Qualla: Fort Delaware: The Island Prison Where 33,000 Confederates Waited Out the War

Fort Delaware: The Island Prison Where 33,000 Confederates Waited Out the War: Introduction

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brahmslover, CC BY-SA 4.0. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the island "contained an average population of southern tourists, who came at the urgent invitation of Mr. Lincoln." The newspaper's dark wit captured the reality of Pea Patch Island during the Civil War: a low, marshy spit of land in the Delaware River where the Union Army imprisoned tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers in conditions ranging from tolerable to desperate. Fort Delaware, the pentagonal granite fortress that anchored the island, was not originally built for prisoners. It was designed by chief engineer Joseph Gilbert Totten as a harbor defense, positioned to protect Philadelphia, Wilmington, and the vital Chesapeake and Delaware Canal from naval attack. But when the war came, the fort's thick walls and isolated location made it an ideal prison. By August 1863, more than 11,000 prisoners crowded the island. By war's end, nearly 33,000 men had passed through. About 2,500 never left.

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Image: Brahmslover | CC BY-SA 4.0

Fort Delaware: The Island Prison Where 33,000 Confederates Waited Out the War: Three Forts on Impossible Ground

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Army Corps of Engineers, Public domain. Pea Patch Island defeated two fortifications before the third one held. In 1794, French military engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant surveyed the island - which he called Pip Ash - and declared it ideal for harbor defense. Construction of a star fort began before 1817, designed by J...

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Image: Army Corps of Engineers | Public domain

Fort Delaware: The Island Prison Where 33,000 Confederates Waited Out the War: Bread, Bean Soup, and the Bull Pen

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit (former) Confederate Post Office, Public domain. The first prisoners arrived in sealed-off casemates, empty powder magazines, and two small rooms inside the sally port, where Confederate names carved into the brick are still visible. As the war escalated, wooden barracks called the bull pen were built outside the fort for enlis...

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Image: (former) Confederate Post Office | Public domain

Fort Delaware: The Island Prison Where 33,000 Confederates Waited Out the War: The Immortal Six Hundred

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank C. Warner, Army Corps of Engineers, Public domain. On August 20, 1864, six hundred Confederate officers boarded the steamer Crescent at Fort Delaware, bound for Morris Island off the coast of South Carolina. Their purpose: to be placed under fire from Confederate batteries, in retaliation for Union officers held in Charleston who...

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Image: Frank C. Warner, Army Corps of Engineers | Public domain

Fort Delaware: The Island Prison Where 33,000 Confederates Waited Out the War: Guns, Storms, and the Long Decline

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. After the Civil War, Fort Delaware continued as a small artillery garrison. In the 1890s, the Endicott modernization program transformed it into part of a three-fort system with Fort Mott in New Jersey and Fort DuPont in Delaware City, defending the Delaware River with modern 12-...

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Image: Public domain