Fort Cass

Fort Cass, named for U.S. Secretary of War Lewis Cass (1782–1866), was a fort located on the site of the U.S. federal agency to the Cherokee Nation (present-day Charleston, Tennessee). Established in 1835, the fort served as the U.S. Army headquarters for Cherokee removal (also known as the Trail of Tears) from their ancestral homelands in the Southeast to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). It housed a garrison of U.S. troops who watched over the largest concentration of internment camps where Cherokee were kept during the summer of 1838 before starting the main trek west to Indian Territory, and served as one of three emigration depots where the Cherokee began their journey west, the others of which were located at Ross's Landing in Chattanooga and Gunter's Landing near Guntersville, Alabama. The fort was abandoned in 1838.