In reference to the article last week, permit me to make the distinction between “Fort” Lawton and “Camp” Lawton. The Fort consists of the earthworks where field artillery was placed (the major one is to the right as you enter the Park with a smaller one on the next hill nearest US Highway 25.) Our local SCV members have been working those sites for over a year now in conjunction with the Park. Another work is located across the highway, but is in a much less positive state of preservation due to years of erosion and neglect. Still another was lost to the construction of the highway years ago. The “Camp” was the actual prison stockade enclosure where the Union soldiers were held.

In the book Images from the Storm, Robert Knox Sneden’s drawings of Camp Lawton’s interior show five brick ovens constructed to bake bread for the prisoners. Each oven also held two cooking cauldrons. Built late in the Camp’s existence, they were never used for their intended purpose. They were used mainly as shelter from the elements; it was an unusually cold November 1864, with snow and ice at least twice. Those ovens were on the opposite side of the stream, to the left of the Aquarium site (and on the side where the fencing has gone up.) After the War, those ovens were probably disassembled for the brick to rebuild homes or even water wells. Above ground what could be salvaged was used…but the foundations of the ovens most likely still exist to this day.

Speculating as one is wont to do, and since I’ve not heard of anyone else speak of the possibility, the most plausible guess I have is that one or more of these foundations are part of the discovery at Magnolia Springs. That in itself is worthy of great archeological interest; but if indeed a second burial trench has been located, as it has been bandied about, then perhaps justification for the resurrection of Lawton National Cemetery (1866-68) could be warranted.

Whatever it is, it promises to “put Millen on the map.” Indeed, exciting times for our community. It would be ironic that our mutual past would help to assure us a future; and most coincidentally at this time, the beginning of the 150th anniversary (our sesquicentennial) of the Late Unpleasantness.

Darryl Drake

Past Commander, Buckhead-Fort Lawton #2102

Sons of Confederate

Veterans