Actually George, the mortality rate soared in the summer of 1864 at the time of greatest crowding in the stockade. The total number of deaths shown by the QM department [whose records are poor and fraught with misspellings and duplications] are 324. However, there were only 230 bodies reinterred to the Pineville, La. National Cemetery in 1867. The GAR lists identify only 207. With 5,471 identified prisoners, you have a death rate of 5.8 percent using quartermaster figures, or 4.2 % using the actual number of graves. Of all deaths, 272 occured between June 6, 1864 and November 24 1864. Even so you can see the problem with these numbers as they reflect more deaths than people who are actually buried.

During this period the camp was guarded almost exclusively by CS troops and not militia or Reserve Corps. I can identify only four fatal shootings of prisoners, only one of which was by a non-regular. As to that one, the CS Commandant convened a court of inquirey on which union officers were seated.

The Camp utilized State Troops until mid April 1864. After that time, the guard was comprised of regular troops with the exception of a few weeks in July when State Troops were ordered to the Camp after over a hundred men of Anderson's regiment deserted en masse. From February 1865, Jamison's Battalion of the Reserve Corps supplemented the 35th Texas Cavalry.

So, sorry to get on my soap box, but if I had to be a POW during the late unpleasantness, I would have certainly picked Camp Ford as the place to be.