Fort Loudoun Massacre

Starvation forced the surrender. By June 1760 the fort's rations were a quart of corn for every three people, and by early August some soldiers had deserted. On August 9, 180 men and 60 women and children set out for South Carolina. The next day, near Tellico Plains, about 700 Cherokee attacked the column. Three officers, 23 soldiers and three women were killed. The rest were taken to Cherokee villages, where a few were murdered; most were ransomed to Virginia or South Carolina.

What the plaque says

Fort Loudoun Massacre Four miles N.E., at junction Cane Creek, Tellico River, Fort Loudoun's Garrison, which had surrendered to Attakullakulla and other Cherokee chiefs, was betrayed Aug. 9, 1760 - while returning under safe conduct to Charleston. 25 were killed; 200 enslaved, and later ransomed by the Colonial Government.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sequoyah Birthplace Museum — 15 mi
  The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' museum on Tellico Lake, near the town where Sequoyah was born, telling how he built the Cherokee syllabary and what the Tellico Dam drowned.
• Fort Loudoun State Historic Park — 16 mi
  A reconstructed 1756-57 British fort on the Little Tennessee River in Overhill Cherokee country, besieged in 1760 and surrendered on August 9 of that year.
• Ocoee Whitewater Center — 23 mi
  The Forest Service site on the Ocoee River in Cherokee National Forest that hosted the 1996 Olympic canoe slalom, on a river that TVA dams and releases by schedule.

More markers nearby

• Boyhood Home of Ray H. Jenkins — steps away
• Early Gold Mining — 7.5 mi
• Tellico Blockhouse — 9.9 mi
• Estes Kefauver — 11 mi