Tucked inside the St. Augustine National Cemetery, three simple stone pyramids stand in solemn remembrance of a bygone conflict.
They are modest structures, but on this Memorial Day, their historical shadow lengthens.
The markers —known as the Dade Pyramids—mark the final resting place of 1,468 U.S. soldiers who died in the Second Seminole War, an episode often overlooked in the annals of American military history.
The confrontation erupted in 1835, when the U.S. government moved to enforce the Indian Removal Act to relocate the Seminole people from Florida.
On December 28 of that year, Major Francis L. Dade led a column of 110 soldiers from Fort Brooke to Fort King.
They were ambushed by Seminole warriors near present-day Bushnell. Only three soldiers survived what came to be known as the Dade Massacre.
The attack marked the start of seven years of intense fighting between U.S. forces and the Seminoles, a round of combat that claimed well over a thousand U.S. troops and countless Native American lives.
After the war ended in 1842, the remains of soldiers killed in the Dade battle and other related skirmishes were gathered and reinterred in St. Augustine.
To mark the mass grave, soldiers stationed at the post raised money—each giving one day’s pay—to fund a memorial.
They built three small pyramids out of coquina, a local stone made from compressed shell, and the pyramids were dedicated in a ceremony in St. Augustine in August 1842.
Today, the Dade Pyramids are among the oldest military memorials in the United States.
Miami-Dade County, Florida, Dade County, Georgia, Dade County, Missouri, Dadeville, Alabama, and Dade City, Florida are all named after Major Dade, who is buried alongside his men in St. Augustine.
