CSN Prisoners at Fort Warren.

A Photographic Essay.

by Terry Foenander.

When the CSS Atlanta was captured in Warsaw Sound, Georgia, on June 17, 1863, most of her officers were sent north to be incarcerated at Fort Warren, on George's Island in Boston Harbor. Ten days later, Lieutenant Charles W. Read, and several other officers and men of the Confederate States Navy were captured off Portland, Maine, after their raid on the shipping around that region between June 12th and 24th, 1863. The officers were also sent to Fort Warren as captives. They were all paroled more than a year later. [1]

Sometime after their capture many of these Confederate Naval officers were photographed, together with other captives of the Confederate army and a civilian political prisoner, on the grounds of Fort Warren. One of these photographs is shown below, with some commentary on the Naval POWs.

Officers held as POWs at Fort Warren.
Left to right, top row, standing: Thomas L. Wragg, Acting Master CSS Atlanta; Lieutenant Moses, CS Army; First Assistant Engineer William Thomas Morrill, CSS Atlanta; Acting Master's Mate Frank B. Boville, CSS Atlanta; Acting Midshipman James A. Peters, CSS Atlanta; Major Boland, CS Army (a document in series 2, volume 7, page 868, of the War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies seems to indicate that this was in fact Major Harold Borland); Second Assistant Engineer Joseph Stanhope West, CSS Atlanta; Master's Mate John Billups, CSS Florida/Tacony; Captain Sanders, CS Army; Pilot James M. Fleetwood, CSS Atlanta (standing just inside the doorwary, and barely visible; note also the washed clothing hanging above him); Master's Mate William McBlair, jnr., CSS Atlanta; Pilot W.W. Austin, CSS Atlanta; Samuel Sterritt, CS Army (a son of Captain Isaac Sterritt, of the Confederate States Navy); Lieutenant Joseph W. Alexander, CSS Atlanta.
Seated left to right, front row: Acting Gunner Thomas B. Travers, CSS Atlanta; Second Assistant Engineer Leslie G. King, CSS Atlanta; Pilot Thomas L. Hernandez, CSS Atlanta; Captain J.C. Underwood, CS Army; Second Assistant Engineer Eugene H. Brown, CSS Florida/Tacony; Acting Master George Henry Arledge, CSS Atlanta; Reid Sanders, political prisoner (one source [5] actually indicates that this was in fact Major Reid Sanders, of Virginia, an Army quartermaster, and the son of Confederate agent, George N. Sanders); Lieutenant Alphonse Barbot, CSS Atlanta; Lieutenant Charles W. Read, CSS Florida/Tacony; Midshipman John A.G. Williamson, CSS Atlanta (note the puppy in Williamson's lap, which was probably the same pet dog, named Fanny, owned by Alexander [standing directly behind Williamson], and described in Alexander's account of his escape from the Fort, and recapture, in the New England Magazine, volume 13, issue 2, of October 1892); Commander William A. Webb, CSS Atlanta; Signal Officer Preston, CS Army. (two documents in series 2, volume 7, pages 868 and 1233, of the War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies seem to indicate that this is in fact Major George A. Preston)
(Negative number 56776, Collection of the New York Historical Society.)

This remarkable photograph shows twenty-six prisoners, nineteen of whom were officers of the Confederate States Navy. Of these nineteen, sixteen were officers captured aboard the CSS Atlanta, and the other three were originally from the CSS Florida, taken after their raid, aboard the Tacony and the Archer, upon the shipping lanes off the New England coast. Seven other officers captured aboard the CSS Atlanta are not shown in the photograph. The list of personnel captured aboard that vessel is shown on a separate page.

The exact date that the image was taken is unclear, but it would have been sometime between the capture of Lieutenant Read and his men on June 27, 1863, and the final parole of most of the Naval prisoners on September 28, 1864. As well, the exclusion of several of the officers of the CSS Atlanta from the photograph may have some bearing on exactly when the image was taken. An example is First Assistant Engineer Edward J. Johnston, who had died at the Fort on October 13, 1863. Assistant Surgeon Robert R. Gibbes, who, although he was entitled to be released because of the nature of his profession, had accompanied the prisoners north to care for the wounded, was released from Fort Warren on December 7, 1863. [2] On the other hand, it may just indicate that these missing Naval officers were participating in other chores at the time the photograph was taken. Until there is concrete evidence to show exactly when the image was taken, the time span of the photograph will be assumed to be as that indicated earlier.

Fort Warren was one of the better holding facilities in terms of conditions and care. There were only about a dozen deaths amongst the prisoners, and about seven escapes, four of whom were recaptured. Two of the escapees were Naval officers, Joseph W. Alexander and Charles W. Read (both of whom are shown in the photograph), one was Confederate Marine Lieutenant James Thurston (not shown), and a political prisoner, Reed Sanders (also shown above). [3]

The identities of all the prisoners shown in the main photograph above are included in the Photographic History of the Civil War, which also notes the date of the image as 1864. [4]

Another copy of this image is held in the collections of the Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C., although that copy is of poorer quality.

Reference Sources:

[1] Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, series 1, volume 14, pages 263-292.

[2] Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861-1865, originally published Washington, D.C., 1931; reprinted, 1983 by J.M. Carroll and Company, Mattituck, New York 11952.

[3] See the article entitled An Escape From Fort Warren, by Joseph W. Alexander, included on page 735, volume 4, of Walter Clark's Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War, 1861-1865 published at Goldsboro, North Carolina, 1901.

[4] Photographic History of the Civil War, edited by Francis Trevelyan Miller, reprinted 1957, by Thomas Yoseloff, Inc.; volume 7: Prisons and Hospitals, pages 123 and 139. (see also page 135 for an image showing several other prisoners at Fort Warren, including Lieutenant Richard H. Gayle, of the Confederate States Navy.)

[5] The Confederate Leathernecks: The Confederate States Marine Corps, by Ralph W. Donnelly; published 1989, by White Mane Publishing Company, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania.

Another web site relating to the Fort Warren POW image can be viewed at Confederate Prisoners Held at Fort Warren in Boston. This site, administered by George Wright, also includes a number of CDV images of some of the Prisoners shown in the main photo. These CDVs were originally from an album owned by Confederate Signal Officer George Abner Preston.

©Terry Foenander

September, 2001