Fort Anderson / Deep Gully North Carolina March 13-15, 1863
Fort Blakely Alabama April 2-9, 1865
Fort Bisland / Bethel Place Louisiana April 12-13, 1863
Fort Brooke Florida October 16-18, 1863
Fort DeRussy Louisiana March 14, 1864
Fort Donelson Tennessee February 11-16, 1862
Fort Fisher
Fort Henry Tennessee February 6, 1862
Fort Jackson / Fort St. Philip Louisiana April 16-28, 1862
Fort McAllister I Georgia March 3, 1863
Fort McAllister II Georgia December 13, 1864
Fort Macon North Carolina March 23-April 26, 1862
Fort Pillow Tennessee April 12, 1864
Fort Pocahontas May 24, 1864
Fort Pulaski Georgia April 10-11, 1862
Fort Sanders / Fort Loudon Tennessee November 29, 1863
Fort Stedman Virginia March 25, 1865
Fort Sumter
Fort Wagner / Morris Island South Carolina July 10-11, 1863
Fort Wagner / Morris Island South Carolina July 18-September 7, 1863
It is the last week of June 1861. The 500+ acres that make up Camp Dennison are alive with activity as over 10.000 Ohio volunteers have rendezvoused at the site for organization and training.
At regular intervals, trains arrive at the Little Miami Railroad depot laden with new recruits, supplies, and civilian visitors from all around the state. In the fields along the eastern edge of the camp, bordering the Little Miami Railroad, are the cantonments and tents of the 5th, 6th and 10th Ohio infantry. Large fields, which just a few months earlier were planted in wheat and corn, have been beaten into dusty parade grounds by the plodding feet of thousands of marching soldiers.
The calls of bugles and drums, the crackle of musketry and the thunder of field guns can be heard from early morning until sundown each day.
General George McClellan, commanding the Ohio Militia, visits the site on a regular basis to examine the progress being made in the formation of this new volunteers force.
On successive day, large groups of local citizen supporters of the 10th Ohio and 6th Infantry regiments arrive at Camp Dennison.
These groups deliver patriotic addresses to the troops and present beautifully crafted flags and engraved swords to the regimental officers.
Many soldiers at the camp have not yet received their uniforms and equipage from the army.
Others are still clad in the brightly colored or ornamental garb of their independent militia companies.
The 5th and 6th Ohio have just recently received theirs issue of Federal blue uniforms, accouterments, and muskets.
Now , to the strains of theirs officer´s commands, they have to set to work in learning the fine art of soldiering.
Interesting Historical Sidbar: On June 23rd, a train carrying the 6th Indiana Infantry arrives at Camp Dennison. The Hoosriers are bound for the West Virgina and have passed through Cincinnati earlier in the day.
At the Camp Dennison they become the “guests� of the 6th Ohio, who welcome them to the camp.
The next day, as the Indiana regiment prepers to board the trains, the 6th Ohio boys offer a hearty cheer and stuff rations into the haversacks of their departing neighbor statesmen.
Adjutant General RG 401 Civil War Records, 1861-1865
Texas State Archives
I have a compiled the camp and forts in a alphabetical orderlist. Do you have any information about this camp or forts please contact me
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U-W
CAMP FORD. In 1862 the Confederacy located a conscript-training camp four miles northeast of Tyler. The installation became known as Camp Ford, in honor of Col. John S. (Rip) Ford.qv On July 21, 1863, the Trans-Mississippi Department ordered the establishment of a prison camp at Camp Ford and transferred the prisoners of war then located at Shreveport, Louisiana, to Tyler for confinement. These and other POWs sent to Tyler encamped in the open under guard until November 1863, when reports of a plan to escape caused alarm among the local citizenry and the Confederates in charge. Accordingly, a stockade was built enclosing an area of two to four acres.
A large spring ran along the south wall of the stockade and served as a water supply for the prison camp. The prisoners were required to improvise their own shelter, which they fashioned out of logs and other primitive building materials. Until the spring of 1864, morale among the prisoners at Camp Ford was passable, and the ranking federal officers maintained a decent sense of order. Enterprising prisoners made goods for use and sale, including crude furniture, clay dishes, woven baskets, brooms, clothing, and other useful articles. Some of these were traded or sold to local citizens for food and clothes.
Living conditions at Camp Ford became deplorable in April 1864, when the population was suddenly tripled by the addition of about 3,000 prisoners captured at the defeat of the Union army in Arkansas and the battles at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, Louisiana. The stockade area was doubled in size in an effort to accommodate this influx. The 4,725 inmates were overcrowded and critically short of food, shelter, and clothing. Their plight was desperate for several months, until major exchanges of prisoners in July and October 1864 alleviated somewhat the shocking conditions that had prevailed. For the rest of the war the Confederates encountered great difficulties in supplying adequate rations to both prisoners and guards at Camp Ford.
Sometimes the standard daily pint of meal and pound of beef per prisoner was down to a quarter pound of each, depending upon the supply available to the Confederate commissary department. Beginning with the overcrowding in April 1864, the quality of the shelters deteriorated. Nearby timber was less plentiful, and shelters had to be constructed quickly. The prisoners improvised all sorts of crude shelters ranging from brush arbors to blanket tents. Some simply dug holes in the ground for protection from the cold winds. A popular form of shelter was called a "shebang," a burrow into a hillside covered by a crude A-shaped framework made of poles, sticks, and clay to protect the entrance. The majority of the prisoners required the clothes that they were wearing when captured to see them through their captivity. The acute shortage of clothing was due to a lack of manufacturing in the South and to the federal blockade.
In response to a letter from the ranking Union officers at Camp Ford, at least two shipments of clothes from the United States government were received by and distributed among the prisoners. Escapes from Camp Ford were common, but no reliable estimate of the number is available. Postwar accounts of those attempts, some successful, were abundant among the members of the former Camp Ford inmates. After the war the former prisoners leveled charges against the Confederates for mistreatment and failure to provide humane living conditions at Camp Ford. However, the published accounts present many conflicting stories and viewpoints among the former prisoners. Nothing came of the charges. About 6,000 prisoners were confined at Camp Ford over the two years of its existence, making it the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi River. Of this number, 286 died there.
Following the surrender of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, the 1,200 remaining prisoners left Camp Ford, on May 17, 1865, bound for Shreveport. The remains of the prison compound were destroyed in July by a detail of the Tenth Illinois Cavalry.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. J. H. Duganne, Twenty Months in the Department of the Gulf (New York: J. P. Robens, 1865). B. P. Gallaway, The Dark Corner of the Confederacy (Dubuque, Iowa: Brown, 1968). Robert W. Glover, ed., Tyler and Smith County, Texas (n.p.: Walsworth, 1976). F. Lee Lawrence and Robert W. Glover, Camp Ford, C.S.A.: The Story of Union Prisoners in Texas (Austin: Texas Civil War Centennial Advisory Committee, 1964). Leon Mitchell, Jr., "Camp Ford, Confederate Military Prison," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 66 (July 1962). S. A. Swiggett, The Bright Side of Prison Life (Baltimore: Fleet, McGinley, 1897). The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington: GPO, 1880-1901). F. Lee Lawrence