David DeLaFayette Franklin

David DeLafayette Franklin

David DeLafayette Franklin was born in 1833, in McMinn County Tennessee. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in Company C, 3rd Regiment (Lillard's) Tennessee Mounted Infantry (Confederate States of America). Col. Lillard led the regiment in the Kentucky Campaign. The regiment saw combat action at Baker's Creek, Big Black, Vicksburg, Morristown, Greenville, Bull's Gap, and in the Valley of Virginia.

David was captured during the Battle of Vicksburg in July 1863. He was pardoned and exchanged on July 10, 1863. He was once again captured by Union forces in Benton County, Tennessee, in December 1863. This time, he was sent to the infamous Federal Prison Camp in Rock Island, Illinois. While there, he was admitted to the prison hospital, suffering with smallpox (Later in life, his military pension application would show that he was 75 percent disabled, with vision, hearing, and back injuries).

While a prisoner of war at Rock Island, he enlisted in Company B, 3rd United States Volunteer Infantry and he served in the Frontier Service of the Northwestern Frontier. The United States Volunteer Infantry Regiments were made up of former Confederate soldiers who, while prisoners of war, were given the opportunity to leave prisoner of war camps in the event they would serve in the United States Army.

There was a very difficult process in making this transition from Confederate prisoner of war to the ranks of the Union army as a "Galvanized Yankee." These men knew that by volunteering for the Union Army, they would be shunned by their former comrades, and after the war, they were frequently shunned by Union and Confederate Veterans alike and most were not granted pensions from the Unites States Government. However, these men endured trials and tribulations well beyond the prisons, and their exploits in the American Territories out west were trying in themselves and, in the end, many of these men provided good and loyal service in the name of the United States on its frontier. David DeLafayette Franklin died in 1901, in Carroll County, Arkansas.

Photograph and information submitted by David DeLafayette Franklin's great great grandson, Robert H. Fickies.

David DeLafayette Franklin