Hugh Simmons
Fort Delaware Queries
Sun Jul 29 17:34:07 2001


Hi Jim:

Any Fort Delaware query placed through our Society website goes to our offices in Delaware City, Delaware. A Society volunteer retrieves and answers these on a weekly basis. Several years ago, the Society purchased a copy of every strip of microfilm in the National Archives pertaining to Fort Delaware [but not the Compiled Military Service Records of individual soldiers] and has extracted and compiled some limited information on over 33,000 prisoners of war who passed through Fort Delaware during the war. Unfortunately, these individual records are quite brief and we always ask for input from the person submitting the query on what the Compiled Military Service Records contains on a particular soldier.

I live about an hour's drive away from Delaware City in southeastern Pennsylvania. I have carved out my personal niche in the Society's activities by including Finns Point National Cemetery in our interpretation the role of Fort Delaware in the Civil War. The Society places memorial wreaths on both the Confederate and Union monument [135 of the guards died of disease and accidents while stationed there]on Memorial Day Weekend and maintains flags and flowers throughout the tourist season at the monuments.

I have been reading prison diaries over the past year and can give you a general flavor of how conditions changed over time, but specific information about a given soldier will have to come from Kathy or Martha in Delaware City who will answer your query. I have specifics on the men who died at Fort Delaware or at the Upland General Army Hospital in Chester, Pennsylvania from my personal research on these burial sites.

Any question you want to bounce off of me about this and other prison camps, I will be happy to try to answer. My initial research into the history of the 12th Louisiana Infantry led me to Fort Delaware and membership in the Society.

Hugh Simmons