The Old Army Road

The Old Army Road. Trail of Tears. (preface) , In 1838, the United States government deported more than 16,000 Cherokee Indian people from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia, and sent them to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Thousands of Cherokees perished during the forced relocation, which has become known as the Trail of Tears. This tragic episode of our history was a result of the 1830 Indian Removal Act, an official government policy to purge native nations from the eastern United States., Here alongside Tatham Gap Road is the bed of the Old Army Road, the first wagon route into Cheoah Valley. North Carolina troops built the road in May 1838 to connect the Cheoah Valley and the future Fort Montgomery (now Robbinsville, N.C.) with the State Road at Valleytown (now Andrews) in preparation for the forced removal of Cherokee citizens. The Old Army Road followed an ancient Cherokee trail through the Long Creek Valley in Graham County, across Snowbird Mountain, and down Pile Ridge in Cherokee County., Troops at Fort Montgomery began gathering Cherokee prisoners from the surrounding Cheoah, Tallula, Connichiloe, and Buffalo Town communities on June 12, 1838. Two weeks later, the militia escorted more than 300 Cherokee detainees from Fort Montgomery along the 11-mile Army Road to Fort Delaney (now Andrews, N.C.). From there, they followed the State Road to Fort Butler (now Murphy, N.C.), then marched them to internment camps at Fort Cass (now Charleston, Tennessee), where they joined thousands of other Cherokee prisoners awaiting deportation to Oklahoma., (captions) , Intact segment of the Old Army Road. The original road closely parallels the modern Tatham Gap Road, but diverges for two miles near the top of Snowbird Mountain., These 1838 Army maps show the surveyed route between Fort Delaney (Andrews) and the planned Fort Montgomery (Robbinsville). Individual dots on the map represent Cherokee homes., In crossing Snowbird Mountain (at 3800 ft elevation) along the Old Army Road, the Cherokee prisoners climbed the highest point along the entire Trail of Tears, a rugged preamble to the 900-mile exodus that lay ahead.