Jamie,

I was unaware of the letter Sergeant Robert Paxton sent to Colonel J. O. Broadhead on 23 Sept. 1863. Do I understand that Sgt. Paxton in his letter to Broadhead was requesting a meeting?

Either way you answer that question, I can add something. I did some reading in "Official Records" Series 2 (eight volumes arranged chronologically with a good index--concerns military prisoners of both sides) to see what concerns Union Colonel Broadhead had regarding the Alton Military Prison in September 1863. Colonel Broadhead was the Provost Marshal General of the Department of the Missouri at the time your ancestor wrote him, and part of Broadhead's duties was the welfare and prevention of escape of the prisoners in the three or four military prisons in St. Louis. In short, Broadhead was complaining to Colonel William Hoffman, the commissary general of the southern prisoners held in northern prisons, because Broadhead had jurisdiction of all the military prisons in the Department of the Missouri, but had little or no power over prisons in Illinois, including the Alton Military Prison in Alton, IL, just upriver a few miles from St. Louis. Broadhead wanted Hoffman to give Broadhead control over the Alton prison to make the situation less awkward, since the St. Louis and Alton prisons shipped prisoners back and forth for various reasons, especially to reduce crowding. It is my opinion that Colonel Hoffman refused Broadhead's request, because I noticed that Illinois troops remained as the guards over the Alton prison for the rest of the war. I surmise this, but I am not certain.

The "Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies in the War of Rebellion" does not include a copy of your ancestor's letter or any reply, because when the government editors sorted through all the war records in the 1880s, they chose to omit from these 128 volumes a great deal of material that the editors felt would not add to historical knowledge of the war, especially much information about individuals.

I will give you this uncomfortable bit of information, too. The prison at Alton was formerly an Illinois state penitentiary which the state condemned and abandoned in the late 1850s because it tended to flood, and the placement of prison buildings was the cause of sanitation problems. Despite this, the U.S. Gov't still leased the place for the duration of the war, and somehow managed to prevent some of the flooding, and tried to reduce some of the sanitary problems. There remains today only the cemetery, a portion of a prison wall, and some memorials in the city of Alton to remind us of that sad facility, in case you want to stop by in your travels. I believe floods over the years changed the Mississippi River islands near Alton, and the smallpox island no longer remains.

I look forward to see what you will mail to me.
Bruce