Many notable
characters have come through Fort Myers, Florida since it was founded in 1850;
however, the eponym of the fort is not one of them.
In the 78 years of Col. Abraham
Myers' life, he had never set foot in the in the city that was named after him.
Abraham Charles Myers
was born in on May 14, 1811 in Georgetown, South Carolina to a well-to-do
Jewish-American family. His father, also Abraham Myers, was a successful
attorney and mayor of Georgetown. Myers was also a direct descendant of Moses
Cohen, the first rabbi of Charleston, South Carolina.
Glenn Miller of
the Southwest Florida Historical Society spoke on this matter.
“It surprises
many, including myself, that at a time of such great prejudice of the Jews,
Abraham was able to climb through the ranks and was oppressed in the military,”
Miller said.
In July 1828 at
the age of 17, Myers was enrolled in West Point Military Academy – the same
year Confederate President Jefferson Davis graduated and Gen. Robert E Lee the
following year.
In Myers’ personal
memoirs he recalled taking engineering, tactics, chemistry, mineralogy,
geology, history, ethics and law.
After being
retained his freshman year for “deficiency in his studies,” Myers finally
graduated 32nd in his class of 46 in 1833. Upon graduating, he was
promoted to the rank of brevet second Lieutenant and station in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana. He remained there until 1836 where he was then transferred to
Florida where he fought in the Battle of Oloklikaha under Gen. Edmund Gaines
during the Second Seminole War.
In 1838, Myers was
relocated to West where he was commissioned to a surveying team.
Myers returned to
Florida in 1839 and made captain of the quartermaster department of Florida
where he remained until the outbreak of the Mexican-American War. As a result
of “gallant and meritorious conduct,” during the battles of Palo Alto and
Resaca de la Palma, Myers was promoted to brevet major and later to colonel. In
1848 he was named interim chief quartermaster of the Army of Mexico in Texas.
While in Texas, he met Marion Twiggs, daughter of Maj. Gen. David E. Twiggs.
They later married when Myers was again transferred back to Florida.
It was for this
reason that Twiggs commissioned the construction of a new fort south of the
Caloosahatchee River and for it to be named Fort Myers after his new
son-in-law.
“To honor me, [he] named a fort in
Florida Fort Myers,” Myers wrote in his memoirs. “That was real nice of him.”
For the following
decade, Myers remained colonel in the quartermasters department for the southern
states. When the south seceded from the union on the advent of Civil War in
1861, he surrendered his assets to Confederacy and became the first
quartermaster general of the Confederate Army. However this position was short
lived.
Throughout Myers’
run as quartermaster general he was under severe criticism; he often blamed for
the lack of supplies and persecuted for his Jewish lineage. He rebutted by
writing:
“We never had
enough money. My office was efficient but was not able to overcome the
carelessness and deficiency of my remote subordinates.”
In 1863 at the age
of 52, Myers was personally relinquished by President Davis for his failure to
sufficiently supply the Confederate Army, though Myers felt this was a
conspiracy to remove him from his rank.
“In 1863 Jefferson
Davis dismissed me,” Myers wrote. “He said I was not qualified but me and my friends
know the real reason. He was angry that Mrs. Myers remarked that Mrs. Davis
looked like a squaw. She did have a dark complexion.”
After retiring
from a lifelong career in the military, Myers and his wife traveled through
various countries in Europe until 1877 when he permanently settled down in
Washington, D.C. He died in 1889 at the age of 78. He is currently buried in Saint
Paul's Cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia.
In all this time
he never made it down to the fort that bears his name; however it is rumored
that he may have traveled down the Caloosahatchee River during a surveying
mission through South Florida.
Myers lives on
through his great grandson Dr. Samuel Myers of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
