Dragon Tales: Fort Delaware, Pea Patch Island

We took a walk back in history to the Civil War era. The story goes that a ship loaded with peas went aground on a sandbar in the Delaware river and dumped it's load. Well the peas grew, thus the name.
It was built from granite from New England and has a mote around the building. The following is an excerpt from a website of which there are quite a few.

Fort Delaware was completed in 1859 on the marshy island known as Pea Patch Island. This stout Union fortress constructed in the shape of a pentagon and covering approximately 6 acres was used as a prison for Confederate prisoners of war during the Civil War.

General Albin F. Schoepf was commandant of Fort Delaware Civil War Prison and was dreaded by the Confederates. He was known by the soldiers as "General Terror".

The majority of Confederate prisoners contained within Fort Delaware during the Civil War were captured at Gettysburg. Many of these were men from the 26th Georgia Regiment, CSA.

Prisoners were held in wooden barracks, providing shelter unlike many other Civil War prisons during the Civil War however, after the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the ranks of prisoners swelled to almost 13,000, leading to horrible conditions. Water became putrefied and food scarce. Scurvy, smallpox and severe malnutrition were prevalent.

According to Captain John S. Swann (a prisoner at Fort Delaware), "We formed in line and marched to the mess hall, in which were several long rows of plank tables with pieces of bread and meat arranged along the sides at intervales (sic) of some two feet. When we were in place each prisoner took one ration. The bread was made of rye and wheat flour, well cooked, but the piece very small, about half enough for a well man. The meat a small chunk of beef. Occasionally all sinew or mostly bone. It was cut up very carelessly and very small, not half a ration. Some days the bread was substituted with crackers, and these were hard days on us. We were permitted to take these rations to our bunks. I ate mine but remained very hungry. When dinner came the same thing was repeated, except there was occasionally a tin cup of what was called corn soup very tasteless and insipid, with little or no grease."

He also wrote: "Not long after my arrival I heard a cry "Rat call! Rat call!" I went out to see what this meant. A number of prisoners were moving and some running up near the partition, over which a sargeant (sic) was standing and presently he began throwing rats down. The prisoners scrambled for the rats like school boys for apples, none but some of the most needy prisoners, and the needy were the large majority, would scramble for these rats. Of course but few were lucky enough to get a rat. The rats were cleaned, put in salt water a while and fried. Their flesh was tender and not unpleasant to the taste." For more check out the following websites:

http://www.fortdelaware.org/

http://www.censusdiggins.com/fort_delaware.html