Oglethorpe Barracks

Last updated April 28, 2019

Oglethorpe Barracks usually refers to a 19th-century United States Army post in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia. Some sources use the title to refer to Fort James Jackson (also known as Fort Oglethorpe) or Fort Wayne (Georgia), both near Savannah. A hotel constructed in the 1880s now sits on the site of the old barracks.

The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution. As the oldest and most senior branch of the U.S. military in order of precedence, the modern U.S. Army has its roots in the Continental Army, which was formed to fight the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)—before the United States of America was established as a country. After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army. The United States Army considers itself descended from the Continental Army, and dates its institutional inception from the origin of that armed force in 1775.

Savannah, Georgia City in Georgia, United States

Savannah is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. A strategic port city in the American Revolution and during the American Civil War, Savannah is today an industrial center and an important Atlantic seaport. It is Georgia's fifth-largest city, with a 2017 estimated population of 146,444. The Savannah metropolitan area, Georgia's third-largest, had an estimated population of 389,494 in 2018.

Fort James Jackson is a restored 19th-century fort located on the Savannah River, two miles east of the city of Savannah in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is a National Historic Landmark and the oldest standing brick fort in Georgia.

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

Origin

In 1823, City of Savannah, Georgia petitioned Secretary of War John C. Calhoun to build a military barracks within the city and agreed to purchase the necessary land. The War Department agreed to the endeavor and furnished the materials to build the barracks. Troops arrived in the mid to late 1820s to construct the facility. The barracks took the name of James Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia colony and of the settlement of Savannah.

John Caldwell Calhoun was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina who served as the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He is remembered for strongly defending slavery and for advancing the concept of minority rights in politics, which he did in the context of protecting the interests of the white South when it was outnumbered by Northerners. He began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent of a strong national government and protective tariffs. In the late 1820s, his views changed radically and he became a leading proponent of states' rights, limited government, nullification, and opposition to high tariffs—he saw Northern acceptance of these policies as the only way to keep the South in the Union. His beliefs and warnings heavily influenced the South's secession from the Union in 1860–1861.

James Edward Oglethorpe was a British soldier, Member of Parliament, and philanthropist, as well as the founder of the colony of Georgia. As a social reformer, he hoped to resettle Britain's worthy poor in the New World, initially focusing on those in debtors' prisons.

Antebellum period

The post surgeon took meteorological observations probably as early as 1827. Construction of Oglethorpe Barracks finished circa 1834. The weather station began using a rain gauge in 1836.

Meteorological observations continued through December 1850; American soldiers probably left the post at the end of the year. In 1852, City of Savannah proposed to purchase the site from the War Department, and the War Department sold the parcel to the City in 1853.

Civil War

Local Confederate volunteer companies occupied Oglethorpe Barracks throughout American Civil War until Union General William Tecumseh Sherman captured the city in 1864.

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The most studied and written about episode in U.S. history, the Civil War began primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people. War broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States. The loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights to uphold slavery.

William Tecumseh Sherman US Army general, businessman, educator, and author

William Tecumseh Sherman was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–65), for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the scorched earth policies he implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States.

Reconstruction era

United States Army troops continued to occupy Fort Oglethorpe after the end of the Civil War. Meteorological observations resumed in or before September 1866.

In 1875, a brick wall 10 feet (3.0 m) high enclosed the barracks and connected the buildings that abutted city streets. The buildings on the post surrounded a courtyard that functioned as its parade ground. Army surgeons took weather observations at the barracks hospital, a frame building abutting Harris Street with an 11-foot (3.4 m)-tall brick foundation 62 feet (19 m) long and 40 feet (12 m) wide. The frame hospital building measured 19 feet (5.8 m) above its foundation and extended 10 feet (3.0 m) beyond its foundation on each end, where square brick pillars supported the building. A two-story frame guard house building lay east of the hospital along Harris Street and measured 30 feet (9.1 m) long, 30 feet (9.1 m) wide, and 30 feet (9.1 m) high. A two-story brick building abutted Harris Street west of the hospital.

During the long summer of 1876, the troops transferred to Camp Oglethorpe near Oliver, Georgia.

Oliver is a city in Screven County, Georgia, United States. The population as of the 2000 census was 253.

Decommissioning

The Army left Oglethorpe Barracks after March 1879, when meteorological observations ceased. The Signal Service office in Savannah continued the record of meteorological observations for the city at another location. The War Department later in 1879 sold the parcel to Savannah Hotel Corporation for $75,000. Congress in 1883 directed Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln to sell Oglethorpe Barracks.

Robert Todd Lincoln was an American politician, lawyer, and businessman. Lincoln was the first son of President Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln. He was born in Springfield, Illinois and graduated from Harvard College before serving on the staff of Ulysses S. Grant as a captain in the Union Army in the closing days of the American Civil War. After the war Lincoln married Mary Eunice Harlan, and they had three children together. Following completion of law school in Chicago, he built a successful law practice, and became wealthy representing corporate clients.

The new owner then tore down the barracks. Construction of Desoto Hotel on the site of the former barracks began in 1888 and completed in 1890. The hotel featured five stories, 206 rooms, a solarium, a barber shop, a drug store, and a restaurant; a swimming pool (outdoor) was added later. A fountain featuring the head of a lion with water flowing out its mouth was a feature of the hotel, which remain today. For a number of years, a local radio station WCCP, later WBYG, had studios in the hotel. Hilton now operates the hotel.

The Army closed Fort James Jackson in 1902.

The parcel on which Oglethorpe Barracks once stood now lies just northeast of Madison Square in historic old Savannah.

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Oglethorpe may refer to:

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References

Grice, Garry, 2005: History of Weather Observations, Oglethorpe Barracks, Georgia, 1827-1879. Midwestern Regional Climate Center, 15 pp.

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