Civil War Island Prison on Pea Patch Island
45 Clinton St (Ferry Dock), Delaware City, DE 19706
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Ferry admission approximately $12 adult, $7 child, $11 senior/military. Paranormal investigation tours priced separately.
Access
Limited Access
Mixed gravel, brick, stairs; ground floor accessible, upper levels not
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1859 · Civil War Prison Camp · Coastal Defense Fortification · National Register of Historic Places
Pea Patch Island formed from a sandbar at a strategic narrows in the Delaware River. Fortifications were attempted as early as 1813. The current granite and masonry pentagonal fortress, designed under the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was completed in 1859. Its original purpose was coastal defense for Wilmington and Philadelphia.
The fort's defining chapter began in 1862 when the Union Army repurposed it as a prisoner-of-war camp. By the summer of 1863, in the wake of Gettysburg, the prisoner population swelled to nearly 13,000 at one time, including officers, enlisted men, and a small number of political prisoners. Conditions were severe. The island sat at near-tide level and was subject to brackish flooding; outbreaks of typhus, smallpox, and dysentery were frequent. Approximately 2,500 prisoners died on the island over the course of the war and were buried at Finn's Point cemetery on the New Jersey shore.
Following the Civil War, Fort Delaware continued to serve a defensive role through the Spanish-American War, when Endicott-system gun batteries were added. The fort was decommissioned after World War II.
The State of Delaware acquired the island in 1947 and opened Fort Delaware State Park in 1951. The site is staffed seasonally with costumed interpreters who depict life at the prison and garrison in 1864. The fort was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Sources
The fort's paranormal reputation rests on its prisoner mortality and its decade as one of the largest Civil War detention sites. Costumed interpreters, park rangers, and Diamond State Ghost Investigators (DSGI) have collected reports across multiple seasons.
A frequently cited account is the photograph of a figure tinted blue, captured by a visitor and now circulated as the Blue Man of Pea Patch Island. Reports of children's voices and small footsteps cluster in the officers' quarters. The prisoner barracks and the ordnance room have produced electronic voice phenomena and EMF anomalies during DSGI investigations.
The fort appeared on SyFy's Ghost Hunters in 2008. Investigators reported audible cannon fire with no living source, a thermal-camera capture of a figure in an unoccupied room, and a participant who reported being physically touched.
Visitors on the standard daytime tour have described cold pockets in the prisoner barracks, the impression of someone watching from upper ramparts, and disembodied conversation in officers' quarters. The fort's location, accessible only by ferry, contributes to the experience: groups arrive together, depart together, and have no easy retreat once on the island.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Costumed interpreters reenact the summer of 1864 across the granite-walled fortress. Visitors can witness the eight-inch Columbiad gun fired with live gunpowder charge, and tour the prisoner barracks and officers' quarters.
A five-hour after-hours investigation led by Diamond State Ghost Investigators alongside park staff. Small groups rotate through the prisoner barracks, mess hall, officer's kitchen, ordnance room, and the Endicott section using K2 EMF meters and dowsing rods.
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Petros, TN
Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary opened in 1896 in the aftermath of Tennessee's Coal Creek War, built in part by the convicts who would subsequently mine coal on the same grounds. The prison operated for 113 years before closing in 2009, housing notable inmates including James Earl Ray — the convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. — who made a 1977 escape using a pipe ladder and was recaptured after 54 hours.
Joliet, IL
The Old Joliet Prison opened May 22, 1858, when fifty-three inmates arrived at a small structure to begin building the larger penitentiary around themselves. Designed by Chicago architect William W. Boyington and constructed of limestone quarried on-site, it operated until 2002 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2023.
Jefferson City, MO
The Missouri State Penitentiary opened in 1836 as the first state penal institution west of the Mississippi River, operating continuously for 168 years before its 2004 closure. During its operation it housed as many as 5,000 inmates, conducted 40 executions in the gas chamber, and earned the epithet 'the bloodiest 47 acres in America' from a 20th-century magazine profile. The facility is now operated as a museum and tour venue by the Jefferson City Convention and Visitors Bureau.