In the Confederacy

In 1863, Confederate Army engineers laid out a fort here to protect Fort Gaines from Federal gunboats, commanding a full view of the river for two miles below. A large magazine of lumber and sand was built about 60 feet from the bluff, with trenches running north and south to cannon, and breastworks were thrown up along the bluff; below on the river bank was a magazine and a cannon, and of the three cannons one remains at the site. Among the officers in charge were John Seales, Dr. James Mandeville, Dr. Gaston, and Capt. John B. Johnson, a recent graduate of West Point. Because southwest Georgia was not invaded, the fort was never used. After the Battle of Olustee in north Florida, casualties were brought up the river to Fort Gaines, where available churches, stores, and other buildings became temporary hospitals, most notably Wayside Home in the old Masonic Building on the site of the present one. Nine unknown Confederate soldiers who died in temporary hospitals here are buried in New Park Cemetery, where their graves are decorated each Memorial Day. A number of Federal prisoners, overflow from the prison at Andersonville, were also brought to Fort Gaines and kept under guard in the yard of the old County Court House.

Fort Gaines, Georgia · United States