Editor’s Note: This is an edited version of a much longer essay by the authors.

Why, 150 years after the Civil War, do we keep returning to this terrible war? More often than not, we find ourselves drawn to the human dimension of the war — to the people and places that form the core of our national and local histories.

“The American Civil War’s Impact on Tyler” exhibition at the Tyler Museum of Art highlights significant families of Tyler and Smith County and frames the war from their perspective.

The local community sent their sons to the front, guarded Union prisoners at Camp Ford and manufactured weapons at the Tyler ordnance works on the square.

This exhibition honors the heritage of those who served and tells the story of a community at war through photographs, maps and historical artifacts. The TMA is proud to collaborate with the Goodman-LeGrand House & Museum, Smith County Historical Society, The University of Texas at Tyler and private collectors to increase awareness of the technological, scientific and human impact of the war.

Camp Ford, a prisoner of war camp for captured Union soldiers, sailors and some civilians, was located four miles northeast of Tyler. The camp started in April 1862 as a training camp for Confederate volunteers and conscripts. It was named for Colonel John S. “Rip” Ford, a Texas Ranger, ardent secessionist and colonel of the 2nd Texas Cavalry based in the Rio Grande district during the Civil War. By 1863 the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department recognized the need for a permanent prisoner detention site, and for a number of reasons Camp Ford was chosen.

The prisoners’ quarters were shebangs, a name that applied to all their dwellings, from log cabins to dugouts carved out to the ground. They were often A-frames with a center pole and covered with sticks, blankets, brush or whatever was available.

The prisoner population reached its peak in the late spring and summer of 1864 with the influx of prisoners from the ill-fated Union Red River Campaign and battles in Arkansas. Depending on the source, the Camp population may have grown to between 4,779 and 5,550.

The first long-term camp commandant was a West Point graduate, CSA Col. R.T.P. Allen, who was severely wounded in June 1863 and assumed command of the Tyler Camp of Instruction in November 1863, as the camp was evolving into a prisoner-of-war detention center.

Food was a central concern for prisoners and citizens alike. The stipulated ration for the camp was cornmeal and beef, but it varied as the population grew and the war continued. Robert Glover commented in his manuscript on Camp Ford that “it was remarkable that the Commissary Department was able to supply food to the prisoners in Camp Ford in sufficient quantity to sustain life. Particularly was this true when the population of Camp Ford was three or four times the size of Tyler itself.”

Among the objects created by Camp Ford entrepreneurs is an exquisitely engraved steer horn by Captain D.W. King, Company A., New Hampshire Cavalry. He was captured at the Battle of Mansfield on April 8, 1864, during the Red River Campaign. King carved patriotic symbols of the United States into the horn: a shield with Old Glory and an eagle with an anchor in its talons. The horn is of special interest to the citizens of Tyler as King included a Tyler rose beneath the name of the city.

As was the case for soldiers on both sides, boredom was one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome throughout the war. One of the more fascinating activities mentioned in the diaries of many Union prisoners was that they played baseball. One noted “… one group of Kansans organized baseball team …” and played in a ring that was established in the northeastern corner of the stockade. The game is also mentioned in the Harper’s Weekly article that appears in the March 4, 1865 issue. Baseball was in its infancy at the time of the Civil War, and following the war it grew rapidly and was played throughout the reunited United States of America.

The game itself, captured in photos during the war and on broadsides afterward, is one of the human stories of the Civil War that carries us back 150 years. And of course, the occasional baseball game does not overshadow the real horror of life in Civil War prison camps. But if nothing else, the fact that men deprived of their freedom and most of their physical comforts nevertheless found time for the sport demonstrates how deep a chord baseball had struck in 19th century American culture, and foreshadowed how quickly it would spread after the war ended.

Tyler’s history during the Civil War is not yet finished. While this exhibit highlights a few of the area’s contributions and citizens, it is the hope of the TMA, the Smith County Historical Society, the Goodman-LeGrand House, the Pearce Museum and our contributors that this exhibition begins a new chapter in Smith County’s rich history during the Civil War. We invite citizens to come forward and share their family histories so that we may properly document and preserve our community’s contribution to our nation’s history.

 

Letha Clair Robertson is associate professor of art and art history at The University of Texas at Tyler, and guest curator of “Between the States: Photographs of the American Civil War from the George Eastman House Collection” and “The American Civil War’s Impact on Tyler.” Christopher M. Leahy is executive director of Tyler Museum of Art.