John:

I researched this story and published an article in the 2012 issue of the Fort Delaware Notes.

Young Colville “Tobe” Edmondson related a story of escape from Fort Delaware at the Confederate Veterans Reunion held in Nashville, Tennessee in 1904. The story was picked up and published by Mamie Yeary in “Reminiscences of the Boys in Gray, 1861-1865” published in Dallas, Texas in 1912. This article analyzes the details of the story. Edmondson was enrolled in Company G, Turney’s 1st Tennessee Infantry. Missing after the Battle of Gettysburg, he appears to have borrowed somebody else’s escape story and put himself into it. His Compiled Military Service Records show that he was never captured during the war and was not a prisoner at Fort Delaware. However, there was a successful escape of 9 POWs in August 1863 from Fort Delaware and the article identifies those men who did make their escape. The five men that Edmonson named as his fellow escapees are all accounted for.

Hugh