I found the following passage in a message by Colonel William Hoffman, newly appointed Commissary General of Prisoners writing from Detroit, Michigan to Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas in Washington, DC on July 15, 1862: >>>At Camp Douglas, it appears that a number of the prisoners enlisted in Colonel Mulligan's regiment, the Twenty-Third [23rd] Illinois, and Colonel Cameron's regiment, The Sixty-Fifth [65th] Illinois. When the rolls are completed I will be able to give the particulars.<<<

Much attention is focused on the 1864/1865 "Galvanized Yankees" who volunteered for service in the 1st through 6th U. S. Volunteers and were sent west to fight the Native Americans. A more obscure and interesting subject for further research would be to compile a list of those POWs (from both sides) who took an oath of allegiance while in prison and enrolled in state volunteer regiments of their captors throughout the war.

Following the signing of the Dix-Hill Cartel on July 22, 1862, the POW camps, North and South, were emptied by paroling the prisoners and delivering them to their respective sides at Aiken's Landing in Virginia, and at Vicksburg. At Fort Delaware in August 1862, 314 Confederate POWs refused to be returned and were allowed to take an Oath of Allegiance. These men were then released into the general population on the condition that they remain in the Northern states until the war was over.

For the men in the ranks, the key provision of the Cartel was that future captives were to be released on parole and returned to their own side within ten days of their capture, or as soon thereafter as practicable, to await an exchange declaration. Prisoners taken at South Mountain and Antietam had a brief stay at Fort Delaware in September 1862 before being paroled and returned. Again, a few men refused to be paroled and returned, and 104 were allowed to take the Oath and remain in the North.

Since jobs were scarce in the North as well as the South, Union army pay of $13 per month was good steady income. It is believed that many of these 1862 Oath takers subsequently enrolled in Union army state volunteer units.

Delaware historians have claimed that Company C, 4th Delaware Infantry enrolled a large number of Fort Delaware's 1862 "Galvanized Yankees" but I have not been able to substantiate that by cross checking Confederate CMSRs against a list of Company C members. I am also working the 1st Connecticut Cavalry that was allowed to recruit the Confederate prison pen at Fort Delaware in the late summer of 1863. Has anybody reading this board attempted a similar project?

It would be interesting if we could compile a list of all of the state units that accepted "volunteers" from the other side during the war. This would facilitate the search for missing family members who took the Oath during the war.

Hugh Simmons
Fort Delaware Society
New Society Website Address: www.fortdelaware.org