World Prisons
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United States

Fort Delaware

Low
Verified
Aging · 5mo ago
Sources last reviewed on

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

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How to send mail, money, and visit Fort Delaware

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Photograph of Fort Delaware

Gallery

From Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA where not otherwise stated).

  • 8inch columbiad gun at fort delaware.jpg

    Photo by combatphoto44 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

  • Fort delaware circa 2010.jpg

    Photo by Brendan Mackie via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • Amanda pierce grave in new castle delaware cemetery.jpg

    Photo by Mpdoughboy153 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

  • Cannon racks at the roof of Fort Delaware 01.jpg

    Photo by Shun Ho via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Cannon racks at the roof of Fort Delaware 02.jpg

    Photo by Shun Ho via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Circular brick stairwell and casemates inside fort delaware.jpg

    Photo by Mpdoughboy153 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

  • Civil War POW 1864.jpg

    Photo by U.S. Post Office via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • Civil War POW2 1864.jpg

    Photo by U.S. Post Office via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Background

Fort Delaware is a former harbor defense facility, designed by chief engineer Joseph Gilbert Totten and located on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the Union / United States Department of War / United States Army used Fort Delaware as a prison for Confederate prisoners of war, political prisoners, miscellaneous civilians, federal convicts, and privateer officers. A three-gun concrete battery of 12-inch guns, later named Battery Torbert, was designed by Maj. Charles W. Raymond and built inside the fort in the 1890s. By 1900, the fort was part of a three fort concept, the first forts of the Coast Defenses of the Delaware, working closely with Fort Mott further upstream on the opposite shore, in Pennsville, New Jersey, and Fort DuPont downstream in Delaware City, Delaware.

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

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Current population

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Occupancy

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Year opened

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Operational

Figures from official sources · verified 29 May 2026 · methodology

Facility profile

Operator

Union Army

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

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Region

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Security level

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Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

No major issues documented in our database.

Notable inmates

  • Lewis Frederick Gay
    Lewis Frederick Gay
    1840–1931 · soldier
  • M. Jeff Thompson
    M. Jeff Thompson
    1826–1876 · engineer

    Brigadier-General Meriweather Jeff Thompson (January 22, 1826 – September 5, 1876), nicknamed "Swamp Fox," was an American soldier who was a senior officer of the Missouri State Guard who commanded cavalry in the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War.

Source: Wikidata + Wikipedia.

Contact & address

No public contact details available.

Conditions Risk Score

Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated

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Insufficient data
We don't have enough public data on this facility to score it. Have something to add? Send us a correction.

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Data completeness

20%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources

Cite this page

Under CC-BY-4.0. Include the URL and access date; the site is a living reference and entries can change.

APA
World Prisons. (2026). Fort Delaware. Retrieved October 20, 2026, from https://worldprisons.com/prisons/fort-delaware
Chicago
"Fort Delaware." World Prisons. Accessed October 20, 2026. https://worldprisons.com/prisons/fort-delaware.
BibTeX
@misc{worldprisons-fort-delaware,
  author = {{World Prisons}},
  title = {Fort Delaware},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://worldprisons.com/prisons/fort-delaware},
  urldate = {2026-10-20}
}