A large gathering was present for Saturday morning's summer program of the Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society (CVHS) in downtown West Point. They came to hear long-time Fort Tyler Association President Rea Clark talk about the Easter Sunday 1865 Battle of West Point and the Fort Tyler Association’s efforts to rebuild the fort in 1996 and 1997. The restored fort was dedicated on April 18, 1998. Clark thanked the CVHS for the opportunity to speak about the Battle of West Point and his lifelong interest in the history of the Civil War. “I have been a Civil war buff for as long as I can remember,” he said. “I guess it started when my mom and dad took me to Atlanta when I was eight years old to see the Cyclorama. It’s now on display in the History Center of Atlanta.” The Cyclorama is the largest painting in the United States. It depicts the 1864 Battle of Atlanta. “For a long time I didn’t think much about the Battle of West Point, even though it took place in our backyard,” Clark said. He got more interested in the 1990s when Griggs Zachary undertook an effort to reconstruct the long-abandoned site into a new Fort Tyler. “What was left of the original fort was pretty much destroyed when the City of West Point built a town reservoir on the site in 1897,” Clark said. “When earth-moving was taking place to rebuild the fort, my brother Billy and I went up there to look for artifacts.” Some of what they found was on display at Saturday’s program. A Civil War-era Confederate…
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