|
William Adams was born about 1795. His middle initial of F comes from the 1860 census where he is listed and W. Adams Sr. with a 20-year-old son of William F. The 1860 and 1870 census lists William’s birthplace as Virginia. William died September 14, 1873 in Preston, Webster County, Georgia.
William was first married to Jane Cartledge on December 20, 1828 in Columbia County, Georgia (probably). Jane is said to be born April 16, 1793 in Columbia County and said to have died there April 25, 1836.
William married Hetty Andrews on November 23, 1836 in Columbia County, Georgia. Hester “Hetty” would have died between 6/30/1860 (Date of 1860 census) and 6/3/1863 when he married Louisa Moore. According to William’s War papers, he married Louisa A. R. Moore on June 6, 1863 in Webster County, Georgia. Louisa died January 6, 1915 in Brownwood, Georgia.
William’s obit speaks of his service in the War of 1812. Records show he enlisted November 1, 1813 when he would have been about 17-18 years old and discharged September 16, 1815. He was a Sargent in "The Savannah Blues" under Captain Edward F. Tatnall’s Company, 43 U.S. Infantry. His obit also states he was in the battle at Point Peter and was stationed there till the close of the war. A MSNBC/Associated Press article on Point Peter in 2005 said:
|
|
SAVANNAH, Ga. — On a narrow peninsula along Georgia's marshy coast, archaeologists have uncovered relics from a forgotten piece of American history — the fort where British and U.S. troops waged the final battle of the War of 1812.
Point Peter, where cannons once pointed from the city of St. Marys toward Cumberland Island, fell to British forces days after Gen. Andrew Jackson's victory in the Battle of New Orleans on Jan. 8, 1815.
The fort was burned down by British troops and its remains had been buried until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers required an archaeological survey by developers of Cumberland Harbour, a 1,014-acre waterfront subdivision being built on the site. Only a state historical marker, placed on the site in 1953, pointed out the fort's location.
"A few historians knew about this. But this event, which is really significant in the War of 1812, is mostly forgotten to the public," said Scott Butler, who led the excavation for the Atlanta archaeology firm Brockington and Associates. "We're trying to change that."
Six months of digging in Georgia's southeast corner turned up more than 67,000 artifacts from Point Peter's barracks, latrine and well.
Butler's team found an 1803 rifle missing only its barrel, musket balls, uniform buttons, pocket knives, bone dice used for gambling, spoons and forks as well as many shards of pottery.
Animal bones found in a buried trash pile indicate soldiers at Point Peter spiced up their diet of military rations by catching fish, rabbits, raccoons and possums.
"This is certainly nationally significant because of the events at St. Marys, but also because we know so little archaeologically about the War of 1812," said David Crass, Georgia's state archaeologist. "And it was such a different war from the American Revolution and the Civil War."
Built in 1796 at St. Marys, then the southernmost U.S. city on the eastern seaboard, Point Peter was armed with a battery of eight cannons at the tip of a 2-mile-long peninsula less than a mile wide. While defending the coast from invasion, the fort also trained American militiamen.
In the War of 1812, which actually lasted until 1815, America waged its last conflict against foreign invaders and settled any doubts about the fledgling nation's permanent independence from Great Britain.
Point Peter became a little-known footnote compared with battles at Chesapeake Bay and New Orleans, the torching of Washington and the bombardment of Baltimore that inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star Spangled Banner."
Butler's team pieced together the history of Point Peter from documents scattered from Washington's National Archives to the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah and papers kept in St. Marys.
"It took a lot of digging for us to come up with these specifics," said Connie Huddleston, who is compiling the team's findings for an exhibit in St. Marys. "I think it was just overlooked because the Battle of New Orleans was so embedded in everyone's mind as the end of the war."
Two days after Jackson's victory at New Orleans, as many as 1,500 British troops landed on Cumberland Island off the Georgia coast on Jan. 10, 1815. Though the British had signed the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, officially ending the war, word had not yet spread to commanders in the U.S.
On Jan. 13, about 600 British troops attacked Point Peter, overwhelming its 130 soldiers. The British seized St. Marys, looted jewelry and fine China from its residents, and burned the fort. It was never used again as a military outpost.
"They burned all the buildings at Point Peter, they took the cannons," Butler said. "It was described by an American officer who came there in 1818 as a poor and dreary, miserable place."
|
