Stephen Neal DennisWhen Stephen Neal Dennis began researching the history of LaFayette, Ga., he had no clue he would turn up boxes and boxes of long-lost war records that shed new light on the Cherokee Removal and Chattanooga in 1838.
Dennis, an attorney and historian, was born in LaFayette, and once worked with the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C.
In looking for records about military actions in and around Lafayette, he — like scores of other researchers — had failed to turn up the records in Washington’s War Department files about the Cherokee Removal, also known as the Trail of Tears.
But then Dennis followed a time-honored ruled of investigation: Follow the money.
Might something have been filed in Treasury Department records where accountants scrutinized War Department expenses and invoices? he wondered.