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4 Exchange and Escape While the cartel remained in effect, the number of Confederate prisoners at Camp Chase remained low. Between September 1862 and June 1863 it ranged from 756 to 1,367. During that time a total of 2,063 Confederate soldiers was exchanged. As the cartel collapsed in the summer of 1863, the prison population again began to rise, exceeding 2,000 for the remainder of the year. The numbers would have gone much higher had the government not maintained a policy of transferring Confederate officers to other posts. Nearly 3,000 left during July and August 1863. Johnson’s Island was the most common destination, although they were occasionally sent to Fort Delaware, Camp Douglas, or Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. When Tod complained to Halleck that he wanted rid of “at least 200 . . . of the most dangerous prisoners” at Camp Chase, Halleck replied that the governor could ship “such prisoners of war as you may deem proper to Johnson’s Island” if Tod could make arrangements for guarding them.1 Among the exchanged Confederates departing Camp Chase in 1863 was Lt. J. K. Ferguson of the Nineteenth Arkansas. He had been captured when Arkansas Post surrendered on January 12, 1863. “I shot away twenty rounds of cartridges at the enemy which was lying in the brush below the fort,” Ferguson wrote in his diary. It was not enough.The white flag went up shortly thereafter, and he soon found himself a prisoner. A native of Virginia’s upper panhandle, Ferguson had spent most of his boyhood in Madison, Indiana. His captors included members of the Sixty-seventh Indiana, and he was greeted by a number of boyhood friends. Three days later he found himself aboard one of three riverboats, each carrying one entire brigade of prisoners, proceeding slowly up the Mississippi. Progress became even slower when Ferguson’s boat “broke a wheel” and had to be attached to another vessel.2 Temperatures were low, and rain added to the unpleasant conditions. Exchange and Escape / 67 “It has caused us all to suffer more or less,” Ferguson wrote on the 18th, adding, “Several came very near freasing to death.” Two days later he wrote, “The distress on board excells anything that I have ever witnessed before.The sick is prostrated all over the cabin floor, and but very little aid can be rendered them.” The men received some relief at Memphis when sympathetic citizens brought them clothing, “although it was strictly forbidden by the federal authorities.” Those authorities at Memphis apparently were not very vigilant because, Ferguson recorded,“A great many of our men left the boat while we lay there in disguise of citizen dress.”3 On January 25 the men reached St. Louis. “Boats and [railroad] cars can be seen coming in and going out at all times,” Ferguson noted,“which is a great sight for some of the back pine woods boys of Arkansaw.” The lieutenant’s boat lay on an island just south of the city for two days. Union officials then removed the officers and took them to East St. Louis, Illinois . There Ferguson and his fellow officers were put aboard freight cars, although some of the sick were allowed to ride passenger cars. “For nearly 48 hours we remained on board the freight cars,” Ferguson wrote, “the weather being intencly cold, having no fire and but very little food. Our sufferings were indescribable.” Members of the Twelfth Iowa served as guards. Captured at Shiloh, the Hawkeye soldiers had just been released from a Confederate prison. As a result they were sympathetic to the Southerners’ plight.4 The Ohio & Mississippi Railroad carried Ferguson and his comrades across Illinois and Indiana, passing within twenty-two miles of the lieutenant ’s hometown. On the morning of January 29 the train reached Cincinnati . From there to Columbus the prisoners were allowed to ride in passenger cars. At a stop in Xenia, “The citizens came and gazed upon us with as much wonder as if we had been a lot of wild beasts in a managery.” Reaching Columbus, the captives were required to march the four miles to Camp Chase. Ferguson was ill and was allowed to ride in a wagon. Union soldiers searched the men when they arrived at the camp. “But boot legs,” Ferguson noted, “answers a very good purpose in special occations .”5 The next morning, Ferguson was pleased to record, his pocketbook was returned to him, its contents...

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