Jacob Rice ("Rais" as his military records spell it) enlisted in Independent Battery A, a heavy artillary unit composed of Philadelphia men. According to the 'History of Pennsylvania Volunteers' by Samuel P. Bates, Jacob was a private who was mustered into service September 21, 1864. At the time Jacob enlisted, Independent Battery A was stationed at Fort Delaware, on Pea Patch Island in the middle of the Delaware River south of Philadelphia. The fort was under the command of Brigadier General Albin F. Schoepf.
INDEPENDENT Battery A was recruited in the city of Philadelphia, during
the month of August, 1861. Its original strength was eighty men. It
was mustered into service on the 19th of September, at the Filbert Street Arsenal,
and was soon after sent to Fort Delaware, where it performed heavy
artillery duty during its entire term of service. In July, 1863, it was re-inforced
by new recruits, bringing its strength up to one hundred and fifty men.
At the conclusion of the original term of three years, most of the men, whose
terms then expired, were mustered out, and recruits were again received in
sufficient numbers to preserve its strength at one hundred and fifty. It was
mustered out of service at Camp Cadwalader, on the 30th of June, 1865.
- History of Pennsylvania Volunteers. v.10, p.854
In addition to the six artillery regiments recruited
throughout the Commonwealth, Pennsylvania
raised ten independent batteries. Nine were lettered
"A" through "I" while the tenth was known
as the "Keystone Battery." Batteries A through F
served from 1861 to 1865, Batteries G and H from
1862 to 1865, while Battery I served during the final
two years of the conflict. The Keystone Battery had
two terms of service; the first from August 1862 to August
1863, the second for the hundred days' service in
the summer and fall of 1864.
- Advance the Colors: Pennsylvania Civil War Battle Flags by Richard A. Sauers, Capitol Preservation Committee.
By the time Jacob Rice arrived, Fort Delaware had gained a grim reputation, as a prisoner of war camp for Confederate soldiers and northern political prisoners. "During the latter months of the war and for years afterward
there were stories about the horrible suffering and the many deaths
of Union prisoners in the Confederate prison at Andersonville,
Georgia, yet the death rate there never reached more than 9 percent of
the total number confined in any one month. By contrast the death
rate at Fort Delaware during October, 1863, reached 12.5 percent in
spite of the fact that the North was never troubled with a lack of
medical supplies such as the South had to face." - Fort Delaware by W. Emerson Wilson.
[When I visited Fort Delaware I was told by a staff volunteer that the death rate at Fort Delaware never exceeded that of Andersonville.]
The high death rate of October 1863 was due to an outbreak of smallpox at the fort.
There is also this assessment of Fort Delaware's conditions: "Dr. S. Weir Mitchell of Philadelphia, a Northern surgeon who later became a famous novelist, inspected Fort Delaware on July 26, 1863, and called it "an inferno of detained rebels." Of conditions there he wrote as follows: "A thousand ill; twelve thousand on an island which should hold four; the general level three feet below low water mark; twenty deaths a day of dysentery and the living having more life on them than in them. Occasional lack of water and thus a Christian (!) nation treats the captives of its sword." - Fort Delaware by W. Emerson Wilson.
Jacob Rice arrived at the fort a year after the height of the smallpox outbreak. However, he himself died of small-pox after only 72 days at the fort. Bates tells us that Jacob died at Fort Delaware, Delaware, December 8, 1864. According to the National Park Service Civil War soldier website, Independent Battery A lost one officer and 16 enlisted men during the course of the war. All died of disease.
Jacob is buried at Finn's Point National Cemetery, which is located on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River directly across from Fort Delaware. There are 2,436 Confederate prisoners of war who died at Fort Delaware interred at Finn's Point.
Photos of my 2017 trip to Fort Delaware and Finn's Point National Cemetery.