Yes, that is exactly what I meant. I re-read my reply after I sent it off, and it occurred to me I committed the error of not answering that part of your question as plainly as I should have.

The Yanks placed their own soldier criminals--such as captured deserters--openly in with the southern POW's, at least in the St. Louis area prisons, and also in the jail at Springfield, MO, as I recall my reading. I have not studied the southern military prisons as I have those, but I never heard of the Confederates placing their own soldier criminals in with the Union POW's. A fortuntate result of this practice--at least for the Yanks--was that some of the Union soldier criminals informed on Confederate escape attempts in order to gain favors from the prison administrators. The sad part for the escaping Rebels in the St. Louis area prisons was that a number of those were escaping to avoid execution from a tribunal conviction of being named as guerrillas, and their failure to escape doomed them to the firing squad.

Bruce Nichols