StoneGardens: Headstone in family plot on Crawford County's Georgia Ridge honors War of 1812 militiaman

John Calvin Rogers, born December 16, 1796, in Georgia, served as a private in the Georgia Militia during the War of 1812, contributing to the defense against Creek forces in the southeastern frontier. The Georgia Militia, organized under state laws requiring men aged 18 to 45 to enroll and drill regularly, mobilized thousands of volunteers to counter threats from British-allied Native American groups amid the broader conflict with Britain.

 Rogers, aged 16, enlisted in Captain Garrison's Company (likely a variant of "Carrison" from headstone records), part of the 4th Regiment Georgia Militia, which patrolled and engaged in skirmishes during the 1813–1814 Creek uprisings.

 His unit operated near the Chattahoochee River, fortifying defenses and supporting expeditions against Red Stick Creek warriors, who had raided settlements like Fort Mims in 1813, killing hundreds.

 Rogers' company supported these efforts, though exact engagements for Garrison's unit remain unlisted in digitized muster rolls.

 The war's climax came at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on March 27, 1814, where over 3,000 U.S. troops, including Georgia Militia detachments, Cherokee, and Lower Creek allies under Andrew Jackson, overwhelmed about 1,000 Red Sticks fortified in a river bend in central Alabama.

The assault killed or captured nearly 900 warriors, effectively ending Red Stick resistance and leading to the Treaty of Fort Jackson, which ceded 23 million acres of Creek land to the

Following the war, Rogers married Amy G. Adams on July 18, 1814, in Georgia, just months after Horseshoe Bend. They settled initially in Georgia, where they began raising a large family amid the postwar land lotteries that rewarded militia veterans with draws in newly opened Creek territories.

 Their 11 children included Nancy Melvina (b. 1816, m. Edward Bruce Chastain), Jane Caroline "Becky" (b. 1819, m. Hardesty White), Enoch Shuman (b. 1822, m. Nancy Ramsey), Lucinda Elizabeth (b. 1824, m. Wesley P. Stone), Green Winifred "Cap" (b. 1827, m. Eliza Ramsey), William (b. ~1828), Lovesy Ann (b. 1829, m. James Lawson), Martha (b. 1831, m. Thomas Wells), John Calhoun "Jack" (b. 1836, m. Sarah Elizabeth Meadors), Amy (b. ~1839, d. without heirs), and James Christopher Columbus "Red" (b. 1845, m. Martha Jane Meadors).

 Several children, like Green Winifred and John Calhoun, carried names evoking the era's patriotic figures, reflecting the family's ties to military service and southern culture.

By 1844, as the family grew and Georgia's fertile lands filled with new settlers, the Rogers' joined the westward migration driven by cheap Arkansas territory opened after the 1830 Indian Removal Act.

 They relocated to Georgia Ridge, a ridge-top community north of Alma in Crawford County, where Rogers claimed land for a farmstead amid pine forests and river valleys suited for cotton and corn.

 Rogers farmed through the 1850s and 1860s, navigating the Civil War's disruptions--several sons likely served in Confederate units, as Crawford County raised companies for the 34th Arkansas Infantry--while maintaining family ties through marriages into local lines like the Chastains and Meadors.

Rogers died on November 17, 1875, in Van Burenat age 78, after decades of farming and community involvement. He was buried on the family plot in Georgia Ridge Cemetery, with Amy dying in 1882 and joining him there.