Morning Kevin:

Without being able to personally examine all of the records you have accumulated, it is hard to speculate further. It sounds as though "William" was a conscript under the Confederate Conscription Act passed in April 1862 and that he received an official exemption after reporting to a Confederate regiment. Why he was not immediately released from duty upon notification of his exemption by his Confederate officers is a puzzle. Maybe he had applied for an exemption but not yet been granted one. Does this notation about an "exemption" appear on his Confederate company muster rolls?

The Federals would not know of his exemption, or care about it since he was caught "red handed" on the battlefield with the Confederate military. So if the information about an "exemption" appears on his Federal records of capture and transfer to prison, it was based on information William gave them subsequent to his capture. Lots of Confederate prisoners claimed to be unwilling conscripts hoping for early release or better treatment.

Captured on the battlefield with the Confederate military, the Federals would have treated him as a military prisoner of war. Civilians captured while employed as teamsters and sutlers supporting the military in the field were covered by the Dix-Hill Cartel, but accounted for separately from the military prisoners. William, as a military POW or civilian detainee, should have been paroled at the prison camp from which he was being transferred from in late July, and delivered to Confederate authorities at Aiken's Landing. If he were returned as a military prisoner, Confederate authorities may have, upon verifying his exemption from Conscription, treated him as a returning civilian prisoner in the exchange accounting process and removed his name to a civilian list of returnees. If the Federals recognized him as a "civilian" under the terms of the Cartel while in Federal hands, they would have provided his name on a separate list and handed him over as a civilian.

You might want to query the Old Military and Civil Records group in the Texual Archives Services Division at the National Archives about civilian returnees at Aiken's Landing on August 5, 1862. Perhaps they could help sort all of this out, or direct you to additional information on the prisoners sent to Fort Columbus on July 3, 1862.

Good luck in your search! Keep us posted on what you learn.

Hugh Simmons
Fort Delaware Society
Society Website: www.fortdelaware.org
Society E-mail: society@fortdelaware.org