Finn's Point

RFD #3, Fort Mott Rd. Salem, NJ 08079

In April, 1862, Fort Delaware, a masonry fortification located on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River, received its first prisoners of war- a total of 358 Confederate soldiers from the Battle of Kernstown, Va. By January, 1866 when the fort was discontinued as a prison, the number of men confined had reached 22,773. This total includes southern soldiers, officers and political prisoners.

House Report No. 45- 3rd Session, 40th Congress (1868-69) states that 2,502 of these men died on the island. Of this number, the bodies of 2,436 soldiers and 36 civilians were buried in trenches at Finn's Point National cemetery on the New Jersey shore overlooking Fort Delaware. Identification was soon lost. Later a granite obelisk was erected in their honor. Around the monument's base bronze plaques bear the names of the interred. Three soldiers' bodies were turned over to friends and relatives for private burial; 27 are unaccounted for.

The Centennial Committee of the Civil War Round Table of Wilmington, Delaware, headed by Joseph O. Ferguson, has compiled and published this record as a project contributing to Delaware's Civil War Centennial Commission's commemorative program.

There are 135 Union soldiers interred here, of which 105 have their names listed on the Cairn, or Union, Monument. (Only 104 are listed). The rest of the interments are Confederate soldiers, marked by a monument erected by the United States government in 1910, and a few political prisoners whose graves are marked by granite headstones.

Finn's Point National Cemetery