Places: Fort Moultrie and Osceola Gravesite

Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island in South Carolina wasn't on the frontier, but it did play a part during the American Revolution (1775-1783), the Second Seminole War (1835-1842) and the Civil War (1861-1865).  Today it safeguards a tragic reminder of the Indian Removal of the 1830's, the grave of a man who had never wanted to leave his homeland in the first place and would've preferred to be buried anywhere else but there.

Fort Moultrie is one of several fortifications in Charleston Harbor, forming part of the coastal defense of the eastern United States.  The first fort, built in 1776, was made of palmetto logs and named for Col. William Moultrie.  More on him later, as he would also figure in the frontier wars with the Native Americans.  The British bombarded the fort and fortunately enough for Moultrie and his men, the soft palmetto logs absorbed rather than broke under the cannon balls lobbed at them from British warships in the harbor.  The British had to take the fort and the rest of Charleston by siege in 1780.  They gave it up in the wake of Yorktown.  The fort was strengthened in the years after the war, but destroyed in a hurricane in 1802.  It would be rebuilt in the typical star-fort formation in 1808-09 and it was to this fort in December, 1836, that the Seminole leaders captured during the First Seminole War were brought.

By the time he arrived at Fort Moultrie, Osceola was a celebrity.  His exploits had been the subject of newspaper articles.  Painters flocked to paint his portrait even as it was obvious to those around him that the young war leader was dying of malaria complicated by quinsy.  Perhaps realizing that his behavior would reflect on his people and how they were perceived and treated, Osceola mustered his strength and patience, arrayed himself in his finest regalia and sat for the portraits, developing a friendship of sorts with the post doctor, Frederick Weedon, and one of the portraitists, George Catlin.  Contrary to popular myth, he was not kept in a dungeon, but in a room adjoining the fort's infirmary.  He was allowed liberty of the walls during the day, meaning that he could walk around and wasn't shackled or mistreated.  He was allowed to eat with the officers at their table and offered the same food, though Catlin noticed that Osceola refused liquor or wine as well as tobacco when offered to him. 

Catlin left Sullivan's Island on January 26, 1830, and four days later, Osceola died.  The body remained in the infirmary while preparations were made for a funeral.  A grave was dug outside the gates of the fort and the body, minus its head, was carried there by soldiers and buried.  A gun salute was fired over the grave.  Osceola's family, colleagues and the garrison of the fort watched the proceedings from the battlements a few yards away.  An admirer of Osceola's provided a headstone that included his name, dates and a simple epitaph "warrior and patriot".  Within weeks, his family and the other Seminole leaders would be on their way to Oklahoma, officers and men would come and go, and in 1861, pro-Confederate forces took over Fort Moultrie, using its armament to batter Fort Sumter in the opening action of the Civil War. 

Several ironclad battles took place in and around Charleston Harbor, which was heavily mined by the Confederates.  The USS Patapsco struck a mine and blew up, killing all of her crew.  Five bodies that washed ashore were given burial at Fort Moultrie, adjacent to Osceola's grave.  A while obelisk marks the Patapsco monument.  Brickwork and wrought-iron fencing surrounds both graves.  Fort Moultrie was decommissioned in 1960 and turned over to the National Park Service.  By that time, most of the internal buildings had been dismantled, including any sign of the infirmary room where Osceola would have spent his final days.  Despite the fact that Osceola was buried without any regalia and thus nothing of value, rumors persisted of treasures buried with him and led to frequent attempts to vandalize the grave or claim that his bones had been located. 

The grave was vandalized in 1967 and damaged in a rainstorm, forcing the Park Service to excavate the grave site.  According to Patricia Wickman, Osceola biographer, the designated site with its brick overlay and wrought iron fence was just shy of the actual burial place, meaning that the grave robbers were unable to penetrate the coffin, which had been encased in cement and collapsed across the corpse over the years.  The rumors that Osceola had been buried sans his head were proved true and a smaller coffin lay beside his, carrying the barely remaining bones of a tiny child.  Whether it was his son or daughter who would've died at Fort Moultrie around the same time will never be known for sure.  The grave was closed over and a replacement stone put over it.  The original tombstone is in the visitor's center at the Fort.