Record #:

8553

Author(s):

Pearce, T. H.

Abstract:

This is the first part of two part series about the Immortal Six Hundred. The second part appears in Volume 50, Number 3. In 1864, the Confederate army held fifty Federal officers in a hotel in Charleston. In retaliation, fifty Confederate officers were sent to be held in a pen outside Fort Wagner, where they would be under fire from the Confederate army. Major General Samuel Jones of the Confederate army and Federal General J.G. Foster exacted a trade of the fifty men on August 3, 1864. Six hundred more Yankee officers were sent to Charleston in order to do more trading. However, on August 21, 1864, General Grant sent a letter to General Foster instructing him against all future trades. At the same time 600 Confederate officers were selected from Fort Delaware to be placed in a two-acre pen in front of Morris Island, exposed to Confederate shellfire. Of these Confederates, 111 were from North Carolina. Housed in “A” tents in parallel rows, the captives drank water from holes dug in the ground between the tents and ate spoiled meat. In contrast, war records show that the Charleston authorities provided rations of rice, beans, and fresh meat to their Federal captives. General Foster reported that up to 389 Federal officers took the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy as a result of the exemplary treatment paid them while held captive.

Source:

The State (NoCar F 251 S77), Vol. 50 Issue 2, July 1982, p18-22, il, por, map

Subject(s):

North Carolina--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Prisoners and prisons