Fort Davis

Fort Davis, Oklahoma was established in 1861 on the south bank of the Arkansas River two and one-half miles northeast of present-day Muskogee, Oklahoma to serve as a Confederate States of America headquarters in Indian Territory. The fort's name honored President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis. First called Cantonment Davis, its purposes were to help retain the loyalty of the Indian Territory to the Confederacy and to prevent Union Army invasions into Texas from the north. When Brigadier General Albert Pike was given command of all Confederate troops in Indian Territory in the fall of 1861, he first located his headquarters at Fort Gibson, which had been abandoned by Federal troops in 1857. When Union Army forces began to make inroads into the territory from the north, he withdrew his troops from Fort Gibson to a more defensible site just across the river on the Texas Road, an important supply line, and began the construction of Fort Davis in November, 1861. When complete, the fort comprised 13 wooden buildings, including barracks, a commissary, stables, and other outbuildings covering an area of about eight acres, without a stockade. The post centered on a prehistoric mound that helped conceal troop activity and provided visibility of the surrounding area from its elevation. Troops from the Five Civilized Tribes, Texas, and Arkansas garrisoned the fo

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