You wrote: >>> I am writing a book about my 50th TN ancestors who were sent to Camp Douglas, IL. Taken prisoners after surrender of Ft Donelson. I need info as to the process of prisoner exchanges, and how they were transported. <<<

The prisoner of war exchange process was in a constant state of flux from the beginning of the war to the end. Early in the war, commanders in the field frequently returned POWs to their respective sides at some nearby point in the aftermath of a contest. The men were deemed to have been exchanged, and were free to return to duty.

Beginning in early 1862, large numbers of prisoners began to be accumulated by both sides. Reading the Official Records correspondence gives us an indication that there was no clear understanding of what to do with these early war POWs between the Federal War Department and their commanders in the field and at various posts charged with holding prisoners of war. Frankly, nobody had thought very much about the issue except the officers stuck with detaining the prisoners. This came to a head in the summer of 1862.

The Dix-Hill Cartel, a general exchange agreement between the two War Departments, was signed on 22 JUL 1862. It required that all prisoners of war then in captivity be paroled and returned to their respective sides to await an exchange declaration. Thereafter, all POWs captured were to be paroled for exchange and returned to their own sides to await an exchange declaration within ten days of capture, or as soon as practicable thereafter.

Their parole, a sworn personal promise, precluded them from returning to any military duties until properly exchanged. A proper exchange resulted from an accounting process in which the agents of exchange appointed by each side sat down and agreed upon lists of men who were to be exchanged. Officers were exchanged on a personal basis – Lieutenant Smith (CSA) for Lieutenant Jones (USA), etc. The names of enlisted men were checked off of the POW rosters, numbers were counted, men were traded rank for rank, or equivalents (all enlisted ranks were treated as privates, a colonel was worth a fixed number of privates, etc.). Once a name had been checked off, the lists of exchanged officers and men were sent to the respective war departments and word was passed to the soldier and to his unit that he was declared exchanged and could return to duty.

The Dix-Hill Cartel specified two delivery points for handing over paroled prisoners of war – Aiken’s Landing on the James River, and Vicksburg on the Mississippi River. Paroled POWs were transported to the delivery point and handed over to their respective sides. Each side then held their returning men, still paroled prisoners of war, in special parole camps to await word of their declaration of exchange.

The Fort Donelson POWs were captured in early 1862 and held in various northern POW camps and hospitals. They were delivered to Confederate authorities at Vicksburg under the Dix-Hill Cartel in August and September 1862. From my 12th Louisiana Infantry research, I can tell you that the steamboat most often cited as the delivery vessel arriving at Vicksburg was the Steamer John H. Done. There were others. The paroled prisoners of the 12th Louisiana Infantry were encamped near Jackson, Mississippi to await their exchange declaration. The list of these returned paroled POWs was sent to the agents of exchange who were meeting at Aiken’s Landing on a frequent basis and the exchange accounting process was completed in October and November 1862.

The men from western Confederate units did not go to the James River or other places on the east coast for delivery until after Vicksburg became the target for General Grant’s armies in late 1862. The last delivery of POWs to Vicksburg under the Dix-Hill Cartel occurred in December 1862. Thereafter, they were transported east by rail and water to City Point on the James River. By agreement, City Point replaced Aiken's Landing as the place of delivery on the James River in November 1862. Vicksburg would not become the place for exchange delivery again until the end of the war. The actually exchange place then was at the west end of Big Black Bridge. Camp Townsend was the official name of the neutral parole camp.

You asked: >>> Also captured at Franklin and sent to Camp Chase till April 17, 1865. Need info on how they got home - if Union provided transportation, etc. <<<

My research into the records of the 12th Louisiana Infantry indicate that the men captured at Franklin and Nashville in December 1864 were divided between the able bodied and those needing hospital care. The able bodied generally were sent immediately to Camp Douglas while the sick and wounded went to a USA hospital in Nashville and/or were sent to Camp Chase. “Humanitarian” exchanges were being implemented in the east beginning in September 1864, and some of these sick and wounded were included. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that General Grant ended the exchange process when he took commanded of all Union armies in 1864, the Federal War Department had refused to abide by the Dix-Hill Cartel beginning in July 1863.

You have cited a specific date (17 APR 1865) relative to Camp Chase and asked if the Federal government provided transportation home. Men who were released from military prisons after the war ended first took the Oath of Allegiance and then were provided with transportation to a point nearest their homes that could be reached by water and/or rail. The release of POWs from northern POW camps after taking the Oath of Allegiance requires an entirely different discussion which I won’t go into here.

Men who were paroled for exchange were delivered to specific delivery exchange points. There were no deliveries of paroled prisoners of war on the James River after the end of March 1865 when preparations for the final assault on the Confederate defenses around Petersburg began.

However, the war did not end with General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox on 9 APR 1865. Lee’s surrender applied only to the forces under his command and the state of Virginia. General Johnston’s surrender on 26 APR 1865 at Greensboro, North Carolina and General Taylor’s surrender on 4 MAY 1865 at Citronelle, Alabama completed the surrender of Confederate armies and territories east of the Mississippi River. The Confederate Trans-Mississippi did not officially surrender until 26 MAY 1865. Deliveries of paroled prisoners of war for exchange occurred at Camp Townsend (Big Black Bridge) and Red River Landing (Pointe Coupee Parish in Louisiana) in April and early May of 1865. Deliveries of paroled prisoners ceased at Camp Townsend soon after word of the Citronelle surrender arrived.

I am particularly interested in why the date of 17 APR 1865 is important in your analysis of the 50th Tennessee Infantry records. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Hugh Simmons