The Damnedest Set of Fellows: A History of Georgia’s Cherokee Artillery by Garry D. Fisher and Zack C. Waters

The Cherokee Artillery was composed entirely of white men, and had nothing to do with Confederate military forces that recruited Cherokee men. It was organized in Floyd County, Georgia, in northwestern Georgia in August of 1860 as a Confederate Unit, five months before the state seceded from the Union but when that outcome was considered likely. This book does not state how it got that name, but a few of the soldiers came from adjoining Cherokee County in Alabama, and, certainly, Cherokee people had lived in Floyd County before the removal. The name took on a new meaning as they first went to Canton, Georgia, in Cherokee County, the home town of the Georgia governor, where they obtained their first artillery and were officially made a part of Georgia’s Confederate Army, although still led by Floyd County men. Originally 42 men joined the Cherokee Artillery, but about 200 were involved at one time or another. They fought first in Tazewell, Tennessee, then in the Vicksburg, Mississippi,