“It happened to be my good fortune not to go to Fort Delaware during my involuntary stay in the North. But this place is spoken of by all who have been confined there as a perfect hell on earth.”

Decimus Barziza
prisoner, 1863

Fort Delaware is situated on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River, a mile east of Delaware City.

An earthwork was built on the island in 1813. In 1819, a masonry fort was constructed which was partially destroyed by fire in 1831 and demolished in 1833. The pentagon-shaped fort covers about six acres.

 The 32-foot high walls are of solid granite blocks and bricks, varying in thickness from seven feet to 30 feet. The fort is surrounded by a 30 foot moat, crossed by a drawbridge on the Delaware side leading to the sally port, or principal entrance.

Two barracks buildings face the parade ground. Offices of the commanding general and living quarters for officers were in the building on the north side. Enlisted men, mess halls, and kitchens were located in the barracks on the west side.

The fort was first occupied by one company of regular artillery in February 1861. The Commonwealth Artillery of Pennsylvania was the first volunteer unit to move in after the War began.

After the battle of Kernstown in 1862, 250 troops of Stonewall Jackson's army became the island's first sizable group of Confederate prisoners of war. Fort Delaware had not been constructed for such use, so the barracks space was crowded. Wooden barracks were erected in 1862 to house 2,000 prisoners.

By June, 1863, there were 8,000 prisoners on the island, and the prison compound had been expanded to cover much of the island to house 10,000.

Most of the Confederates captured at Gettysburg, from General James J. Archer down to the last private, were imprisoned at Fort Delaware after the battle. There were 12,500 prisoners on the island in August 1863.

An artist's rendering of prison life at Fort Delaware

Among the political prisoners housed here were Burton H. Harrison, private secretary to Jefferson Davis, and Governor E R. Lubbock of Texas, who was the last prisoner at the fort.

About 2,700 prisoners died while incarcerated at Fort Delaware. Of these, over 2,400 are buried in a national cemetery at Finn's Point, NJ, just across the Delaware River and adjoining Fort Mott.

By 1863 “Fort Delaware Death Pen” as it was called by Confederate inmates had a reputation as the worst of the Union prisons with the highest mortality rate for prisoners and a reputation for cruelty.

POWs were housed in crudely constructed, fence-enclosed barracks in an eight-acre compound some 500 yards northwest of the fort. A double line of plank fences with a parapet across the top for guards divided the compound into two camps, one for officers and the other for enlisted men. No communication was allowed between the two groups.

Each pen held as many as ten rows of barracks under one roof. Each barracks was divided into rooms, called “divisions.” A division was 19 by 60 feet with a narrow passage separating bunks in three tiers to either side and housed from 400 to 900 men.

“The buildings were mere shells, constructed of long planks (of rough pineboard) standing on end.” Randolph Shotwell, prisoner.

Prisoners were allowed one blanket or one overcoat; either or, not one of each.

Water for inmates was provided by two rain barrels placed at corners of the barracks to catch runoff from the roof.

“When the rains were frequent (the water was) kept tolerably pure, but when several weeks elapsed without showers, they became putrid (and) the contents would appear to be fairly swarming with wiggletails and white worms,” an unknown prisoner recorded.

Following Gettysburg, prisoner population of the hospital at Fort Delaware averaged around 600.

Shotwell’s record continues, “How strange a thing it is to be hungry! actually craving something to eat, and constantly thinking about it from morning till night, from day to day, for weeks and months! ....For the past month our rations have been six, sometimes four hard crackers and 1/10 of a pound of rusty bacon (a piece the size of a hen’s egg) for the twenty-four hours.

“But for five days past we have not had a morsel of meat of any kind.... For a fortnight before it ceased to be issued, the rations were so full of worms, and stank so that one had to hold his nose while eating it....

“Talk about Andersonville! We would gladly exchange rations with the Yankees there!

“....There has been no rain for some time; the tanks are no longer adequate for the supply of the pen.... the Yankees have a small water vessel that is used as a water boat, and is designed to ascend the creek sufficiently far to obtain fresh water. But the boat doesn’t go above tide water; hence brings back a brackish briny fluid scarcely one whit better than the water from the Delaware, which oozes through the ditches in the pen.

“The standing rain water of course breeds a dense swarm of animalcule, and when the hose pipes from the water boat are turned into the tanks the interior sediment is stirred up, and the whole contents become a turgid, salty, jellified mass of waggle tails, worms dead leaves, dead fishes, and other putrescent abominations, most of which is visible to the eye in a cup of it.....

“Fingers are too cold to hold the pen! Dozens of us have lain since breakfast, curled up under our blankets--thinking, thinking, and shivering with intense chilliness; not comfortable for a moment in the day!

“As for comfort, it is out of the question for the well and hearty. How much worse for the sick and debilitated! God help us this dreary winter!

“And yet we are much better off than many of the poor fellows in the Privates’ Pen! There are ten, or more, thousand men packed into a square of about six acres--thousands of them barefooted, not one in twenty supplied with underclothing. Even of those taken out to work the greater number are shoeless and hatless, and yet they gladly consent to go out and drag the heavy stone carts as long as they can stand, simply for the extra crust of bread to appease their constant, unsatisfied hunger!”

CREDITS

“The Papers of Randolph Abbott Shotwell”, The Blue and the Gray

PORTALS TO HELL: Military Prisons of the Civil War Lonnie R. Speer, Stackpole Books, 5067 Ritter Road, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055, 1997

The Fort Delaware Society
http://del.net/org/fort/

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