Ghosts of Haunted Fort Delaware

Union Prison During Civil War Held Confederate Soldiers

Jan 25, 2010
Jill Stefko

Haunted Fort Delaware - Public Domain

Confederate soldiers' phantoms and a woman's apparition have been sighted in Fort Delaware. There are ghostly sounds, eerie lights and invisible hands touching people.

Pentagonal Fort Delaware is on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware Bay between Delaware and New Jersey. The walls are thirty-two feet high and range in thickness from seven to thirty feet. A moat surrounds the fort and a drawbridge is at the entrance. The construction was completed in 1859. Thousands of people visited, lived in and worked at the fort during the Civil War.

Fort Delaware Union Prison

The first Confederate prisoners arrived in 1862. Conditions were harsh. Prisoners, who were given no extra clothing, existed in drafty wooden hovels. There were outbreaks of small pox, malaria and yellow fever.

The fort was said to be comparable to the Black Hole of Calcutta, the infamous guard room of India’s Fort Williams where British POWs were held after the fort was captured in 1756. It’s estimated that between twenty-five hundred and three thousand prisoners died in Fort Delaware.

Kitchen Ghost of Fort Delaware

She haunts one of the officers’ kitchens that has been restored into a fully working Civil War era one with a cast iron stove, bread oven, furniture and pantry. The apparition, who prefers the pantry, hides ingredients stored there and calls people by name, sometimes telling them to get out.

Two women were baking cinnamon swirls and, when they went to get the spice, it was missing. They searched for it several times and cleaned out some cabinets while doing so. They asked other staff members if they had used the cinnamon and the answers were negative. The women looked in the pantry again and the spice was where it belonged. One day, when several women were preparing a large meal, a woman they didn’t know appeared, looked at the food on the table and stove, grinned at the women, then walked away disappearing through a wall.

Haunted Fort Delaware’s Officers’ Quarters

A child’s ghost haunts several rooms on the second floor of one of the buildings. It tugs on peoples’ clothing and its spectral laughter is heard. A woman’s ghost has tapped people on the shoulder and touched them. Books fall from shelves by themselves. Crystals hanging from a set of candlesticks move back and forth when there is no breeze to account for this.

Fort Delaware’s Haunted Laundry Area

The laundry room is used for staff to demonstrate how it was used in the 1800s. Its resident ghost threads needles and collects loose buttons and strings them together. Some people think it’s the kitchen ghost who does these things. Witnesses have heard phantom sounds of a harmonica being played by the laundry area.

Other Fort Delaware Ghostly Activity

There’s a ghost in one of Endicott section’s stairwell that pushes and pulls people and tugs at their clothing. It also stirs up birds so they fly when people use the stairs. People have heard swearing, worded in an old-fashioned manner in one of the powder magazines. It’s believed the ghostly voice belongs to a soldier who cannot find gun powder.

Witness report hearing moans, voices and chains rattling in a basement. In one of the buildings, there are sounds of children laughing and a woman crying. Phantoms of Confederate soldiers running under the ramparts, a woman with a child and someone standing on one of the walls have been sighted. People on boats passing by the island at night have seen lights when the generator was turned off. There are photographs with mists, orbs and ghosts in them.

Fort Delaware Today

The citadel played an active role in the Spanish American War and World Wars I and II. Now, Pea Patch Island is a Delaware State Park accessible by ferry. The fort has been restored as it was when it served as a prison and the later Endicott section still stands. Buildings that were separate from the fort deteriorated and were demolished. There are ghost tours during the summer. While staff and visitors come and go, the haunters remain.