The Fort Delaware Society database shows that Private W. R. BURRIS, Company I, 3rd Mississippi Cavalry was a POW housed in Division 11, a numbered room in the enlisted POW barracks out on Pea Patch Island. He arrived in April 1864 from Camp Morton.

The Compiled Military Service Records show that Private William R. BURRIS, Company B/I, 3rd Mississippi Cavalry was captured near Germantown, Shelby County, Tennessee on 18/19 JUL 1863 and sent to the Memphis Provost Marshal. He was sent to the Alton Military Prison on 11 AUG 1863 from Memphis and forwarded from there to Gratiot Street Military Prison in St. Louis on 14 AUG 1863. On 21 AUG 1863, he was sent off from St. Louis to Camp Morton, Indiana. In April, 1864, he was forwarded from Camp Morton to Fort Delaware. The exact date of his transfer was not recorded in these records.

William remained at Fort Delaware from April 1864 until released under General Orders No. 109 on 11 JUN 1865 after taking the Oath of Allegiance. He was described as a resident of Marshal, Mississippi having a light complexion, sandy hair, grey eyes, and standing 5 feet 10 1/2 inches tall.

There are no company muster rolls in this CMSR, only Federal POW records. The information that he was in Company I apparently was picked up in his transfer from Camp Morton to Fort Delaware and repeated in the surviving Fort Delaware records.

The Society will be very much interested in the information content of the 12 APR 1865 letter written by William from Fort Delaware. We have relatively little information in terms of diary material from the enlisted barracks.

Hugh Simmons
Fort Delaware Society
Website: www.fortdelaware.org
E-mail: society@fortdelaware.org