George, It's been years since I wrote the article for the Fort Delaware Society's magazine. As it turns out it was a faulty mental error on my part. It was the 42nd Tennessee and not the 43rd. The following is one of my early mini biographies on the former Confederates or claimed to be Confederates within the 3rd Maryland Cavalry. Of course these two soldiers were Confederates who claimed to by Union sailors aboard the USS Essex. One of them was George W. Foster. Keep in mind that at the time this was written I had yet done research on the pension records at NARA in DC. It was from the pension records of one or both of these soldiers that I was able to connect the dots. G. W. Foster does have Compiled Military Service Records in which it mentions his desertion at Port Hudson but George W. Hudson of Company D of the 42nd Tennessee only has Federal POW Records.

#120) FOSTER, George W. aka J. W. aka J. N. aka D. M. - Claimed to be a former Confederate with Company D 42nd Regiment, Tennessee Infantry. He has NO Confederate CMSR's only POW records. Federal POW records reported him as a prisoner during the Gettysburg Campaign with various capture dates and mentioned him as a rebel deserter and among a list of captured Confederate soldiers who were desirous of joining the Union Army dated August 30, 1863 at Fort Delaware and transferred to the 3rd Maryland Cavalry and told Union authorities he had been conscripted into the Confederate Army and had been born in Tennessee. George W. Foster became a Union volunteer on September 18, 1863 at Fort Delaware and was mustered into U. S. government service with Company E, 3rd Maryland Cavalry on September 21, 1863 at Baltimore. He told Federal authorities that he was 21 years of age, born in Hardeman County, Tennessee, and a farmer prior to the war. Federal enrollment officers described him as having blue eyes, dark hair, a light complexion and standing 5 feet 9 and one half inches tall. He made his signature with a X and Union soldiers listed his name as George W. Foster. His sworn declaration of recruit paper and volunteer oath of enlistment paper are located in his 3rd Maryland Cavalry CMSR's. 3rd Maryland Cavalry CMSR's reported his desertion at Carrollton, Louisiana (near New Orleans) on July 26, 1864 and returned from deserter status on April 6, 1865 by virtue of the Presidential Proclamation issued on March 11, 1865 and reported his discharge with the regiment on September 7, 1865 at Vicksburg, Mississippi. (Note: According to the History and roster of Maryland Volunteers, War 1861-5 prepared by under the authority of the General Assembly of Maryland his name is carried in the roster of Company E of the 3rd Maryland Cavalry and listed as being discharged on September 7, 1865) His widow filed for a Federal pension on August 16, 1890 and listed his unit as Company E 3rd Maryland Cavalry.