Revolutionary War Battlefield Found

WILKES CO., GEORGIA—Carr’s Fort has been discovered by a team of archaeologists after a month-long search of more than 2,700 wooded acres. “The search for Carr’s Fort was like looking for a needle in a haystack, only harder. We had no map and few descriptions of the fort, so its location was entirely unknown,” said Daniel Elliott of the LAMAR Institute. Captain Robert Carr of the Georgia Patriot militia and more than 100 soldiers were stationed at his frontier home when they were overtaken by Loyalist soldiers in 1779. Additional Patriot forces laid siege to the fort in an attempt to take it back, but they were forced to retreat. Carr was later killed by a raiding party of Loyalist Creek Indians. Archaeologists used metal detectors to find evidence of the battle, including musket balls, musket parts, and eighteenth-century iron and brass artifacts.