Fort Tongass

This is a story about the early military history of Alaska, about a small nondescript Island hidden among the labyrinth of islands, fiords, and mountains of southeast Alaska near the border with British Columbia where once upon a time the officers and men of the 2nd Artillery, Battery E under the command of Captain Charles Peirce built and occupied a small fortification and peacefully coexisted with a tribe of Tlingit Indians. It's about the Tongass Indian People, their culture, family values including historic totem poles and art form. It's about an ancient ships lost anchor found then lost again; it's about the inexplicable complications in attempting to merge diverse cultures, institute customs laws, collect taxes, regulate foreign commerce, prevent smuggling and illegal trade of guns and alcohol, in a new region of America where the indigenous people for hundreds of years had enjoyed their own unfettered collaboration and coastal trade system with tribes as far south as Oregon; it's about the struggle to clear a forest, construct and occupy a fortification in a temperate rain forest where annual rainfall exceeds twelve feet; it's about a young Lieutenant who without the constraints of truth brought about the unsuccessful court martial of his commander and finally it's about the Life and Time of Captain Peirce whom we follow from the Mexican-American war, 1846-1848, the Utah Expedition of 1857, the Civil War, 1861-1865, Fort Tongass, 1868-1870 and final to the Oregon coast, 1871 where he became the first Lighthouse Keeper at Yaquina Bay near Newport and then to the Cape Blanco Lighthouse, 1873 near Port Orford before he and wife Sarah retired near Sixes River, Oregon.