The initial guards at Camp Ford were local militia commanded by Captain S.M. Warner. When the Fordoche prisoners arrived in October 1863, their numbers proved inadequate, and the Walter P. Lang Rangers, an independent cavalry company, were rushed from Shreveport to help control the prisoners. Colonel R.T.P. Allen of the 17th Texas Infantry arrived with them while recovering from July wounds, and he was noted for kind treatment of those under his charge; his wife was also kindly regarded by prisoners and called "mother Allen." After enlisted men were removed to Shreveport in late November, the militia and Rangers could guard the camp adequately, but a massive influx of prisoners in April and May again made the existing force insufficient. In late May, a large contingent of Anderson's Texas Cavalry arrived, Allen was relieved by Lieutenant Colonel T. Scott Anderson, and Anderson's adjutant, Lieutenant B.W. McEachern, became known as "Keno" after prisoners stole his pistol while he was absorbed in a game with them and the weapon was returned only after rations were stopped. Many of Anderson's men resented prison duty, and in late July more than a hundred deserted, with even some troops sent after them also deserting, causing panic and bringing new troops to Tyler. Anderson was then relieved by Colonel J.P. Borders, who was in turn relieved by Colonel George Sweet of the 15th Texas Cavalry, and in October Colonel J.P. Bradfute took command of the post of Tyler, controlling the camp commandant and remaining in that position until the end of the war. The guard thereafter included Sweet's regiment, Colonel Reuben R. Brown's 35th Texas Cavalry, and battalions of the Reserve Corps, generally men over 45, and during this period they built substantial quarters on the east side of the stockade and sold them to incoming troops when transfers occurred. Even after Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865, some still considered continuing the war in Texas, but by May 19 most of the guards had simply gone home. Prison guard duty was widely disliked, requiring men to stand 12 hour shifts in all weather. Some guards committed unprovoked shootings, beginning in November 1863 when militiaman Frank Smith killed Private Thomas Moorehead of the 19th Iowa; Colonel Allen convened a court of inquiry that included Federal officers, and at least five other fatal shootings were also judged unjustified. Treatment of prisoners varied with the temperament of the guards. Captain A.M. Alford of Harrison's Louisiana cavalry battalion, who oversaw the Fordoche prisoners on their march to Camp Ford in October 1863, was accused in several accounts of dragging stragglers with a rope behind his horse and muddying their water source, while other prisoner groups were less strictly handled and some officers could even hire private conveyances. Hounds were used to track escapees, which prisoners universally resented, and some officers such as Borders imposed punishments including bucking and gagging or hanging men by their thumbs. Yet this harshness was presented as exceptional, and one prisoner wrote that the Confederates did for the prisoners all that was possible with the means in their power and treated them as well as prisoners could expect to be treated.