Casualties

        The casualties at Fort Tyler tallied 7 Federals killed and 29 wounded. The Confederates had 19 killed, 28 wounded, and 218 missing.¹  This could be comparable to the varying reports of casualties occurring that night in Columbus, ranging from five to 25 Union soldiers killed and nine known Confederate dead.² (according to James Pickett Jones' book "Yankee Blitzkrieg.") In West Point, the Federals destroyed the bridges, 19 locomotives and 340 rail cars.³ In Columbus, the damage was much more widespread, though attributed partly to looting by locals.

        It was all pointless. The Union commander later would write that had he known of events in Virginia, he would never have allowed such wanton destruction.

        Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered in Virginia seven days earlier on Palm Sunday, April 9, giving the Battle of West Point the distinction of being the last Confederate Fort to fall to the Union in the War Between the States.

        Almost a century later, in November 1991, an archaeological excavation found the fort's southwest corner and established the line of its moat and parapet. The Fort Tyler Association began reconstruction in 1996 and held a dedication at the replica April 18, 1998.  

 

Sources:

Randall Allen, "A Most Voluntary Gathering,"  The Battle of West Point, Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society, 1997, pp. 23-34