Confederate Veteran

Fifty Exposed as the “Six Hundred”

Volume 7, August 1899, page 364

Tucker points out that he was one of fifty officers — not six hundred — taken from Fort Delaware in June 1864 and held under fire off Hilton Head until exchanged in August, and gives their names.

Signed “Comrade J. T. Tucker, Winchester, Ky.”

Cite as

J. T. Tucker, “Fifty Exposed as the ‘Six Hundred,’” Confederate Veteran 7, no. 8 (August 1899): 364.

The page in the scanned volume The whole volume at the Internet Archive

Published: August 1899
Volume: 7, no. 8
Pages: 364
Author: J. T. Tucker

FIFTY EXPOSED AS THE "SIX HUNDRED."

Comrade J. T. Tucker, Winchester, Ky., writes:

I was one of fifty officers taken from Fort Delaware on June 24, 1864, for the purpose of being exposed to the fire of Confederate guns. But arriving at Hilton Point we were anchored about two miles from shore and confined in the hold of a merchant vessel, guarded by fifty Federal officers and the boat's crew of fifteen men. The cooking for the one hundred and fifteen men was done in the hold where we were confined, and the heat was intense. We were there from June 24 until August 3, when we were exchanged for fifty Federal officers. I belonged to Gen. Morgan's brigade. Chenault was colonel, [ was lieutenant colonel, and McCreary was major. I was in the Green River stockade fight, when Col. Chenault was killed, and I was one among those sent by Gen. Morgan under a flag of truce to demand the surrender of the stockade, when the Federal officer met us with a smile on his face and said: 'Lieutenant, if it were any other day I might, but on the Fourth of July I must have a little brush first.""' I knew then that it was a fight to the death. Previous to this, in command of four companies, I was ordered to burn the stockade, and while our boys were setting fire to it I went around, saw what it was constructed of, and knew that we could not take it. We were whipped, and I lost my noble men. Among them was my colonel, Chenault.;

The names of the fifty officers are:

Major generals: Ed Johnson, Frank Gardner.

Brigadier generals: J. J. Archer, George H. Steuart, M. Jeff Thompson.:

Colonels: Norvell Cobb, W. H. Peebles, John A. Jaquess, Basil W. Duke, R. C. Morgan, W. W. Ward,

The scan

What the scanner made of this page, and what it is in the printed original.

“Hilton Point” is Hilton Head.

Editorial notes

Statements in this article that are wrong, doubtful, or worth setting beside another account. The article’s own text is left as printed.

“I was one of fifty officers taken from Fort Delaware on June 24, 1864”
Correct, and the distinction matters. This was the group remembered as the Immortal Fifty, sent south in retaliation for Union officers held in Charleston, and exchanged on 3 August 1864 — weeks before the Six Hundred left Fort Delaware on 20 August. The two episodes are constantly run together, in this magazine and elsewhere, and Tucker is right to separate them.
“Major generals: Ed Johnson, Frank Gardner. Brigadier generals: J. J. Archer, George H. Steuart, M. Jeff Thompson”
All five are correctly named and are the general officers of the Fifty. Archer died in October 1864, within months of his exchange.
“Chenault was colonel, I was lieutenant colonel, and McCreary was major”
The 11th Kentucky Cavalry. Col. David Waller Chenault was killed at Tebbs Bend on the Green River on 4 July 1863, as Tucker describes; Maj. James B. McCreary later became governor of Kentucky and a United States senator.