Other Civil War Soldiers with Ties to DE

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Other CW Soldiers with Ties to DE

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     In his article “Some Wore The Gray,” W. Emerson Wilson tells about some Delawareans who left Delaware to join the Confederacy.   The number of Confederate soldiers from Delaware is unknown, but about five hundred is likely.   Some of them were:

1. Lt. David Stewart Hessey of Seaford, worked for the Delaware Railroad as an assistant right-of-way engineer before going South in November, 1861.   He joined the Thirteenth Virginia Regiment, and in the Seven Days battles   he was wounded.   Shortly after his recovery he was given a commission in the First Confederate Engineers.  The binoculars, seen in the picture above, were given to him by General Robert E. Lee as a gift for quickly building a pontoon bridge.   

1. Lieutenant Samuel Boyer Davis of New Castle, DE was wounded and captured at Gettysburg.   He escaped from Chester Hospital.   Later he became second in command at Andersonville Prison.

1. Sergeant George Julian Robinson of Georgetown, DE joined the Fifth Texas Regiment of Hood’s Brigade.   He served in all of the battles of that famous regiment until he was he was seriously wounded in the face at the Wilderness.  Also serving from Georgetown with the South were two of his cousins.

1. William T. Cooper, son of Governor William B. Cooper, was captured at Romney, Virginia and escaped from Fort Delaware to return to the South.

1. “Hiram Ross Messick of Seaford [DE] was also captured.  Messick later testified at a trial in Federal Court that he and ten others had been taken South by a small boat from Seaford in October, 1862. The others with him were named Collison, Marvil, Peirce, Reed, O’Day, Smith and Lloyd, with three others from Bridgeville not named.”