Fort Watauga

Fort Watauga was an American Revolutionary War fort in what is now Carter County, Tennessee. It was built near Sycamore Shoals in present day Elizabethton, Tennessee on the Watauga River. As a protective garrison for the Watauga Association, Fort Watauga was originally built in 1775 to help defend Watauga settlers from Native American raids , in part, instigated by the British. Fort Watauga was originally named Fort Caswell after the North Carolina Governor Richard Caswell.

The settlements in the area had not been authorized by the British, and were in Native American lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. A significant faction of the Cherokee known by settlers as the Chickamauga were angered by the both encroachments and the successful closing of the Transylvania Purchase of the Cherokee lands, and a Chickamauga force led by Old Abram of Chilhowee attacked the fort in 1776. [Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=F050] The attack was repulsed, but the Cherokees besieged the fort for two weeks (July 20 to August 2, 1776) before abandoning the siege. [ [http://jrshelby.com/rfotw/genjames.htm Gen. James Robertson OF TN: History & Geneaology] ] A simultaneous attack led by Dragging Canoe against Heaton's Station also failed. [Inez Burns, "History of Blount County, Tennessee: From War Trail to Landing Strip, 1795-1955" (Nashville: Benson Print Co., 1957), 11-16.] The militia was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Carter, Fort Watauga by Capt. Charles Robertson, Lieutenant Colonel John Sevier (who later became the first Governor of Tennessee), Lieutenant Colonel Issac Shelby (who later became the first Governor of Kentucky), and others.

in North Carolina.

Prior to the American Revolutionary War very little gunpowder had been made in the United States; and, as a British Colony, most had been imported from Britain.Brown, "The Big Bang: A History of Explosives", p?] In October 1777 the Parliament of Great Britain banned the importation of gunpowder into America. Five hundred pounds of black powder was manufactured for the Overmountain Men by Mary Patton and her husband at their Gap Creek powder mill, and the Overmountain Men stored the Patton black powder on that first rainy night in a dry cave known as Shelving Rock that is located nearby the Roan Mountain State Park at present day Roan Mountain, Tennessee. [ [http://www.nps.gov/archive/ovvi/tn/travelog.htm U.S. National Park Service.] ] During January 1781, the Overmountain Men also fought the British at the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina. The Patton Mill site is located approximately one mile away from the reconstructed fort at Sycamore Shoals.

monument found on West "G" Street).

External links

* [http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=F050 Tennessee Encyclopedia]
* [http://tennessee.gov/environment/parks/SycamoreShoals/features/historic.shtml Tennessee State Parks history]
* [http://www.forttours.com/pages/fortwatauga.asp Fort Tours]
* [http://www.angelfire.com/folk/scsites/sycamore_shoals.htm Photos of Sycamore Shoals and Fort Watauga]
* [http://etd-submit.etsu.edu/etd/theses/available/etd-1221104-112846/unrestricted/ComptonB011305f.pdf Revised History of Fort Watauga]
* [http://www.elizabethton.org/about/tourism.html Elizabethton, TN events] including the muster
* [http://state.tn.us/environment/parks/SycamoreShoals/ Sycamore Shoals State Park]
* [http://www.graphicenterprises.net/Re-Enacting/Still_Photography/Sycamore_Shoals/sycamore_shoals.html Photographs from 2003 re-enactment]
* [http://www.nps.gov/kimo/ Kings Mountain National Military Park]

References