The Mockingbird's Ballad

C.S.A. Ex-Colonel Amos Solon Stevenson's journal: "May 15, 1863 - Augusta, Georgia (Savannah River)

It is done. Some Union troopers woke up couple days ago, but not for breakfast. If I don't laugh about this mess, I might cry and well, I don't cry, haven't since I was fifteen and mama died.

We are north bound - to prison. Gen'l has had time with family this morning on shipboard. There is word from one of our guards, a young strapping boy from Batavia, Ohio, that it's Fort Delaware for us. Davis and some of the Richmond crowd are set for Fort Monroe up near D.C. Guess the Washington boys want to keep an eye on them. It's been a soldier's life since '46 for me, now prison. Well. Being out of saddle for a spell might be good for this aging soul and body. Time to sort things out. No one really to care where I am or what happens. Could get down if I don't watch it. No use in that. Don't think they'll kill me. Might go to Arizona Territory afterwards, if there is one. Heard there was some raw country out there and the boys in blue will be trying to keep the Navajo and Apache in line. Might get work scouting. Better no do that. More killing sure don't seem the thing I want to do or be around ever again. Could try to scrape up work on some of them big spreads or Wells-Fargo. They'll need someone who knows horses.

I just don't know what. Better to take it as it comes. I reckon. I haven't got no mount so I can't ride off - no retreat to regroup now!"

In the summer of 1863 there were 12,500 new arrivals at Fort Delaware, Pea Patch Island, in the middle of Delaware Bay. The legend was that a boat in the early years of the state ran aground on the soft, swampy shore and peas grew from the wrecks' cargo. The fort dated from 1814 and was a defensive response to the British invasion of Washington and threats to Baltimore and Philadelphia. An experimental floating steam pile driver made possible the construction of the giant pentagon fort just before the Civil War. 129 political prisoners in 1862 were the first of the prisoners who transformed this grand old defensive fortification into a military prison. More than 30,000 unfortunates passed through the gates of this island fortress during the war years. Over 2,400 died there and the majority were buried at Finn's Point, New Jersey just across the bay from the fort.

A prestigious dream for America's military and the defense of a vital water route to three of its greatest cities in 1865 became the prison for over fifty Confederate expatriates. Isolated on an island miles from New Jersey or Delaware reachable only by boat, its depth of infamy did not reach that of Andersonville but neither is it of any pride for a nation or its people.