CHAPTER XVI. 



Journey from Belle Point to Cape Girardeau — Cherokee In- 

 dians — Osage War — Regulators — Settlements of White Ri- 

 ver. 



The site of Fort Smith was selected by Major Long, in 

 the fall of 1817, and called Belle Point in allusion to its pe- 

 culiar beauty. It occupies an elevated point of land, imme- 

 diately below the junction of the Arkansa and the Poteau, 

 a small tributary from the southwest. Agreeably to the or- 

 ders of General Smith, then commanding the 9th military 

 department, a plan of the proposed work was submitted to 

 Major Bradford, at that time, and since commandant at the 

 post, under whose superintendence the works have been in 

 part completed, not without some deviation from the origi- 

 nal plan. The buildings now form two sides of a hollow 

 square, terminated by strong block houses at the opposite 

 angles, and fronting towards the river. 



The hill, which forms the basis of the fort, is of a dark 

 gray micaceous sandstone, in horizontal laminse, and rises 

 about thirty feet above the water. The country back of the 

 fort, has an undulating surface, gradually ascending as it re- 

 cedes, being covered with heavy forests of oak, tulip-tree, 

 sassafras, &c. Towards the south and southeast, at no great 

 distance, rise the summits of the mountainous range already 

 mentioned. The Sugar-loaf and Cavaniol mountains, the for- 

 mer being one of a group of three similar conic summits, 

 are visible from some points near Fort Smith. The Poteau, 

 so called by the French, from the word signifying a post or 

 station, rises sixty or seventy miles southwest of Belle Point, 



