By Ronald S. Coddington
The declaration of war against Mexico in May 1846 ignited an explosion of recruiting for volunteer military organizations across the 28 United States. Men from all walks of life, wild with enthusiasm, paused their peacetime pursuits and answered President James K. Polk’s call for 50,000 men.
More than the required number stepped forward during the weeks and months that followed. In California, settlers scrambled to join mounted rifle companies. The Louisville Legion formed the first of four regiments of Kentucky foot soldiers. Mississippi riflemen stood behind their colonel, Jefferson Davis. Independent companies sprung up in the vast lands of Texas. A battalion of Mormons mustered in Council Bluffs, Indian Territory, destined to become part the 29th state of Iowa before the end of year.
In Indiana, the flurry of excitement swept the state with the same fervor. Three Hoosier regiments—a full brigade—formed for service, and two more followed the next year.
The Second Regiment of Foot, Indiana Volunteers, rapidly filled its ranks thanks in part to its colonel, Joseph Lane, a gifted orator and popular state senator. Among those who joined Company D were two young men, native Hoosiers, who hailed from Washington County, a rural region in the southern part of the state, which, just a generation earlier, had been on the edge of the frontier. Horace Newland Attkisson, born into a farm family who migrated from Virginia, was, at age 16, already handy with carpentry tools. Andrew Henry Ratts, a 24-year-old farmer, had followed his North Carolina-born parents into agriculture.
Attkisson and Ratts learned the art of war much the same as any volunteer. They and their comrades learned to fight as a unit through daily drills and other exercises to imbue discipline, trust, and esprit de corps. Along the way they learned the language of command and to obey the sound of the fife and drum.
The regiment left for New Orleans after a couple months of training, and then moved into Northern Mexico for garrison duty with Brig. Gen. Zachary Taylor’s army. In February 1847, the 2nd and the other two Hoosier regiments, part of the Indiana Brigade now commanded by Lane, who had been promoted to brigadier general, participated in the Battle of Buena Vista, pitting Taylor’s 5,000 effectives against the significantly larger Mexican army led by General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
The fighting raged over two days, during which Taylor’s lines came perilously close to breaking several times—saved by timely counterattacks and well-directed artillery fire.
One of these precarious moments for the Americans occurred on the morning of the second day’s fight, when Santa Anna concentrated a massive force of infantry and artillery in front of Taylor’s left flank. To meet the threat, Brig. Gen. Lane ordered an advance of the 2nd Indiana and a section of three six-pounder cannon. The artillerymen, commanded by Lt. John Paul Jones O’Brien, moved to within musket range of the vanguard of Mexicans. The 2nd did not fare as well. As it marched in support of the guns, the Mexicans hit the Hoosiers with a hail of bullets from small arms and a murderous crossfire of grape and canister from a battery. The combined fire broke the 2nd, which fell back and could not be rallied, with the exception of a small number of men who joined a nearby regiment. The battery section, exposed and isolated, continued to fire until it became clear to Lt. O’Brien that without support his men could not continue. He ordered his artillerists back, leaving one disabled gun behind after all its men and horses has been killed or wounded. He later lost the other two guns.
Thus ended the participation of the 2nd that day. Other troops filled the void and successfully checked the Mexican advance, saving the left flank and ultimately winning the battle, one of most memorable victories in the two-year war. The conflict concluded a year later with a treaty that ceded significant territorial gains for the westward-expanding United States driven by Manifest Destiny—and a hotly contest debate about the morality of what critics defined as a singular war of aggression.
Attkisson and Ratts returned home following the expirations of their year-long enlistments.
Attkisson picked up his life in the Washington County community of Salem, marrying Mary Ann Thomas in 1850. As the decade unfolded, the couple brought five children into the world, and Attkisson supported them as a carpenter and farmer.
Ratts returned to his wife, Elizabeth Ann, and two children on the family farm. They did not stay for long. By 1850, Ratts relocated his family to the Texas town of Kaufman, an easy ride by horse to Dallas. Though his motivation for moving is lost in time, wanderlust from his wartime experience may have been a factor. Tragedy struck a year after they arrived when Elizabeth Ann died, leaving Ratts a widow and his children motherless. He remarried the following year, and with his new wife, Syntha Keen, started a second family.
Ratts and Attkisson might have never met again, living out peaceful lives and growing old in Indiana and Texas.
Then came the Civil War.
In Texas, a major supply hub emerges
Tyler, Texas, hummed with military activity as the war entered its second year. Back East in Virginia, the Confederate victory at Manassas that sent the Yankees skedaddling all the way back to the tyrant Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., changed the narrative that this would be a short conflict. Closer to home in Tennessee, the surrender of Fort Donelson and loss at Pittsburg Landing reminded pragmatic Southerners that final victory could not be taken for granted.
Building an infrastructure to support the military power needed to expel the federal invaders and gain sovereignty involved every state. Tyler and its environs, located in the northeastern part of Texas, proved well-suited to support forces and operations in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Months earlier, the first encampments were located in the Pine Springs region just a few miles northeast of town, providing fresh water and easy access to an important roadway.
Tyler evolved into a major base in 1862. Early in the year, an influx of troops stationed in Arkansas and Louisiana moved to Tyler to defend against a rumored Union invasion. In April, Brig. Gen. Henry Eustace McCulloch located his headquarters in Tyler and trained recruits for newly organized regiments. In June, the superintendent of conscripts for Texas, Col. John Salmon “Rip” Ford, established a camp of instruction. A respected Texan that traced his roots to Republic days and subsequent service as a state legislator, the camp was named in his honor. Over time, authorities established other camp sites, supply depots, quartermaster shops, an ordnance manufactory, an arsenal, and other facilities.
In 1863, when federal forces threatened the Texas-Louisiana border and the Gulf Coast near Galveston, the Confederacy needed a prisoner of war camp to house enemy combatants. In July, authorities forwarded about 100 prisoners to Camp Ford, which was ill-prepared to receive them.
In 1863, when federal forces threatened the Texas-Louisiana border and the Gulf Coast near Galveston, the Confederacy needed a prisoner of war camp to house enemy combatants. In July, authorities forwarded about 100 prisoners to Camp Ford, which was ill-prepared to receive them. Crude dugouts carved out of a hillside by the prisoners provided scant protection from the elements, and a small contingent of guards held them at bay. In November, 400 more prisoners arrived, prompting a major expansion. Enslaved laborers, about 600 Black men, constructed a log stockade on a several acre tract that included a creek.
More guards were added as the prison population grew. Some were detached from the 2nd Regiment Cavalry, Texas State Troops, for this duty. One of the them had recently enlisted from Kaufman—Andrew Ratts.
Morgan’s revenge for alleged Union outrages
Colonel John Hunt Morgan’s star rose to new heights following his raid into Kentucky in July 1862. His 24-day, thousand-mile ride with 900 troopers disrupted enemy supply lines and boosted enthusiasm for the Southern cause. Though Morgan had much to celebrate upon his return to his Tennessee base on July 28, Union military operations around occupied Nashville demanded his attention, leaving little time to rest on his laurels.
Beginning in early August from his camp in Sparta, Morgan and his men probed the region east of Nashville. Acting on intelligence gathered from locals and other sources, Morgan hunted for weaknesses in the enemy defenses and sought to exploit them. Strategic bridges and railroads were especially desirable targets.
A promising lead arrived on August 19 in the form of a report of 300 enemy infantry on reconnaissance at Gallatin, according to Morgan’s second in command, Lt. Col. Basil W. Duke, who told the story of what happened next in his 1867 History of Morgan’s Cavalry.
Morgan ordered two groups of men to get them.
One group, led by a captain, rode for a railroad seven miles below Gallatin in anticipation of catching the enemy infantry as it marched to a train to transport them back to Nashville. By the time the troopers arrived, the infantry had left. However, they did happen upon a federal outpost, easily capturing the 40 to 50-man garrison, which happened to be outside its protective stockade. They continued on and took a second outpost, forcing the surrender of the men inside the stockade without firing a shot.
The other group, led by Morgan, headed for Gallatin, arriving early in the morning of August 20. He and his troopers were disappointed to find the enemy had evacuated. They learned from locals that a party of Union raiders had carried off all males above age 12, leaving behind distressed women and the body of one of Morgan’s men. The women told them that the Union invaders had wounded him the previous night, then cuffed and kicked him after he had been shot. This barbaric act, they believed, was in retaliation for the demolition of the Big South Tunnel a week earlier by Morgan’s cavalry.
Filled with rage and spoiling for a fight, Morgan and his cavalry galloped off and encountered the Union infantry who had taken off the boys and men. A fight ensued, ending in the deaths of a number of the enemy and the liberation of the citizens.
Morgan’s men continued to Edgefield Junction about noon. They found another stockade, unfinished, constructed of thick, rough-hewn timber, about 10 to 12-feet tall, and pierced with loopholes, the whole surrounded by a ditch. The garrison, of unknown strength to Morgan, included a detachment from the 50th Indiana Infantry.
The captain commanding the Hoosiers was Horace Attkisson.
“The Gallant Hero of Edgefield Junction”
On Christmas Day 1861, the newly organized 50th Indiana Infantry left for its first assignment to Kentucky and Tennessee to guard the vital Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The men of Company C were led by Capt. Attkisson. After the bombardment of Fort Sumter, he had traded his carpentry tools for a first lieutenant’s sword and enlisted in the 13th Indiana Infantry. Months later, he resigned to accept a captain’s commission in the 50th.
A man of philanthropic impulses, Attkisson earned the trust and respect of Company C by going the extra mile for his men, no doubt learning from his experiences in Mexico and with the 13th in the recent Western Virginia Campaign that culminated in the Battle of Rich Mountain.
Attkisson pushed himself and his men hard.
In Tennessee, the 50th received orders to reconnoiter Gallatin and area rail tunnels. The lieutenant colonel of the Hoosiers, Horace Heffren, a war Democrat and peacetime newspaper editor who was no friend of the Lincoln administration, told his version of the story in his official after-action report. The general outline of Heffren’s account aligns with Duke’s description, but differs in the details.
Heffren recounted how he left his base for Gallatin on August 19 with 176 men and officers from four companies, including Attkisson’s command. Leaving detachments at four outposts along the way, the main body continued along a pike until three miles outside Gallatin. Heffren paused and deployed a skirmish line led by Attkisson, following behind with the rest of the 50th. As Attkisson and his skirmishers advanced to the edge of Gallatin, they encountered enemy pickets, capturing six and driving the rest away. Heffren believed them to be Morgan’s men.
The Hoosiers entered Gallatin about 5 p.m. Heffren divided the men into squads and arrested all citizens, he wrote, “for the time being.” He does not explain when they were released or what became of them. He did note that he and a small party of men investigated the demolished tunnel and inspected the damage: the wood construction had been burned, leaving smoking timber and tons of rock collapsed at the opening. Convinced that Morgan’s men intended to fire all the rail bridges in the area, Heffren hastened back to Gallatin and put his men in motion for the nearby outpost of Pilot Knob, where a detachment of his men guarded a bridge. Heffren notes he brought along about 130 prisoners—likely the boys and men referenced by Duke.
Heffren arrived at Pilot Knob in the wee hours of August 20, expecting to meet up with the detachment he had dispatched the previous afternoon to reinforce the outpost. They were not there. Unbeknownst to him, Morgan’s cavalry had gobbled them up. Only one officer escaped.
At daybreak, Heffren heard the sound of gunfire coming from the direction of nearby Saundersville and hurriedly put his men in motion to investigate. When within a mile, they observed plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. As Heffren deployed his skirmishers, about 150 enemy troops—Morgan’s men—appeared. Heffren immediately ordered Capt. Attkisson and his men to advance on the right and led the rest of the men forward to the left along the railroad. Muskets and small arms fire from the Hoosiers knocked 10 enemy troopers out of their saddles and scattered the rest.
Heffren continued for another four miles to the outpost at Manscoe’s Creek, arriving at about 11 a.m., and pressed on a short distance to Edgefield Junction. The Hoosiers, footsore, weary, and without rations after about 24 hours of action, needed resupply. Heffren departed for Nashville with the bulk of his command, leaving Attkisson and 21 soldiers behind.
The men had no water, and some of them had their clothes on fire; but yet they fought on and fought terribly, pouring the death-dealing bullets into the enemy’s ranks, so terrible was the resistance, that that enemy broke and fled.
In his supplemental report of the Gallatin reconnaissance, Attkisson recalled that Heffren ordered him to hold the place and a nearby bridge “until resistance could be of no avail.”
Attkisson gathered his men, who had sought rest beneath shade trees, and moved everyone into the crude stockade. He had just stepped outside to wash a day’s buildup of grit from the cool waters of a nearby creek when he spied a massive force of horsemen headed his way.
Colonel Morgan and his cavalry had arrived.
Attkisson hauled himself back to the stockade and alerted his men. As they loaded muskets and readied for the onslaught, the Confederates attempted to drive them out by torching a mountain of hay bales and grain located no more than 20 steps from the stockade. Temperatures rose inside as the intensity of the blaze superheated the timbers. Sparking embers drifted over the walls and landed on uniforms, setting some of the men aflame.
Gunfire erupted as Morgan’s men attacked. The sweating Hoosiers aimed their muskets and revolvers through loopholes and blasted away. “The men had no water, and some of them had their clothes on fire; but yet they fought on and fought terribly, pouring the death-dealing bullets into the enemy’s ranks, so terrible was the resistance, that that enemy broke and fled.”
Morgan’s determined men withdrew only after making two successive charges on horseback and an assault on foot up to the stockade gate. All failed. Morgan paid a high price for the second charge after two of his favorite officers, James A. Smith and Gordon E. Niles, suffered mortal wounds and were captured by Attkisson’s men. Morgan took 24-year-old Niles’ loss especially hard. Born Cordon Eldred Niles in Vermont, he had worked in the newspaper business in Lockport, N.Y., before the war. Sympathetic to the Southern cause, the self-described refugee brought his printing skills to Morgan’s staff, publishing a camp newspaper, The Vidette.
Attkisson stated he lost no men in the two-hour contest, and estimated Morgan’s casualties at 25 killed and 50-75 wounded.
Word of Attkisson’s stubborn defense, and the lopsided numbers involved (Attkisson claimed Morgan’s force numbered 1,000-1,200 when the actual total was likely about a 10th as many) was widely circulated in the North and especially in Indiana. Attkisson earned the nom de guerre “The Gallant Hero of Edgefield Junction” and received a sword and medal commemorating the event as a token of gratitude.
Later in 1862, Attkisson advanced to major after Heffren resigned to protest the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.
A twisted journey from Arkansas to Texas
Torrents of rain flooded the Saline River, leaving a mucky mire that overlapped the banks of its winding channel cutting through the flatlands of central Arkansas. In the thick of the relentless storm, a long, exhausted column of Union troops, with wagons, artillery, and a pontoon bridge in tow, splashed along a washed-out road leading to a crossing at Jenkins’ Ferry. They arrived about nightfall on April 29, 1864. Exhausted, low on supplies, and pursued by Confederates, the federals hoped to get back to its base 50 miles north at Little Rock and bring an end to a weeks-long expedition to Camden, which lay another 50 miles south.
Tom Glass Collection.
The expedition, led by major general and career soldier Frederick Steele, West Point 1843, had occupied Camden and drew Confederates away from the defenses of Shreveport, La., which had been targeted by fellow general Nathaniel P. Banks as part of the Red River Campaign.
Steele and his army, 10,000 strong, could not hold Camden due to enemy activity and resupply issues. At Jenkins’ Ferry, Steele’s men worked through the darkness and battled the elements to construct a single pontoon bridge and open the way to Little Rock. They finished the work overnight and commenced crossing early on April 30, wagons followed by foot soldiers. Some wagons and artillery, hopelessly stuck in the mud, were abandoned.
Steele established a 4,000-man rear guard to protect the crossing. It included Attkisson, now the major of the 50th.
There was no time to lose. The Confederates arrived before dawn and advanced skirmishers to probe the Union lines. Thus began a series of piecemeal assaults in standing water and mud as blasts from musket barrels and cannon tubes lit up the fog and gunsmoke streaked skyline.
Around noon, the Confederate attacks petered out and the troops withdrew without breaking the rear guard. The pontoon bridge and Steele’s army completed the crossing and limped back to Little Rock.
The Confederates lost about a thousand men in the failed effort. The successful defense cost Steele about 700. Among the missing: The Gallant Hero of Edgefield Junction. Attkisson fell into enemy hands during the rear-guard action, one of 119 officers and men of the Hoosier regiment lost during the entire expedition. Initial reports mistakenly listed him as killed.
Attkisson and Ratts “were astounded at thus meeting each other at such a time and in such a place … these two soldiers had feelings within their bosoms that common hardships and toils of other days upon Mexican sands had implanted there that could not be eradicated by all the antagonisms of the rebellion in the land.”
According to an 1869 book, The Soldier of Indiana in the War for the Union, Confederates swapped their own ragged clothing for the prisoners’ better uniforms, and robbed them of everything of value, including photographs. These “treasured miniatures of wives and mothers were taken, and made the subjects of vulgar ribaldry, then thrown into heaps, when the chivalry rode over them with their horses.”
A brutal 250-mile march, lasting the better part of two weeks, with little food and protection from the weather, ended at Camp Ford. Attkisson and the others were part of a massive influx of captives that swelled the prison population from hundreds to thousands during the spring and summer of 1864. According to one estimate, more than 4,000 prisoners packed into the enclosure.
The prisoners were lead outside the grounds in small groups, under the watchful eyes of guards, to collect tree limbs, branches and other forage to construct frames for crude huts topped with earth. Everyone suffered from lack of clothing, exposure, and disease.
Set against this grim backdrop, a timely and altogether unexpected reunion occurred when the Texas state militiaman who guarded Attkisson turned out to be a familiar face—Ratts.
A passage in the Centennial History of Washington County, Indiana tells the tale: “Both were astounded at thus meeting each other at such a time and in such a place. They did not recognize each other when others were present and conversed together as little as possible; but these two soldiers had feelings within their bosoms that common hardships and toils of other days upon Mexican sands had implanted there that could not be eradicated by all the antagonisms of the rebellion in the land.”
These bonds of loyalty changed Attkisson’s fortunes and may have saved his life.
Escape from Camp Ford
Tunnels were a popular means of attempting escape from prisoner of war camps on both sides of the conflict. Using spoons, pocket knives, nails, and other objects found or stolen, teams of prisoners risked life and limb to quietly carve narrow passageways into the earth, braving stifling and fetid air to carefully secrete away excess dirt. Alert commandants and prison guards, well aware of the constant threat, stood vigilant to quash such activities. Among the better-known tunnel escapes are Richmond’s Libby Prison, in which more than 100 Union officers broke out with half finding freedom, and the escape of John Hunt Morgan and a half dozen of his officers from Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus.
Camp Ford had its share of tunnelers, including one effort engineered by two brothers from the 1st Indiana Cavalry, Martin H. and George H. Tucker, who were captured during Steele’s Expedition, and Andrew H. Patrick of the 67th Indiana Infantry, who had fallen into enemy hands at the recent Battle of Sabine Cross Roads during the Red River Campaign. After an escape attempt by slipping through the stockade ended in recapture by guards with blood hounds, they determined to burrow their way out.
A 1910 account by Martin Tucker reveals what happened next.
Choosing an inconspicuous site within a comfortable distance from the dead line, they set about digging at first with a stolen spade, and, later, as the tunnel narrowed, a butcher’s knife. The men worked by night, and naked, to avoid getting dirt on their clothing and attracting the guard’s attention. A small sled crafted of wood and attached by rope enabled them to removed loose dirt from the lengthening shaft. The grueling labor continued day by day over a period of about three months, at which point the diggers believed they might have gone far enough.
To better judge the distance, and locate where outside the stockade the tunnel would emerge, they needed access to the grounds without drawing attention to themselves. To this end, Martin Tucker requested to be assigned to a crew building a hospital. The guards granted permission. Tucker learned that an unnamed Union major had charge of the hospital ward. Tucker took a chance and confided the escape plans to the unnamed major, who agreed to help. The major “took him up near where the tunnel was expected to extend and by having a man in the tunnel they ascertained they had gone far enough.” Tucker soon after returned to his quarters within the stockade and arrangements were cautiously made for the escape.
Tucker’s account notes that during the night of Sept. 27, 1864, about 35 prisoners escaped in squads of three to five. The exact number who actually crawled through and out of the tunnel, and their fates, are unclear. Many were recaptured. Two squads, about six to 10 men, succeeded, including the Tucker boys, who traveled with Robert Burke and Patrick of the 67th Indiana, and Emery D. Behen of the 1st Indiana Cavalry. All five made a harrowing trek to safety within the Union lines at Natchez, Miss., about 275 miles from Camp Ford.
Another account by fellow prisoner of war Linzy Zollars, a wagoner in the 106th Illinois Infantry also captured during the Steele Expedition, notes Attkisson escaped through the tunnel. Considering Attkisson’s rank, he may have been the same helpful major who assisted Tucker in estimating the tunnel’s length.
Neither Tucker’s or Zollars’ recollections indicates to which squad Attkisson belonged. In fact, he made his way to freedom on his own hook—with help from his old Mexican War comrade. Ratts provided him with food, a map, and a horse.
Though particulars of the arrangements are lost in time, one theory holds that Attkisson confided to Ratts the existence of the tunnel and details of the escape, and made his way to a pre-arranged location to rendezvous with Ratts or the items he promised to leave for him.
Ratts betrayed the Confederacy, acting at great risk to his own life. Had he been discovered aiding and abetting a prison escape, he would likely have been court-martialed, and, if found guilty, shot or hung. He kept his act of disloyalty a secret.
Epilogue
Ratts completed his six-month enlistment with his secret intact. According to the historian of Washington County, he revealed his role in the escape of Attkisson at the close of the war. Ratts did not live long to see peace restored to the land, dying in 1867 at age 45. His widow, Syntha, raised their three boys, all named for popular politicians: Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln.
No evidence exists that Ratts saw Attkisson after that fateful night in September 1864, or that he returned to Indiana to reunite with other friends and fellow Mexican War veterans in Salem and surrounding Washington County.
Had he made the trip, he likely would have heard stories about John Hunt Morgan’s June to July 1863 raid into Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. On the morning of July 10, Morgan and his cavalrymen appeared on the hills south of Salem. A few companies of home guards assembled in Salem’s public square and retreated without firing a shot. A delegation of citizens bearing a white flag met an officer from Morgan’s command and surrendered the town. The Confederate occupation of Salem lasted six hours, during which time the raiders torched a brick railroad depot, cars, and bridges, looted stores, and swapped worn horses for fresh mounts.
Following his arrival to Union lines, Attkisson posed for his portrait wearing a coarse overshirt and tattered trousers held up by suspenders, and a well-worn hat. His clothing and unkempt beard, streaked with gray, paints a picture of prison life during the war.
Returning to his family and friends in Salem, Attkisson turned his attention to making sure veterans had access to the benefits to which they were entitled as a result of their war service. He supported his family as a train conductor. While serving in this capacity on July 27, 1875, Attkisson’s train headed towards a washed-out culvert. The alert engineer spotted the danger and told the fireman, brakemen, and Conductor Attkisson to jump. Everyone, including the engineer, leapt from the train before it crashed. All cleared the wreckage except Attkisson, who slipped and fell beside the track as the overturning cars careened off the rails and crushed him. Death, eyewitnesses believed, was instantaneous. He was 46 years old. His wife and three children survived him.
Salem mourned Attkisson’s death, Railroad cars draped in black bunting honored his memory. Townspeople swapped stories about the man they had come to call “Doc Attkisson” in recognition of his kind, benevolent and obliging ways, and his philanthropic impulses to alleviate the pain and suffering of citizens and soldiers.
The Gallant Hero of Edgefield Junction rests in Salem’s Crown Hill Cemetery.
References: Mexican War Service Record Index, National Archives; Mansfield, The Mexican War: A History of its Origin; The Daily Picayune, New Orleans, March 26, 1847; Stieghan, “The Pine Springs Training Camps: Confederate Activities at the Camp Ford Site before the Union Prisoner of War Camp was Established, 1861-1863,” East Texas Historical Journal (October 2024) ; Duke, History of Morgan’s Cavalry; The Nashville Daily Union, Sept. 7, 1862; Rudder, My Father’s Family: Douglas-Haden-Chuchill-Blakey-George-Perkins-Oglesby-Attkisson and Allied Families; The Lafayette Daily Courier, Lafayette, Ind., May 7, 1864; Merrill, The Soldier of Indiana in the War for the Union; The Great Bend Weekly Tribune, Great Bend, Kan., Feb. 25, 1910; Tucker, Escape from a Southern Prison; Betts, “Escape from Camp Ford!,” presented to the Smith County Historical Society, September 1, 2020; The Bedford Star, Bedford, Indiana, July 31, 1875.
Ronald S. Coddington is editor and publisher of MI.
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