From "Confederate Fort Fisher: A Roster 1864-1865" by Richard H. Triebe.
WILLIAM D. HUDGINS (I've seen his middle name most often as E..
1st Lieutenant
Confederate States Navy
Joined May 26, 1863, from Matthews County, Virginia. Age unknown.
Duty on the CSS Savannah.
Wounded in mouth by a shell fragment while defending the Sea Face of Fort Fisher.
Captured. Prison at Fort Monroe, Virginia.
Exchanged April 26, 1865.
--Old B-Runner
This is a big book with 455 pages and you can buy it from Amazon for $24.95 and free shipping with total order of $25 from Amazon.
I found much interest in two comments.
** Randy Rogers wrote that his great great grandfather and two brothers had enlisted from Bladen County, N.C., and stationed at Fort Fisher together. All three of them were captured and sent to Elmira.
One brother died there and is buried in the prison graveyard; the other brother was returned back to the James River, Virginia, where he was exchanged, probably from the poor health from the prison.
My gg-grandfather endured the atrocities of Elmira. His records and those of his brothers are in the book.
** Harold Singletary wrote that he liked the book because it involved his great great grandfather who was there when the battle ended and was taken to Elmira and survived that hell hole. Lived to be 93 years young.
--Old B-Runner
The average age of a Fort Fisher prisoner at Elmira was 19.
The youngest Fort Fisher soldier sent to Elmira was 17-year-old Private William H. Faulk of Co. E, 36h Regt., 2nd NC Artillery. he was 15 years old when he enlisted in Columbus County, NC, on 26 February 1862. He was exchanged on the James River in Virginia on 2 March 1865. Private Faulk is most likely buried in the Tabor City/Whiteville area of Columbus County, NC.
The oldest Fort Fisher Confederate sent to Elmira was fifty-six-year-old Private Samuel Hales of Co. D, 36th Regt., 2nd NC Artillery. He was born in 1808 and was fifty-four when he enlisted at Blockerville in Cumberland County, NC, on 26 February 1862. He was transferred to Point Lookout and exchanged on the James River 2 March 1865. Prison records spell his last name Hale.
The deadliest month for Fort Fisher men was March 1865 when over 200 of them died at Elmira.
There are four Jewish artillerymen from Fort Fisher and 9 other Jewish Tar Heels who died at Elmira Prison and are buried in the Woodlawn National Cemetery along with 12 other Jewish Confederate soldiers.
--Old B-R'er
South Carolina had 482 men captured at Fort Fisher. Of those, 357 were sent to Elmira and 134 of them died there and are buried in Woodlawn National Cemetery. A number of sick South Carolinians captured at the fort were paroled and exchanged and would die either during transit to the James River or very soon after arriving in Confederate hospitals.
FORT FISHER PRISONERS BURIED AT WOODLAWN NATIONAL CEMETERY
A total of 319 North Carolinians and 134 South Carolinians. This is a total of 453 Fort Fisher men.
There are 2,970 Confederate graves in the Woodlawn National Cemetery of men who died at the Elmira Prison. A total of 1,228 are Tar Heels. The 319 Tar Heels buried from Fort Fisher represent 25.9% of all Tar Heel deaths at Woodlawn.
134 South Carolina Fort Fisher men are buried at Woodlawn and represent 28% of South Carolina deaths at the cemetery and 4.5% of all deaths at Elmira.
A total of 457 Fort Fisher men including three Confederate Marines died at Elmira, representing 15.4% of all Elmira deaths.
--Old B-Runner
When the first shipment of men from Fort Fisher arrived in Elmira on Monday, 30 January 1865, the weather was bitterly cold and the snow was deep. Private Thaddeus C. Davis, from Morehead City, NC 3rd, Co. G, 40th Regiment, 3rd N.C., recalled after the war, "We arrived (at Elmira) about eight o'clock in the evening, in four feet of snow, and many prisoners had neither blankets nor coats."
The Union Army inspecting officer at the prison, Lt. James R. Reid, wrote in February 1865, "The Fort Fisher prisoners arrived in cold weather very depressed, poorly clad, and great numbers were soon taken sick with pneumonia and diarrhea, rapidly assuming a typhoid character."
In February 1865, there was a prisoner exchange and most of the sick at Elmira Prison were sent to the James River in Virginia for exchange.
Of the 1,121 Fort Fisher men sent to Elmira, 518 would die in five months of which 372 were North Carolinians. Of that number, 319 did at Elmira and were buried in the Confederate section of the Woodlawn National Cemetery in Elmira.
Fifty-three of the sick Tar Heel soldiers who were paroled either died in transit or died very soon in various hospitals in Richmond, Virginia, Raleigh, Greensboro, Weldon and Charlotte, North Carolina.
--Old B-Runner
