In 1864,
six hundred Confederate prisoners of war, all officers, were taken out of a
prison camp in Delaware and transported to South Carolina, where most were
confined in a Union stockade prison on Morris Island. They were placed in front
of two Union forts as “human shields” during the siege of Charleston and
exposed to a fearful barrage of artillery fire from Confederate forts. Many of
these men would suffer an even worse ordeal at Union-held Fort Pulaski near
Savannah, Georgia, where they were subjected to severe food rationing as
retaliatory policy. Author and historian Karen Stokes uses the prisoners’
writings to relive the courage, fraternity and struggle of the “Immortal 600."
Language
English
Pages
102
Format
Kindle Edition
Release
April 28, 2013
The Immortal 600: Surviving Civil War Charleston and Savannah
In 1864,
six hundred Confederate prisoners of war, all officers, were taken out of a
prison camp in Delaware and transported to South Carolina, where most were
confined in a Union stockade prison on Morris Island. They were placed in front
of two Union forts as “human shields” during the siege of Charleston and
exposed to a fearful barrage of artillery fire from Confederate forts. Many of
these men would suffer an even worse ordeal at Union-held Fort Pulaski near
Savannah, Georgia, where they were subjected to severe food rationing as
retaliatory policy. Author and historian Karen Stokes uses the prisoners’
writings to relive the courage, fraternity and struggle of the “Immortal 600."