I examined Private William J. Lee's Compiled Military Service Records. It appears that he was captured sometime prior to 20 SEP 1862 when he was released on parole at Glasgow, Kentucky. General Bragg's army passed through this area sometime around 14 SEP 1862 en route to Perryville, Kentucky according to a Perryville Campaign map I found on line.

The Dix-Hill Cartel, a general exchange agreement signed between the two War Departments on 22 JUL 1862 in Virginia, provided that all prisoners of war should be paroled and returned to their own sides to await exchange within ten days of their capture, or as soon as practicable thereafter. Copies of a list with his name and the others released in the field on parole on 20 SEP 1862 at Glasgow would have been sent to the respective agents of exchange at Fort Monroe (Federal) and in Richmond (Confederate) to be used in a future exchange accounting. Men were swapped by name, rank for rank, or equivalents. Each side then notified their own units when these men were legally able to return to the ranks. For example, POWs returned to Vicksburg in September 1862 from Federal POW camps in the North were declared exchanged in October and November 1862 by this accounting process. The POWs did not themselves go to Virginia for this process. The same is true for those men captured and paroled in the field in Kentucky. While commanders of armies in the field could also make exchanges (rank for rank, or equivalent), William was not exchanged in the field. Subsequent company muster rolls clearly state that he was absent and a "paroled prisoner since September 20, 1862". Had he been exchanged in the field, he would have been AWOL from his company after 20 SEP 1862.

Return or delivery is not the same thing as an exchange declaration. Delivery means handing men over on parole. Exchange has a technical meaning - the paroled prisoner who was declared exchanged was relieved of his parole promise (a sworn personal promise) to the other side to not perform any military duties for his own side until properly exchanged. Declared exchanged, he could legally return to duty with his own army unit.

William J. Lee would have been held in detention by the Federal unit that captured him, placed in the hands of a Union army provost marshal, and then released in the field on parole at Glasgow, Kentucky on 20 SEP 1862. He was not taken north and held in a Federal POW camp. Assuming he was able bodied at the time of capture, the Confederates should have gotten him into a parole camp somewhere near Chattanooga to be available for exchange, but he apparently went home. He was noted to have been absent as a paroled prisoner of war from 20 SEP 1862 until sometime during the May & June 1863 muster period. The date of his exchange declaration does not appear in his file. He was back in the ranks, exchanged and present for duty, on 30 JUN 1863. As you know, he was seriously wounded on 20 SEP 1863 at the Battle of Chickamauga which put him out of action for the balance of the war.

Stuart Salling's new book "Louisianians in the Western Confederacy" should provide you with more details on the movements of Bragg's army through southern Kentucky. Stuart could better speculate about William J. Lee's date and place of capture than I can. Stuart's e-mail address is stallz@bellsouth.net.

I hope this arcane technical discussion of parole and exchange helps!

Hugh