Did you know that guns destined for Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest were once buried in the Monroe-Bibb County area near Tobesofkee Creek–in a smallpox cemetery?

To prevent the Federal forces of Gen. James Wilson from seizing them as they swept from Columbus toward Macon in April 1865, Confederate soldiers buried the weapons in a “small-box grave-yard.” A renegade Confederate soldier later told someone in Wilson’s forces about the guns, and Union soldiers dug them up, running the risk of contamination from smallpox.

In a letter trying to determine what to do with them, John J. Weiler, a Federal officer, described them as “four two-pounder Travis guns, breech-loading, smooth-bore, brass. They are not mounted.”

One thing for sure, they never reached Gen. Forrest whom Gen. Wilson’s men had already defeated several times weeks before in Alabama.

Footnote: It’s not clear where these Travis guns came from as evidently only a few were manufactured in the Confederacy.