Caloosahatchee River to a site named Fort Harvie. Fort Harvie was abandoned in 1842. After a white trader was killed by Seminoles on the Peace River in 1849, the Army returned to the Caloosahatchee River in 1850. The new Fort Myers was built on the burned ruins of Fort Harvie. Fort Dulany was reopened during the Third Seminole War, in 1856, and then closed again in 1858. Civil War Southwest Florida was relatively quiet in the early part of the Civil War. Union troops and refugee Union sympathizers occupied Useppa Island in December 1863, and mounted a small raid into Charlotte Harbor and up the Myakka River, which resulted in some skirmishes with Confederate troops and irregulars. In January 1864 Union troops landed at Punta Rassa and marched overland to Fort Myers, which they were able to seize before Confederate sympathizers could burn it. The troops on Useppa Island then moved to Fort Myers. As the year progressed, Union troops and sympathizers began driving cattle to Punta Rassa to supply Union ships on blockade duty and Union-held Key West, reducing the supply of cattle available to Confederate forces. The increased shipping from Punta Rassa led the Union Army to built a barracks and a wharf there. The barracks was , set on pilings to place the building above storm surges. At the end of the Civil War, the U.S. military withdrew from the area. Telegraph In 1866, the newly formed International Ocean Telegraph Company (IOTC) received from the U.S. government, the state of Florida and the government of Spain the exclusive right to operate an underseas telegraph cable between Florida and Cuba. In 1867 the IOTC constructed a telegraph line from Lake City, where it connected with the national telegraph network via Western Union, to Punta Rassa, where the underwater cable would come ashore. The underwater cable was laid from Havana to Key West, and then on to Punta Rassa, and the line opened to public use on September 11, 1867. The U.S. Congress had, in 1866, authorized telegraph companies to run their lines across, take supplies from, and place stations on federal public domain lands without charge. The IOTC placed its office in one room of the now abandoned barracks at Fort Dulaney, while the station agent lived in another room. Cattle port Punta Rassa became a thriving cattle shipping town in the later 1800s. The first cattle drive