Archaeologists find relics at Georgia fort

Butler's team pieced together the history of Point Peter from documents scattered from Washington's National Archives to the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah and papers kept in St. Marys.

"It took a lot of digging for us to come up with these specifics," said Connie Huddleston, who is compiling the team's findings for an exhibit in St. Marys. "I think it was just overlooked because the Battle of New Orleans was so embedded in everyone's mind as the end of the war."

Two days after Jackson's victory at New Orleans, as many as 1,500 British troops landed on Cumberland Island off the Georgia coast on Jan. 10, 1815. Though the British had signed the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, officially ending the war, word had not yet spread to commanders in the U.S.

On Jan. 13, about 600 British troops attacked Point Peter, overwhelming its 130 soldiers. The British seized St. Marys, looted jewelry and fine China from its residents, and burned the fort. It was never used again as a military outpost.

"They burned all the buildings at Point Peter, they took the cannons," Butler said. "It was described by an American officer who came there in 1818 as a poor and dreary, miserable place."

Butler and his team wrapped up its excavation in December. After cleaning and cataloging artifacts in metro Atlanta, they hope to have the St. Marys exhibit ready for the Fourth of July.

New homes will soon cover much of Point Peter. But the developer, the Land Resource Companies of Atlanta, plans to include a memorial park as a reminder of the long-forgotten fort.

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