Ghosts at the Civil War island prison at Fort Delaware State Park.

Ghosts at the Civil War island prison at Fort Delaware State Park Spirits of captured Confederate soldiers, political prisoners, and federal convicts Comments by staff and visitors Ranking of the prison's most spirited sites Also eerie tales in nearby Delaware City and New Castle

Located on Pea Patch Island at the entrance to the Delaware River, Fort Delaware was built to protect Wilmington and Philadelphia in case of an attack by sea. When the Civil War broke out, Fort Delaware's purpose changed dramatically--it became a prisoner of war camp. By the fall of 1863, about 12,000 soldiers, officers, and political prisoners were being held in an area designed to hold only 4,000--and known as the Andersonville of the North, a place where terrible sickness and deprivation were a way of life despite the commanding general's efforts to keep the prison clean and the prisoners fed. Many books have been written about the Confederacy's Andersonville and its terrible conditions, but comparatively little has been written about its counterparts in the North. The conditions at Fort Delaware are fully explored, contemplating what life was like for prisoners and guards alike.

Moving narrative of the harrowing ordeal of Civil War prisoners. Based on newly discovered primary sources.

During the Civil War, each side accused the other of mistreating prisoners of war. Today, most historians believe that there was systemic and deliberate abuse of POWs by both sides yet many base their conclusions on anecdotal evidence, much of it from postwar writings. Drawing on both contemporaneous prisoner diaries and Union Army documents (some newly discovered), the author presents a fresh and detailed study of supposed mistreatment of prisoners at Fort Delaware--one of the largest Union prison camps--and draws surprising conclusions, some of which have implications for the entire Union prison system.

In the years preceding the Civil War, Delaware was essentially divided--as a slave state, it had many ties to the South, but as the first state to ratify the federal Constitution, it was fiercely loyal to the Union. With the outbreak of war, the First State rallied to Lincoln's call and sent proportionally more troops to fight for the Union than any free state. Yet even as the renowned Du Pont mills provided half of the Union gunpowder, Southern sympathizers transported war materiel to the Confederacy via the Nanticoke River. Author Michael Morgan deftly navigates this complex history. From Wilmington abolitionist Thomas Garrett, who helped 2,700 fugitive slaves flee north, to the prison camp at Fort Delaware that held thousands of captured Confederates and political prisoners, Morgan reveals the remarkable stories of the heroes and scoundrels of Civil War Delaware.