Camp Ford

Camp Ford was a Confederate prison where rations ran short. The Handbook of Texas puts the total held over two years at about 6,000 and the deaths at 286. After roughly 3,000 men captured at Mansfield, Pleasant Hill and in Arkansas arrived in April 1864, it calls conditions deplorable; a ration could fall to a quarter pound each of beef and meal. Prisoners traded homemade furniture, dishes, baskets and brooms for food and clothing. About 1,200 men left for Shreveport on May 17, 1865, and a detail of the Tenth Illinois Cavalry destroyed the compound that July.

What the plaque says

Camp Ford On this site during the Civil War was located Camp Ford, the largest prisoner of war compound for Union troops west of the Mississippi River. Named in honor of Col. John S. "Rip" Ford who originally established a training camp here in 1862. It was converted in the summer of 1863 to a prison camp. It first consisted of four to five acres enclosed by a stockade sixteen feet high. In the spring of 1864 following the Confederate victories at Mansfield, Louisiana and Mark's Mills, Arkansas, the enclosure was doubled to accommodate the large influx of prisoners. Approximately 4700 Federals were confined here during this period. This overcrowded condition was somewhat relieved through a series of prisoner of war exchanges between the North and the South. Union soldiers representing nearly one hundred different regiments plus sailors from gunboats and transports were confined here. In addition there were imprisoned Union sympathizers, spies and even Confederate deserters. The prisoners constructed their own shelters ranging from log huts and burrows called "shebangs" to brush arbors and tents made of blankets. A spring, located about 100 yards southwest of this marker, furnished an ample supply of good water. Their meager rations, essentially the same as that of their guards, usually consisted of beef and corn meal and were sometimes supplemented by vegetables purchased from nearby farms. Although escape attempts were frequent, very few were successful due to the long distance to Union lines and the difficulty in eluding the tracking hounds used by the Confederate guards. Even though conditions were primitive it compared favorably with the other Civil War prison camps. Camp Ford continued to serve as a prison until the surrender of the Trans-Mississippi Department in May, 1865. It was later destroyed by Federal occupation troops. (1962)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Camp Ford Historic Park — steps away
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 3.4 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.
• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 4.8 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.
• Tyler State Park — 6.0 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.

More markers nearby

• Pine Springs Baptist Church — 0.9 mi
• Major James P. Douglas — 2.7 mi
• Colonel Bryan Marsh — 3.4 mi
• Tyler Tap Railroad — 3.4 mi