During the winter of 1863-64, Camp Ford held only about 170 prisoners, mostly officers, and life was generally pleasant. The men were well treated, prison crafts and other endeavors flourished, substantial log cabins were erected, and streets were laid out and named. Captain William May of the 23rd Connecticut produced three issues of a hand-lettered prison newspaper, The Old Flag, and Captain Amos Johnson of the USS Sachem, named commissioner of Aqueducts, developed a series of catch basins in the spring branch for drinking, washing, and bathing. In early March 1864, as a Union advance on Shreveport threatened, 700 prisoners from Shreveport were marched back to Tyler. After Confederate victories at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, on April 8 and 9, 1864, more than 2,000 Union soldiers were captured and quickly marched to Tyler. Ordered on April 12 to prepare for the new inmates, Colonel R.T.P. Allen oversaw an emergency enlargement of the stockade, using impressed local slaves to alter the walls and provide timbers that quadrupled the stockade's area to about eleven acres. With additional battles in Arkansas and Louisiana, the prison population grew to around 5,000 by mid June. Confederate officials could not provide shelter for so many men, so suffering became intense: tools were inadequate, many prisoners dug holes in the ground for shelter, rations were often insufficient, and the death rate soared, though not to the levels of other prisons. Of the camp's 316 total deaths, 232 occurred between July and November 1864. Probably the most significant reason the camp's death rate remained comparatively low was Johnson's catch basins, which kept the water from being contaminated. Feeding more than 5,000 prisoners strained the Smith County area, and efforts were made to reduce the camp population. Camp Groce was reopened, and on July 4, 504 prisoners were sent there. On July 22, 856 of the early prisoners captured in Louisiana were paroled and sent to Shreveport for exchange. The prison then settled into grim boredom: an open area at the top of the hill was used for baseball, and a surrounding track or ring became a place where prisoners walked for hours. As fall approached, prisoners urgently sought better quarters and appealed to the U.S. military for clothing and tools. In a trade for Confederate cotton, those items arrived through the lines in mid September, and after another exchange of 800 prisoners in October, the remaining men were able to build enough log huts for the coming winter.
