Major Twiggs. It covered about , and soon had 57 buildings, including a two-story blockhouse that was pictured in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, and a wharf at which ships could dock. Irvin Solomon notes that Fort Myers was described "as 'one of the finest and largest' forts of the Seminole Wars". It was abandoned in 1858, at the end of the Third Seminole War. Civil War During the American Civil War, Confederate blockade runners and cattle ranchers were based in Fort Myers. These settlers prospered through trading with the Seminole and Union soldiers. The United States Army set up a camp on Useppa Island, near the entrance to Charlotte Harbor, in December 1863. It was intended as a place from which to recruit Union sympathizers and Confederate deserters and conscription-evaders and to raid into the interior and interfere with Confederate efforts to round up cattle for supply to the Confederate Army. After some probes along the Peace and Myakka rivers, which had mixed results, operations were moved to the mainland. Troops from the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Regiment of Florida Rangers (later reorganized as the 2nd Florida Cavalry Regiment) left Key West for Fort Myers early in January 1864. The Union soldiers reached Fort Myers quickly enough to capture three Confederate sympathizers before they could act on orders to burn the fort to keep it out of Union hands. Beyond the principal cause for occupying the fort of providing support for Union sympathizers and local residents disaffected with Confederate taxation and conscription, the fort provided access to the large cattle herds in southern Florida, support for the blockade of the southwest Florida coast being conducted by the U.S. Navy, and a haven for any escaped slaves in the area. In April 1864, after the troops from the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment had been transferred to Louisiana, Companies D and I of the 2nd United States Colored Infantry Regiment were transferred from Key West to Fort Myers, and remained at the fort until it was abandoned. Company G of the regiment had also been sent to Fort Myers by early May. Solomon argues that Brevet Brigadier General Daniel Phineas Woodbury, commandant of the District of Key West and the Tortugas, intended that action to be an irritant to the Confederacy. The presence of the black soldiers, who made up the majority of troops used in raids into Confederate