Burial Sites of Immortal 600

Burial Sites of Immortal 600. . The Immortal 600 were a group of Confederate officers held prisoners of war at Fort Pulaski during the bitterly cold winter of 1864-1865. They were moved here from Charleston where they had been placed in the line of artillery fire in retaliation for what was viewed as similar treatment of Union POW's., The fallen officers endured many hardships, including a six-week diet of rancid cornmeal and pickles. Union Colonel Philip Brown attempted to make the prisoners more comfortable but was often overruled by superiors in favor of harsher treatment. From dysentery, chronic diarrhea, scurvy, and pneumonia, thirteen of the prisoners died while here at Fort Pulaski. They are buried in this cemetery., One of the prisoners, Capt. H.C. Dickenson, wrote in his Diary: , November 12, 1864: Lieutenant Birney of the Fourty-ninth Georgia Infantry, died at hospital last night and was buried today. Three of our number attended his remains to the grave. A military escort was furnished by the Yanks and he was decently interred in the Confederate graveyard, just at the northwest corner of the fort., March 1, 1865: Cantwell and myself engaged in painting headboards for the graves of our thirteen dead. The provost marshal refused to let us go out and put them up. We have made applications to the general.