The first "battlefield" I recall was when I was about 10 years old. We were driving to St. George Island, Florida, for vacation and dad decided to take a detour. This was long before GPS or cell phones of course. As were driving through Apalachicola (the panhandle of Florida) we enter an area still known as Tate's Hell State Park. The name tells you all you need to know about the kind of terrain in that area - swamps, pine trees, gators, panthers, and who knows what else. So we are on a two-land road for a good hour seeing nobody when dad pulls off the paved road onto a red dirt road. Those of us in the south and old enough recall those very well. We follow this dirt road through a labyrinth of wilderness until we turn off that onto a rocky road near the Apalachicola River. Then we follow that until we reach a picnic table and a Confederate flag in the absolute middle of nowhere. No signage or anything, just a picnic table.
Welcome to Fort Gadsden!
The fort itself is nothing to speak of and there is no reason to know about it in Civil War history. It was briefly occupied until malaria forced the Confederates to abandon it. The fort has a more interesting pre-Civil War history but that's another story altogether.
This was all back in the late 80s or early 90s. I visited the site in 2018 but it was closed (as it usually is). But I drove the dirt roads anyway to get there because I knew there were no rangers or staff there to stop me. I was also the only human for 20 square miles so why not? The final stretch of road to the fort was chained off but I wasn't too far away I reckoned. I had zero signal on my cell phone by this point. I decided to just walk the few hundred yards to the fort... mistake. As soon as I opened my car door I was attacked by the largest and angriest mosquitos I've ever ran across. I swatted at them and tried to keep going but it was soon evident they were going to win this battle. Like the Confederates of old, I surrendered the fort to the insects and got the heck out of there! Note to self, if in a forest with the word "Hell" in the title, I should pay heed.
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