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Chickamauga Markers Make Return Outside Battlefield Land
March 8, 2004--Markers indicating significant events in the Battle of Chickamauga have been reappearing recently, and some of them are not inside the official boundaries of what is today considered "the battlefield." With the cooperation of the city of Fort Oglethorpe and the Downtown Development Authority, the plaques are being put in the locations chosen for them by the veterans of the battle, at the time of the park's construction in the late 1890s, according to Jim Szyjkowski, cultural resource manager at Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park.
"In my view we restored a little piece of history," he said. "The veterans obviously thought these tablets were important to the overall understanding of the battle. It is vital to preserve these types of cultural resources."
The monuments have been AWOL since 1935 when the construction of US Highway 27 slightly changed the route of the Old Lafayette Road, Szyjkowski's research revealed. He started studying the matter after discovering the markers seven years ago in a storage facility at the park, the Catoosa County News reported.
When the markers were originally placed, the veterans in charge pictured the park as covering more area than it does today, he said. Although a park has to have boundaries, which were set by Congress, it tends to give the false impression that stepping across a line moves one from where the battle "was" to where it "wasn't."
Fighting in the Battle of Chickamauga stretched as far as Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, Szyjkowski said, although the ones presently being replaced don't cross the Georgia state line.
Szyjkowski said the six tablets include notes on the actions of several Confederate military forces, such as Brigadier Gen. Frank C. Armstrong's Division, Brigadier Gen. John Pegram's Division, and Nathan Bedford Forrest's Cavalry of the Army of Tennessee.
One of the most interesting is a tablet titled "First Firing on Chickamauga Battlefield," Szyjkowski said. According to the tablet's inscription, around 4 a.m. on Sept. 11, 1863, Union Army Capt. John McCook was fired upon by an outpost of Forrest's Cavalry. The tablet reads: "This was the first point of contact or collision on the Chickamauga Battlefield."
This would place the beginning of the battle a week earlier than the "official" dates of Sept. 18-19, 1863, when the main clash of armies came.
Debi Wilson, chairwoman of the Downtown Development Authority, said the restoration project also tied into one of the development authority's primary goals of placing markers to identify notable sights throughout the Barnhardt Circle historic district and Fort Oglethorpe's oldest neighborhoods.
Wilson noted that the development authority is working to join forces with several other organizations in the Fort Oglethorpe area such as the Post Community Association, Historic Preservation Society, and both the City of Fort Oglethorpe and Catoosa County to promote links between the town and park visitors.
"We would like to make that area more entertaining for visitors and locals to try and create an economic resurgence there," she said. "We would like to get more monuments in place and develop a tour brochure that includes a walking or bicycle route."
National Park Service workers refurbished and repainted the markers, and Fort Oglethorpe public works department checked for underground utilities that could be damaged or right-of-way issues created before they dug holes and mounted the tablets.
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