We're trying to change that."

Six months of digging in Georgia's southeast corner turned up more than 67,000 artifacts from Point Peter's barracks, latrine and well.

Butler's team found an 1803 rifle missing only its barrel, musket balls, uniform buttons, pocket knives, bone dice used for gambling, spoons and forks as well as many shards of pottery.

Animal bones found in a buried trash pile indicate soldiers at Point Peter spiced up their diet of military rations by catching fish, rabbits, raccoons and possums.

"This is certainly nationally significant because of the events at St. Marys, but also because we know so little archaeologically about the War of 1812," said David Crass, Georgia's state archaeologist. "And it was such a different war from the American Revolution and the Civil War."

Built in 1796 at St. Marys, then the southernmost U.S. city on the eastern seaboard, Point Peter was armed with a battery of eight cannons at the tip of a 2-mile-long peninsula less than a mile wide. While defending the coast from invasion, the fort also trained American militiamen.

In the War of 1812, which actually lasted until 1815, America waged its last conflict against foreign invaders and settled any doubts about the fledgling nation's permanent independence from Great Britain.

Point Peter became a little-known footnote compared with battles at Chesapeake Bay and New Orleans, the torching of Washington and the bombardment of Baltimore that inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star Spangled Banner."

CONTINUED

1 | 2 | Next >