Approximately 5,600 former Confederate soldiers enlisted in the United States Volunteers, organized into six regiments of infantry between January 1864 and November 1866.
Of those, more than 250 had begun their service as Union soldiers, were captured in battle, then enlisted in prison to join a regiment of the Confederate States Army.
They surrendered to Union forces in December 1864 and were held by the United States as deserters, but were saved from prosecution by being enlisted in the 5th and 6th U.S.
Some 228 prisoners of mostly Irish extraction were enlisted by Col. James A. Mulligan before the War Department banned further recruitment March 15.
Three factors led to a resurrection of the concept: an outbreak of the American Indian Wars by tribes in Minnesota and on the Great Plains; the disinclination of paroled but not exchanged Federal troops to be used to fight them; and protests of the Confederate government that any use of paroled troops in Indian warfare was a violation of the Dix–Hill prisoner of war cartel.
[5][n 2] In January 1863, following issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, the United States began to actively recruit black soldiers.
The following May, the Confederate Congress passed a joint resolution suspending exchange of black Union soldiers and their white officers, and ordering that they instead be put on trial and punished.
General Benjamin Butler's jurisdiction included Point Lookout, and he advised Stanton that more prisoners could be recruited for the Army than the Navy.
[7] On September 1, Lincoln approved 1,750 more Confederate recruits in order to bolster his election chances in Pennsylvania, enough to form two more regiments, to be sent to the frontier to fight American Indians.
Due to doubts about their ultimate loyalty, galvanized Yankees in federal service were generally assigned to garrison forts far from the Civil War battlefields or in action against Indians in the west.
Like the metal, these galvanized soldiers in many cases were still "Good old Rebels," or "Billy Yanks," underneath their adopted uniforms.
Dee Brown cites documentation from March and April 1865 indicating that the term was first used to characterize captured Federals who turned Confederate.
They moved by the steamboat Effie Deans and by forced march to Fort Rice, Dakota Territory, arriving there October 17 for garrison duty.
The regiment waited at Portsmouth, Virginia, in hopes that more troops could be raised, but calls for men from the west led to its transfer to the frontier at the end of April 1865.
[21] Companies C and D, consisting mostly of former Union soldiers who had been captured after enlisting in the Confederate 10th Tennessee, escorted the Sawyers expedition to build a road to Montana and garrisoned Fort Reno for nearly a year.
Companies H, I, and K garrisoned Fort Lyon until October 1866, when Gen. William T. Sherman closed the post for deplorable living conditions.
It traveled by rail to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on May 10–11, 1865, the only regiment of "galvanized Yankees" to arrive on the frontier intact and at full strength, 976 officers and men.
In September and October, Companies D, E, F, and G were recruited from Confederate prisoners at Fort Delaware, most of whom had been captured at the Battle of Gettysburg, numbering approximately 450 in all.
The regiment remained in garrison at Camp Schenck in Baltimore, seeking to raise more troops, assigned to the Cavalry Reserve of the Eighth Corps until officially organized on January 9, 1864.
Sent by steamship to New Orleans and Madisonville, Louisiana, the 3rd Maryland Cavalry took part in the Red River Campaign, in the Atchafalaya Expedition in the first week of June 1864,[n 21] and in August was dismounted to participate in the siege of Fort Morgan.
[30][31][n 22] Battery M, 3rd Regiment Heavy Artillery, Pennsylvania Volunteers[n 23] was raised in Philadelphia, then recruited prisoners at Fort Delaware in July and August 1863 to fill out its ranks.
The battery moved to Fortress Monroe to train, where some members were induced to join the newly created 188th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.
It was sent west for duty on the Indian frontier in February 1862 to resolve a political dispute after its commander refused to consolidate with the 6th Ohio Cavalry.
Both companies returned to Fort Laramie, where they continued guard duties along the stage and telegraph lines until mustering out on July 14, 1866.
Seddon had as early as March 1863 granted discretionary permission to commanders including Gen. John Pemberton to recruit prisoners, but few if any, were actually enlisted.
[n 29] O'Neill, recovering from wounds received at the Battle of Resaca, appears to have delegated part of the task to a newly appointed lieutenant colonel, Michael Burke.
Efforts were made at first to recruit Irish immigrants in compliance with Seddon's original instructions, but when few complied, native-born Union soldiers were enlisted.
Organized as Burke's Battalion, 10th Tennessee, they were made part of an ad hoc defense force assembled by Lt. Col. William W. Wier and sent by train towards Tupelo, Mississippi, to repel a raid along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad by two brigades of Union cavalry under the command of Brig.
Burke's Battalion and the 17th Arkansas were sent with a battery of artillery aboard the first train to block the tracks at Egypt Station, a mile west of Aberdeen, Mississippi.
The next morning Grierson's 1st Brigade advanced and came under fire from Confederate skirmishers, including Burke's Battalion, which was ensconced in a stockade east of the rail line.