Good. I was hoping it was the guy from Macon County, because his prison ledger entries are more interesting than the other guy. There are two--one for 1862 and one with more-or-less a duplicate for 1863. I cannot be absolutely sure the same James M. Collins of Macon County figures in both years' entries, but I would imagine it's the same man. Here is what they say:

Guerrilla James M. Collins of [Colonel John] Poindexter's command was captured in Macon County 18 May 1862 and sent to the Alton Military Prison in Alton IL. He was transferred 14 Nov 1862 to the military prison on Johnson's Island at Sandusky, Ohio, which is all I have on him. Union military treated Confederates recruited behind Union lines under the CSA's Partisan Ranger Act to be guerrillas if they were captured not in uniform with weapons. The Union command in MO began (as I seem to recall) in March 1862 proscribing death for such captives, but seemed to make wholesale exceptions for such POWs captured from regular Confederate officers behind Union lines recruiting. This applied particularly to Poindexter's and Porter's recruits in NE MO, fortunately for your ancestor.

The 1863 record says that Civilian James M. Collins of Macon County was captured or arrested there 7 Mar 1863, sent to Gratiot Street Military Prison in downtown St. Louis, then transferred to the Alton Military Prison 25 April 1863. That's all the prison ledger says of him. I checked the Macon County area for March 1863 and found not much going on, except the Union provost marshal's office was trying to round up guerrillas and supporters for Confederate Captain Clifton Holtzclaw in the Linn County area. Therefore, I would guess that if James M. Collins was not arrested for supporting Holtzclaw's men, he may have been jugged for failing to register as a returned Rebel, or hurrahing for Jeff Davis in his local tavern, rendering some insult to Abe Lincoln or the U.S. flag, or some such. Maybe the Provost Marshal files online at the MO Secretary of War's website may tell you something. If this is the same guy as above, I imagine he hated to return to miserable Alton Military Prison. It was condemned as a prison by the State of Illinois in the 1850s because of flooding in lower floors and lack of sanitation facilities. It was miserable, but not as bad as some others.

Bruce Nichols