Pending the result of efforts constantly made to obtain a parole or exchange, attempts to escape were made at various times. Two officers of the 26th Indiana, Lieutenants Greene and Switzer, were missed at roll-call January 12th, and a pursuit made. The escape of these two officers, some two weeks before this, was known to a few comrades, who concealed their absence from roll-calls by answering for them. At last it was decided to let their escape become known. At roll-call their names were not answered, when a Confederate officer innocently asked: “Does any one know where Greene and Switzer are?” An answer was given, with a laugh, “Guess they have gone for a pair of shoes.” The two officers were afterwards heard from as having arrived in New Orleans after a walk of some three hundred miles, done in a month and two days. They gave newspaper men, for publication, a detailed account of their tramp, with names of parties who had helped them along. This published account came into Confederate hands, and was used as an excuse for persecuting those Union friends.
On a rainy night, March 24th, Colonel Rose and fourteen other officers escaped early in the evening, by sliding aside a stockade post. From a neglect to replace the post discovery of the escape soon followed, and an alarm at once sounded. Mounted men, with bloodhounds, were immediately on their track. Four men were brought back next day, recaptured after they had walked twenty miles, and nine more were retaken on the twenty-seventh. One man succeeded in making good his bold dash for liberty. This attempt to escape was contemplated for some time; those in the plot secretly prepared parched meal and dry beef to carry for food. Another attempt was in progress, suggested by reading in a paper of an escape by officers from Libby Prison, Richmond, Va., by the tunnel process. From the 42d cabin, it was calculated a tunnel fifty feet long would carry them outside of the stockade. It was a double cabin, one-half occupied by Captain May’s mess, also the editor’s sanctum of the Old Flag. A commencement was made March 21st, the earth taken out secreted underneath bunks and carried outside when an opportunity offered; the opening was covered by a bunk when work was suspended. Men in this plot had worked a hole twenty-one feet under ground March 24th, when the original stockade line was removed to enlarge the camp, and an order was received by Colonel Allen, the commandant, to shoot at sight any prisoner caught in attempting escape. These two facts caused the attempt to be abandoned.
Colonel Allen was an old engineer officer in the United States Army, and like all regular army officers disposed to treat his prisoners as men. This disposition to do all in his power to ameliorate their sufferings probably caused his removal May 27th, a Colonel Anderson assuming command of the post. The policy pursued by Anderson, or rather a drunken lieutenant-colonel under him who took charge of all matters appertaining to the prisoners, was in an opposite direction.
Camp Ford was blessed with good water and situated upon high ground, an improvement over Camp Groce. Yet the stockade interior was filthy, without any system of sinks or police of grounds. This was the fault of the prisoners, a lazy, careless, motley crowd, not disposed to take hold of such work. Colonel Allen left such matters to those inside the stockade. Officers who saw the necessity of a system in hygienic matters soon gave up in disgust the attempt to force an organization for this purpose. As is usual in such a collection of men, refusing to recognize any superior authority except their guards, it was each man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.
Among the imprisoned officers were several lieutenant-colonels and majors. Colonel Burrell was one of the three officers of his rank. As a matter of pride, to uphold the dignity of his commission, what many officers signally failed to do, Colonel Burrell was always scrupulously polite to Colonel Allen, never visited him except in full uniform, transacting all business with that officer in a business manner, and so gained his esteem and regard. Burrell maintained that the rules in force should be respected and obeyed—he would insist on their obeyance were he in command of such a camp—and by maintaining dignified relations with the commandant was enabled several times to secure a rescission of harsh orders issued by Colonel Allen, in consequence of foolish speeches and acts done by brainless fools in the stockade.
No medicines, no special accommodations nor post surgeon were provided at Camp Ford. Surgeons Sherfy, 1st Indiana, and Hershy, U. S. Colored Volunteers, did all in their power for the sick, and that could not be much. An old surgeon in the Confederate service, formerly of the U. S. regulars, would occasionally visit the stockade and render some service. To him Colonel Burrell owes his life, when threatened with an attack of typhoid fever.
The commandant’s wife, Mrs. Allen, was a visitor to the officers’ quarters at various times, frequently accompanied by other ladies. The good impression this lady made by her visits resulted in a poem, written by Lieutenant-Colonel Duganne, published in The Old Flag, issue No. 3, March 18th, 1864.
The arrival of captured prisoners to increase the inhabitants of this stockade town, taken from various soldiers’ diaries, were: January 22d—Captains Coulter and Torrey, 20th Iowa, captured at Arkansas Bay, Texas, December 19th, 1863. March 5th—Six enlisted men captured at Powder Horn, January 22d. March 30th—Between six and seven hundred prisoners arrived from Shreveport, where they were awaiting exchange. They were a hard-looking lot of human beings, many without shirts or shoes, with trousers torn, ragged, or hanging in shreds. Among them were Privates Morrill, O’Shaughnessy and McLaughlin, of the 42d. They left Shreveport March 26th. Frank Veazie was sick in a Shreveport hospital. He died the following May.
About sixteen hundred prisoners, captured at Pleasant Hill, La., arrived April 16th, 17th, 18th and 20th. To accommodate these hungry men all hands had to keep their cooking apparatus at work on corn meal until they were fed. The appearance these prisoners made could not have been equalled in Falstaff’s time. Confederate soldiers robbed them of clothing, sometimes with threats of violence if property wanted by these greedy men was not handed over for the asking. The prisoners did not seem to mind it, and laughingly said they would square accounts whenever the Confederates fell into their hands as prisoners of war. They thought it rather rough to be placed in a pen like a flock of sheep, without food or shelter. Still, nothing better could be expected, because the Confederates had no other safe place to guard their prisoners. When arrangements could be completed, they were made as comfortable as the limited means at hand would allow.
During May about eighteen hundred prisoners came in, thirteen hundred captured in Arkansas; June 6th, one hundred; and July 6th, another batch of one hundred and eighty prisoners from Banks’ army were brought in. The old prisoners commenced to think, from the continued arrivals of officers and men of the 19th Army Corps, perhaps the entire corps would eventually be captured.