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Camp Ford

American Civil War POW camp in Texas

Summary

American Civil War POW camp in Texas

Field	Value
name	Camp Ford
nearest_town	Tyler, Texas
image	[[File:Price Raid (cropped).jpg	border	325px]]
caption	The * Price Raid * by Samuel J. Reader shows Union prisoners on the way to Camp Ford in October 1864
coordinates
pushpin_map	USA Texas
pushpin_mapsize	325
pushpin_map_caption	Location of Camp Ford
pushpin_label	Camp Ford
pushpin_label_position	left
built
used	–
builder
events	American Civil War
past_commanders	Col. R. R. Brown

Camp Ford was a prisoner-of-war camp near Tyler, Texas, during the American Civil War. It was the largest Confederate-run prison west of the Mississippi River.

History

Camp Ford is not a battlefield memorial, it is the site of a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp where over 350 US Army personnel died of starvation, exposure, and disease. Their names are listed on unit honor rolls for units of Ohio and Pennsylvania infantry, among others. Established in the spring of 1862 as a training camp for new Confederate recruits, the camp was named for Col. John Salmon Ford, a Texas Ranger and the superintendent of conscripts for the State of Texas.

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With over 2,000 new prisoners taken in Louisiana on April 8 and 9, 1864, at the battles of Mansfield, and Pleasant Hill, the stockade was quadrupled in size. Among those imprisoned there following these battles were 17 members of the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, the only regiment from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to fight in the Union's 1864 Red River Campaign across Louisiana and the only regiment from the Keystone State to have men imprisoned at Camp Ford. With more prisoners captured in Arkansas, the prison's population peaked at about 5,000 in July 1864. The population was reduced by exchanges in July and October 1864, and again in February 1865. The last 1,761 prisoners were exchanged on May 22, 1865.

Camp layout

Sketches of Camp Ford drawn by James S. McClain between May 3, 1864, and May 27, 1865]] Multiple Union soldiers who were held as POWs at Camp Ford documented their confinement through diaries kept during their time there. One such diary was created by James S. McClain, who had been captured on May 3, 1864, and was held until the final exchange of prisoners on May 27, 1865. Included in McClain's documentation were sketches of various buildings and other aspects of the camp.

Camp today

The original site of the camp stockade is now a public historic park, owned by Smith County, Texas, and managed by the Smith County Historical Society, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1959 by individuals and business firms dedicated to discovering, collecting, and preserving data, records, and other items relating to the history of Smith County. The park contains a kiosk, paved trail, interpretive signage, a cabin reconstruction, and a picnic area. The camp is located on US Highway 271, 0.7 miles north of Loop 323 in Tyler, Texas. The geographical coordinates are: 32°23'44.13"N - 95°16'7.28"W. The property is exempt from county property taxation.

References

House of Representatives: ''Report on the Treatment of Prisoners of War by the Rebel Authorities during the War of the Rebellion'', page 199. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1869.
"A Short History of Camp Ford". Smith County Historical Society, Tyler, Texas.
[http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qcc15 '''Texas State Historical Society: Camp Ford''']. Retrieved August 18, 2010.
Texas Beyond History, [http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/ford/ Camp Ford]
Snyder, Laurie. ''[https://47thpennsylvania.wordpress.com/2016/04/09/red-river-campaign-louisiana-march-to-may-1864/ Red River Campaign (Louisiana, March to May 1864)]'', in ''47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment's Story''. Retrieved online, March 17, 2017.
47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Records, in Camp Ford Prisoner of War Database. Tyler, Texas: The Smith County Historical Society, 1864.
[http://smithcountyhistoricalsociety.org/camp-ford/ Smith County Historical Society: Camp Ford.]

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1862-establishments-in-texas 1865-disestablishments-in-texas american-civil-war-prison-camps buildings-and-structures-in-smith-county,-texas american-civil-war-army-posts defunct-prisons-in-texas military-installations-established-in-1862 military-installations-closed-in-1865 military-installations-of-the-confederate-states-of-america texas-in-the-american-civil-war

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