From 'The Museum Gazette'...
'Throughout the existence of the galvanized units, six regiments were formed and sent to the West.
They were recruited from these Union prison camps:
Point Lookout, Maryland (1st and 4th Regiments)
Rock Island, Illinois, (2nd and 3rd Regiments)
Alton Illinois, Camp Douglas Illinois, Camp Chase, Ohio and Camp Morton, Indiana (5th and 6th Regiments).
They garrisoned frontier forts which were low on manpower at a time of general unrest among American Indians.
They were stationed along the Missouri River, Oregon and Santa Fe Trails.
From New Mexico to Montana, they endured Indian attacks, cold winters, disease, and grueling marches.
Despite these hardships, they rebuilt trans-continental telegraph lines, restored stagecoach and mail routes between Missouri and California, escorted supply trains along the Santa Fe Trail, and protected wagon trains as they crossed the plains.
By the time many of the Galvanized regiments reached their western posts the Civil War had ended, and as a result, they had a short life.
The 1st U.S. Volunteers were mustered out on November 27, 1865, only a year and a month after they first reached Ft. Rice.
The last of the six regiments lasted a year longer, with the final Galvanized Yankee becoming a civilian on November 13, 1866.
Galvanized soldiers were shunned in the South, and neglected by the Grand Army of the Republic upon war's end.
For most of the Galvanized Yankees, there was little left in the South to return home to.
Some went back to rebuild their homes and careers, while others decided to remain in the West, with the chance to start new lives on the American frontier.
Despite the varied origins of the 6000 men who were "Galvanized" during the war, each had the chance to prove his loyalty to the United States.
They were a valuable presence at a time and place in which they were needed.
Captain Enoch Adams, a commander of troops at Fort Rice, wrote that "their whole course and behavior has displayed that unadulterated patriotism was the only motive that urged them on....Many have laid down their lives at the beck of disease, some have been murdered by the arrow of the [Indian], and with but few exceptions, living or dead, have been true to their trust."
The Galvanized soldiers turned from the task of fighting a war to divide the United States, and joined a cause which endeavored to expand and strengthen the nation.
Their unusual story is one of the least known and most ironic tales of the American West.'
Read 'The Galvanized Yankees' - by Dee Brown - as well as several National Park Service monographs to further add to your store of arcane knowledge...
Vaya,
Scouts Out!