I hope you don't mind my butting in here, but I have some questions regarding information on my ggrandfather who was imprisoned at Camp Morton from 1863-1865. Would anyone know if the information I could obtain by going through the NARA is just the same type of information I've already received from my ggrandfather's (Moses H. Davidson, 1st Alabama Cav. CSA,Co. B), cmsr? I would be interested in having his records searched further if it could possibly show more detail (medical records, next of kin, etc.) however I'm not sure if any more information than what I already have is possible to be found?

Included in the cmsr I have on ggranddaddy were three pages showing his "company muster roll" and "Prisoner of War" cards for the period of Oct. 1863 - Feb. 1865. It states on the "Roll of Prisoners of War" that ggrandaddy was captured at Farminton, TN on Oct. 7, 1863. The first card says he was forwared to Louisville, KY on Nov. 13, 1863 "for exchange". It then next states that he was forwarded from Louisville Military Prison to Camp Morton, IND. On Nov. 14, 1863. He appears on those rolls at Camp Morton until one of the "Roll of Prisoners of War" cards states that he was "paroled at Camp Morton, Ind. and forwarded via Baltimore, MD to Point Lookout, Md for exchange, Feb. 14, 1865". The next (and last) card shown says he was "transferred for EXCHANGE" from Camp Morton on Feb. 19, 1865. That is the last bit of information listed on a card for him. However, I did find a notation separately that he was discharged from Camp Morton in March of 1865.

So... some questions.

Does "EXCHANGE" in the above paragraph actually just refer to ggrandfather being transferred to Point Lookout - or do they mean he was exchanged back to the south from there? And if he was exchanged back to the south, why wouldn't the north have waited until the end of the war to do so? Could it have to do with his health? His military records state that he was wounded during his capture in the "head, neck and jaw" - and my grandmother always said he had only one eye as he'd lost one during the war. But... if that is the case and his health was so bad, how on earth could he have managed to make his way all the way back south to Alabama from Maryland? I doubt he had any money by that point and surely he couldn't have paid for a train or walked? He was a freemason, but I doubt that could have seriously come into play. So I'm just curious how these exchanged soldiers were supposed to make their way back home?

Also - why would the North have sent granddaddy from Camp Morton to Point Lookout and then released him from there less than a month later? Wouldn't it have made more sense to have just let him go from Camp Morton if they were planning to release him anyway?

Thanks if any of you can enlighten me about some of this.

Just as an FYI - thought I'd post a link to an interesting article written by a fellow prisoner at Camp Morton who was there the exact same time as ggranddaddy - apparently he, too, was captured the same day during the Sequatchie Raid.
http://www.champenois.com/genealogy/campmorton.html

Diane