Jim:

I have been doing some reading in the Official Records, Series II, Volume 5 about the Arkansas Post POWs and Camp Douglas. The Camp Douglas 1863 POW photo could also have been taken in February or March 1863, although there does not appear to be any snow on the ground.

Some 4,000 Confederate POWs captured at Arkansas Post on 11 JAN 1863 were sent to Camp Douglas arriving there on 8 FEB 1863. [See OR, II, 5, p257] The Federal troops present at Camp Douglas when the decision to send the POWs there was made were unarmed, but that was quickly rectified before the Confederate POWs arrived. [See OR, II, 5, pp 207, 209] The POWs were detained at Camp Douglas until about 31 MAR 1863 when they were sent cross country by rail to Baltimore, and from there by steamboat to City Point, Virginia and delivered in several groups between 3 APR and 10 APR 1863. According to a posting on the CWMB some time ago, the CMSR for Ward C. Ferguson of the 19th Arkansas Infantry shows that he was captured at Arkansas Post on 11 JAN 1863, arrived at Camp Douglas on 8 FEB 1863, and was delivered from Camp Douglas to Confederate authorities at City Point on 10 APR 1863.

POWs captured about the same time at Murphreesborough, Tennessee were sent to City Point by rail through Baltimore, and then by water to City Point. They were delivered on or about 15 FEB 1863. [CMSR Private C. S. Dunaway, Co. E, 51st Alabama Partisan Rangers] Federal Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs was incensed about the cost of transporting the prisoners cross country and wrote to Colonel William Hoffman, Commissary-General of Prisoners in the Federal War Department arguing against what was being done on 4 FEB 1863. Specific to clothing, he wrote: “They should be delivered with the least possible baggage and clothing. While we had no cartel and retained prisoners, it was right and humane to supply them with absolutely necessary clothing, but I think that none of this should be allowed to go within the rebel lines and relieve their great want of such supplies.” Hoffman wrote back on 6 FEB 1863 explaining that his transfer order which had provoked Meigs’ strenuous objections applied only to the Murfreesborough prisoners. Hoffman wrote: “Those captured in Arkansas and elsewhere will be held at the camp in the West. Eight hundred prisoners were recently sent to Vicksburg for exchange but were returned in consequence of the operations against that city. If these prisoners are held at all, it seems to be unavoidable that some clothing must be issued to them, but it will be confined to that which is absolutely necessary to cover their nakedness.” [See OR, II, 5, pp. 239,249]

The 1863 group photo of the Camp Douglas prisoners suggests that their “nakedness” was well covered indeed. If the group photo was taken in February or March 1863 at Camp Douglas, it surely suggests that the “left hand” and the “right hand” of the Federal War Department were not operating in sync relative to the issue of prisoner clothing issues at this mid-point of the war.

Maybe they took away all of the good clothes after the photographers left and prior to the delivery of the POWs at City Point!

Hugh