Maryland Confederate Faces PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXXI Fort Delaware Fort Delaware is built on a small flat island, of a few acres, in the middle of the river or bay, about thirty or forty miles below Philadelphia and opposite the town of Salem, New Jersey, on the east side and Delaware " City" --so pretentiously called--at the mouth of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, connecting the two bays, on the west side. And perhaps the island may be more properly said to be in the upper part of the bay, for the water is two or more miles wide and brackish, particularly on flood tides, which push up this far. It is called Pea Patch Island, and a doubtful story was that it was originally formed by the sinking of a vessel loaded with peas which germinated and caused an accumulation of mud and sand. Probably this is one of those fictions which are so often invented to account for natural phenomena. The fort itself, situated on the lower end of the island, is one of those high stone structures of which so many were built before the war and which were supposed to be impregnable to an attack by vessels of war until the day of ironclads. It was perhaps an octagon in shape, at any rate many sided, and one section of the upper casemates, without guns, was used as rooms, divided by thick partition walls of brick and opening at the back on connecting passages. These were occupied during about half of the time that I was there as quarters for Confederate officers of higher rank and other somewhat favored prisoners, and life in them was more comfortable and had some special privileges and advantages. I suppose the walls of the fort enclosed an area of between one and two acres and the interior space was open. Separated from the fort by some distance was the "pen" or quarters for the many thousand...