Fort Loudoun was a British fort located in what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. Constructed from 1756 until 1757 to help garner Cherokee support for the British at the outset of the French and Indian War, the fort was one of the first significant British outposts west of the Appalachian Mountains. The fort was designed by John William Gerard de Brahm, while its construction was supervised by Captain Raymond Demeré; the fort's garrison was commanded by Demeré's brother, Paul Demeré. It was named for the Earl of Loudoun, the commander of British forces in North America at the time.Carroll Van West, "Fort Loudoun," Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. Retrieved: 1 December 2013.
Relations between the garrison of Fort Loudoun and the local Cherokee inhabitants were initially cordial but soured in 1758 with hostilities between Cherokee fighters and Anglo-American settlers on the frontier in Virginia and South Carolina. After 16 Cherokee chiefs who were being held hostage at Fort Prince George were killed by the garrison on February 16, the Cherokee laid siege to Fort Loudoun in March 1760. The fort's garrison held out for several months, but diminishing supplies forced its surrender in August 1760. Hostile Cherokees attacked the fort's garrison at camp during its return to South Carolina, killing more than two dozen and taking most of the survivors prisoner. Many of them were ransomed.
In retaliation, James Grant led a British expedition against the Middle Towns in North Carolina and Lower Towns in South Carolina. After the Cherokee sued for peace, a peace expedition was made to the Overhill country by Henry Timberlake.
Based on the detailed descriptions of the fort's design by De Brahm and Demeré, and excavations conducted by the Works Progress Administration, the facility was reconstructed in the 1930s. Additional work was supported by the Fort Loudoun Association and the Tennessee Division of Archaeology in the 1970s and 1980s. The fort was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1965. It was moved and reconstructed above the water levels of Tellico Lake, created in 1979. It is now the focus of Fort Loudoun State Historic Park.
Background
As early as 1708, British officials had discussed building a fort in Cherokee territory.James C. Kelly, "Fort Loudoun: A British Stronghold in the Tennessee Country," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications, Vol. 50 (1978), pp. 72-92. The Province of South Carolina considered trade with the Cherokee crucial but had struggled to regulate it because of the remoteness of most Cherokee towns, which were primarily in river valleys within the Appalachian Mountains of North and South Carolina, as well as the Province of Georgia. As British traders had frequently exploited the Cherokee, many of the Cherokee leaders had developed anti-British sentiments. The British believed that a fort and garrison would enable them to regulate the trade.Carl Kuttruff, Beverly Bastian, Jenna Tedrick Kuttruff, and Stuart Strumpf, " Fort Loudoun in Tennessee: 1756-1760: History, Archaeology, Replication, Exhibits, and Interpretation ," Report of the Tennessee Wars Commission and Tennessee Division of Archaeology, Research Series No. 17 (Waldenhouse Publishers, Inc., 2010). Accessed at the Tennessee State Library and Archives website, 3 December 2013.
Support for the fort increased considerably in 1743, with the appointment of James Glen as South Carolina's governor. Glen believed such a fort could also be a stepping stone to expand British control into the interior of the North American continent, where France had some colonies along the Mississippi and Ohio tributaries in Illinois Country, and south in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. The fort had some support among British officials, as it was the height of King George's War (1744–1748), and the French were threatening to expand into the area from their base at Fort Toulouse (in modern central Alabama). While many of the Cherokee in the Carolinas were initially cold to the idea, the Overhill Cherokee (i.e., the Cherokee living on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains, in what is now Tennessee), who had been suffering attacks from French-backed rival tribes, invited South Carolina to build the fort in 1747. Support for the fort faded at the end of the war, however.
The outbreak in 1754 of the French and Indian War (the North American theater of the Seven Years' War between France and Great Britain) revived British interest in the fort. The Cherokee were still allies of the British, but French influence within the tribe had grown considerably. A faction of the tribe based at Great Tellico had switched its support to the French. The Cherokee towns were highly decentralized, and their chiefs made independent alliances.
The British Crown provided the Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie with funds to construct a fort, but Dinwiddie gave an insignificant amount to Governor Glen for this purpose and spent most of the remainder on the Braddock Expedition in 1755. After this expedition ended in disaster, Dinwiddie turned to the Cherokee for assistance in defending Virginia's frontier. The Cherokee agreed to provide 600 warriors, and in return, Virginia and South Carolina would construct a fort in the west to protect Cherokee families while the men were away fighting.
Construction
The construction of the fort was to be a joint effort by Virginia and South Carolina. The party from South Carolina was hampered by bureaucratic delays, however, and the Virginians, led by Major Andrew Lewis, reached the Cherokee "mother town" of Chota in the Little Tennessee River valley on June 28, 1756, several weeks ahead of the party from the other colony. Rather than wait, Lewis's party began work on a fort across the Little Tennessee River from Chota. This structure, known as the "Virginia Fort", was square in shape, measuring on each side, with walls consisting of earthen embankments topped by a palisade. Lewis's orders were simply to construct the fort, so after its completion in early August 1756, the Virginians returned home.
Although Governor Glen's political foes ousted him in May 1756, his successor, William Henry Lyttelton, was committed to the fort's completion. An advance party led by William Gibbs crossed the mountains and arrived at Great Hiwassee in early August. They reached Tomotley on August 6, 1756, where Gibbs stayed in the home of Cherokee Chief Attakullakulla.
The main body, consisting of 80 British regulars commanded by Captain Raymond Demeré and two provincial companies of 60 men each, departed from Fort Prince George on the South Carolina frontier on September 21, 1756. Accompanied by 60 pack horses, the group made the roughly trek in ten days, arriving in Tomotley on October 1. They were greeted by Cherokee leader Old Hop and 200 Indians. The task of moving the fort's cannons over the mountains was accomplished by a contractor named John Elliott. John Stuart, an officer who had accompanied the garrison, negotiated a purchase of corn from the Cherokee that helped the garrison avoid starvation.
John William Gerard de Brahm, a German-born engineer who had overseen the repair of the fortifications of Charleston, was tasked with designing the fort. De Brahm and Demeré argued over the fort's location and design. Demeré favored a site selected earlier that year by a scout named John Pearson, but De Brahm rejected the site as too exposed. He favored a site further upstream that offered a commanding view of the river, but Demeré disagreed, saying the site lacked suitable land for the garrison to grow crops. Demeré reported that De Brahm, incensed, took out his pistol and offered it to Demeré to shoot him in the head. The two eventually agreed on the current site of the fort, near the confluence with the Tellico River, as a compromise.
Construction of the fort began on October 5, 1756. De Brahm's design was more elaborate than a typical frontier fort. It was diamond-shaped with bastions at the corners, each of which contained three cannons. As the fort was built on a hill slope, two of the bastions were atop the hill and two were closer to the bottom, with the walls sloping downward. The bastions were named for the King George II, the Queen of Great Britain, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Cumberland. The walls were in length and surrounded by a ditch a yard deep and wide, which was planted with a honey locust hedge.
Throughout November and December 1756, Demeré and De Brahm continued to squabble over the fort's design. Demeré disliked De Brahm's original design for outer and inner palisades and thought De Brahm's plans for two smaller auxiliary fortresses near the river were too complex. The two also disagreed on whether or not to discharge the provincials. De Brahm argued that the construction work was nearly complete and the provincials no longer needed, and Demeré disagreed, stating the fort was still uninhabitable. On December 24, 1756, De Brahm, stating the fort was essentially finished, abruptly left for South Carolina, drawing a strong rebuke from Demeré. The nonplussed Cherokees referred to De Brahm as "the warrior who ran away in the night."
After De Brahm's departure, Demeré abandoned the original palisade design in favor of a single, more permanent palisade. The walls of the palisade consisted of upright logs, of which extended from the ground at a 15-degree angle. The interior of the fort covered approximately and included a powder magazine, a blacksmith shop, barracks and officers' quarters, and supply buildings. The garrison built drains, troughs for salting beef, a meathouse, and a charcoal pit for the blacksmith. The walls and bastions were completed by March 26, 1757. Demeré reported the fort completed on May 30, 1757. Governor Lyttelton named the fort after John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun, who had recently been appointed commander-in-chief of British forces in North America.
Garrison
After reporting the fort completed, Demeré requested a replacement, saying that he had fallen ill. On August 6, 1757, his brother, Paul Demeré, arrived to relieve him, accompanied by reinforcements. By November 1757, the garrison had completed a guardhouse and several storage buildings. A personal house for Demeré was completed by early 1758, and the fort's well was completed by June 1758. During the same period, the garrison planted of crops.
Life at the fort was generally routine. A changing of the guard took place several times per day. At night, five guard dogs roamed the fort's exterior. The fort's blacksmith spent much of his time mending Cherokee guns and tools. The garrison provided most of its own food through hunting, fishing and farming. Some food was acquired from the Cherokee (and some soldiers had Cherokee wives). Sixty women and children, dependents of the soldiers, lived in the fort.
In June 1757, a 36-man contingent of the garrison, led by Lieutenant James Adamson and Ensign Richard Coytmore, attacked a band of hostile Indians who were threatening the Cherokee at Great Tellico. Three of the intruders were killed, and the rest were driven out. In September 1757, Paul Demeré attended the Cherokees' Green Corn Dance and spent the subsequent months encouraging the Cherokee to launch attacks against the French and their Indian allies. He convinced a number of Cherokee, including Attakullakulla, to join the Forbes Expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1758 (Attakullakulla abandoned the expedition in disgust over Forbes' delays).