prison caused the Confederate authorities to move about 3500 men back to Andersonville. Private Davenport, who was a member of this group, later said that the men were told that they were about to be released. The marched happily on foot about forty miles from Thomasville to Albany, Georgia where they were put on a train. To their horror in a few hours they found themselves back in Andersonville Prison. Perhaps it was the discouragement among the Thomasville returnees that caused seventeen members of the 7th Tennessee to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. They left the prison with the rebel recruiter, a Colonel O'Neill, on February 28 to join the Confederate Army. There were also 121 others recruited among the prison inmates at this time. The recruits were attached to rebel troops who were attempting to defend southwest Georgia from Union troops threatening from Florida and Alabama. Recruiting was a regular feature in the stockade but only three men from the 7th Tennessee are known to have gone over to the enemy in the previous ten months of imprisonment. Southern Union soldiers must have been a prime target for the rebel recruiters since it would have seemed easier for them to change their allegiance to the Confederacy than for northerners. None of the "Galvanized Yanks," as the new recruits were called, could really be trusted, however. Many joined only for a chance to escape. At least three of the seventeen February recruits "deserted" the rebels and eventuallly reached Union lines where they "rejoined" the Union Army. It would also be expected that southern Unionist prisoners who held to their convictions would be especially resented by their guards. Warren Goss, a Massachusetts soldier at Andersonville and later Florence, mentioned in his memoir that Colonel Iverson, who was in charge of the Florence prison, was very vindictive and harsh to southern Union men. He often called them"d--d traitors" and asked them why the...
