Deep Creek
Bryson City, Swain County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
Deep Creek. Site of Union attack on Thomas's Legion, Feb. 2, 1864. Reduced Cherokee support for Confederacy. One mile northeast.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
In the winter of 1864, the mountains of far western North Carolina were a contested frontier of the Civil War. Near Deep Creek, Union forces struck Thomas's Legion — a Confederate command that famously included Cherokee soldiers from the nearby Qualla Boundary. The blow here helped erode Cherokee support for the Confederate cause in the southern Appalachians.
Why it matters
The fight is a reminder that the Civil War reached into the remote Smokies and drew in the Eastern Band of Cherokee, whose divided loyalties are a little-told chapter of the conflict.
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Related people
- · William Holland Thomas
Related events
- · Union attack on Thomas's Legion, 1864
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bartow County
Cartersville, GA
Carved out of Cherokee lands in 1832, this northwest Georgia county was first called Cass before the Civil War swept away its old name. In December 1861, with the Confederacy newly formed, Georgia rechristened it for Francis S. Bartow, a Savannah lawyer and politician who had marched off to Virginia at the head of his brigade. Bartow was killed that July at the First Battle of Manassas, one of the earliest prominent Confederate officers to die in the war, and his reported last words—urging his men never to give up—made him a martyr to the Southern cause.
Tsali
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Kituwah, Cherokee Mother Town
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Qualla Boundary
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The Qualla Boundary is the homeland of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, descendants of those who remained in the mountains after the removals of the 1830s. This marker notes Soco Gap as the starting point of the 1876 U.S. survey of the reservation, secured largely through the earlier efforts of W.H. Thomas, a white man adopted by the Cherokee who served as their chief and advocate.