Lesson 7 - Conflict, War and Parks

In 1863, Confederate Army General Braxton Bragg ordered John Hunt Morgan to invade the north to draw the Union Army north into Kentucky and away from Chattanooga. On July 8, 1863, Morgan and his unit crossed the Ohio River into Indiana. The raid lasted three weeks and extended from Indiana into Ohio. The civilians along the route of the raid were understandably frightened by the invading force. Some of Morgan’s men raided, looted and destroyed property. Indiana residents were also victims of food shortages, mostly from the demand for food from Morgan’s men. Morgan’s Raid came near the present-day site of two Indiana State Parks, O’Bannon Woods State Park, just a few miles west of Corydon, and Versailles State Park, just east of the town of Versailles. Corydon was the site of the Battle of Corydon, the only battle of the Civil War fought in Indiana.

Fort Benjamin Harrison was a post of the United States Army formed in 1903. The fort was established to honor the memory of former President Benjamin Harrison, who lived most of his life in Indiana. Fort Harrison was used during World War I to train combat officers, medical officers and railroad engineers. After the war ended, the Army’s Fifth Corps and 11th Infantry were garrisoned at Fort Harrison. In 1922, Schoen Field was opened for use as an airstrip by the Army Air Corps. In 1925 the Citizens Military Training Camp opened a camp at Fort Harrison. These camps were designed to train young men to be military officers, so that by the time they reached age 18 and could join the military, they were already experienced and trained in military discipline.

Nationwide, the program ran until 1940 but received mixed reviews about its usefulness. In 1933, as the country was experiencing the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt began his New Deal program to deal with the devastating effects of the economic catastrophe. One of the most popular and successful programs was the Civilian Conservation Corps, which used the U.S. Army’s logistical expertise to gear up the large program. The headquarters of the Indiana District of the CCC was housed at Fort Harrison. In 1936, CCC Company 3550 was stationed at Fort Harrison and began soil conservation and reforestation projects. As the New Deal and the CCC specifically began to wind down near the end of the 1930s and the rumblings of war were coming from Europe, Fort Harrison was again pressed into service as a military base. In 1940, the fort was used as an induction center for newly drafted young men.

Fort Harrison was also used to train quartermasters, medical technicians and Army finance workers. In addition, Fort Harrison housed disciplinary barracks for U.S. Army soldiers and prisoner-of-war camps for German and Italian soldiers. After World War II, Fort Harrison operated the Army Finance Center, and Adjutant General training school, and an Army Chaplain school. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, and the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, Fort Harrison continued to be used in these capacities by the Army. In the early 1990s, the base was chosen by the military to be closed. It was then that some of the land was given to the state to form Fort Harrison State Park.

The Indiana Army Ammunition Plant was established in Charlestown, Indiana along the Ohio River by the United States Army in 1941 to manufacture ordnance to support the Allies’ war effort in Europe. The construction of the plant was announced in 1940, well before the U.S. was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor. The U.S. was strategically supporting the efforts of the United Kingdom to fight Germany’s advance into France and England. The production of munitions was one way to support them, but the U.S. likely anticipated it would get involved in the war at some point in the near future. This plant would become the world’s largest producer of smokeless powder, which was used to make munitions for artillery. The Army needed a lot of people to work at the plant. In the 50 years before 1940, the population of Clark County, where Charlestown is located, grew by fewer than 800 people. From 1940 to 1950, the population increased by 17,000. In 1940 and 1941 the population of Charlestown itself tripled in size. People were coming from miles around to work at the plant. This is a prime example of how World War II helped to end the Great Depression. Many people had been unemployed for a long time and suddenly there were many jobs available that supported the war effort.