Fort Armistead, located in Coker Creek, Tennessee, is a remarkably well-preserved National Historic Landmark site that reflects the turbulent last years of the Cherokee Nation in the east, and the forcible deportation of Cherokee peoples in 1838. Archaeological and documentary studies of the site detail the history of this rare surviving example of a military facility associated with the tragic Trail of Tears episode of American history. This remote station was abandoned in 1839 but was reoccupied as Camp Coker Creek by Confederate forces in the winter of 1862 and became a center for the bitter internecine war that engulfed the East Tennessee mountains.