Three Hundred and Sixty-Six Days at Fort Delaware

James Byrd Foote enlisted as a Private in Company A of the 1st Regiment, Georgia Regulars just thirteen days after the surrender of Fort Sumter, transferred to Company C of the 7th Georgia Infantry Regiment some four months later, and participated in engagements against the Yankees at Yorktown, Seven Pines, Oak Grove, Mechanicsville, Gaines' Mill, Garnett's and Golding's Farms, Savage's Station, Malvern Hill, Kelly's Ford, Rappahannock Station, Thoroughfare Gap, Second Manassas, Ox Hill, Boonsborough, Sharpsburg, Suffolk, Gettysburg, Funkstown, Charleston, Chattanooga, Campbell's Station, and Knoxville, where he was captured on 28 November 1863. After spending more than three months as a prisoner of war in several jails and military prison camps, he was forwarded from the Union Military Prison at Louisville, Kentucky to Fort Delaware and was imprisoned there for three hundred and sixty-six days before being delivered for exchange to the Confederate authorities at Boulware's and Cox's Wharves in Virginia during the three-day period 10-12 March 1865.

He returned home to Dallas, Georgia as a paroled prisoner of war to find that the land throughout Paulding County had been laid waste by the Union and Confederate armies and his family had been impoverished by the war. He endured the hardships of Reconstruction in Northern Georgia, but was determined to prosper and he did, becoming a successful merchant-farmer and a leading citizen of Dallas who was favorably known throughout Paulding and surrounding counties.