Camp Ford News (TX, 1865)

Publication History:

Place of Publication:  Camp Ford (Confederate Prison Fort), Tyler, Texas

Frequency:  “Only one copy is known to have been printed, this being the issue of May 1, 1865”

Volume and Issue Data:  May 1, 1865 (one issue: Civil War ended the next week)

Size and Format:  One sheet broadside

Editor/Publisher:  Capt. Lewis Burger

Title Changes and Continuation:  None

General Description & Notes:

Like the OLD FLAG and RIGHT FLANKER, this was a paper created to relieve the monotony and trials of prison life during the Civil War.  Only one issue appeared apparently because May 13-17, 1865 marked the end of the Civil War and the abandonment of Camp Ford.

Camp Ford was part of a Confederate prison complex in Tyler and Hempstead, Texas.  The prison held officers and enlisted men from 1863 to the end of war and the prisoners had built their own shelters.  After 1864 and the Red River Campaign, prison crowding and sickness increased, and the general conditions of prison life declined.  It was during these latter days of the War that the paper was produced.

Information Sources:

Bibliography:  F. Lee Lawrence and Robert W. Glover, Camp Ford, C.S.A.:  The Story of Union Prisoners in Texas (Austin, Texas:  Texas Civil War Centennial Advisory Committee, 1964); Mark Boatner, III, The Civil War Dictionary (New York: Random House, 1991).

Locations:  Smith County Historical Society, Texas