Vicksburg: POW Exchange Point

During the summer of 1862, the Dix-Hill Cartel created a system regulating prisoner exchanges.  This included enlisted men (and women), officers, civilians, and civilians employed by the military, such as teamsters and sutlers. You can read the details of the agreement by clicking (HERE).  One element of this system was establishing sites that would serve as exchange points.  City Point was chosen for the east and Vicksburg for the west.

At least one woman was exchanged at Vicksburg under this cartel.  Mary Ann Clark was captured in Kentucky in late 1862.  The unit she was with and the battle where she was taken vary.  Most accounts claim it was Richmond (KY). But I have also seen it listed as Perryville.  And then another source says she was captured by a Federal detachment, which indicates she was serving picket, out on a patrol, or foraging, if this had indeed been the situation when she was taken.

Clark was initially sent to Louisville where she was discovered by her feminine sneeze of all things and then it was on to Cairo with other soldiers who had been captured in the Bluegrass State. According to a newspaper reporter, he believed there were at least three women among the prisoners, and they were as filthy as their male comrades.  However, it seems that only Clark's disguise was revealed.

Among the guards there was Alexander Hidlebaugh, Mark's great-great-great grandfather, with the 35th Iowa Infantry.  If Private Hidlebaugh had seen Clark, he may not have realized that she had served as a soldier since she had exchanged her uniform for feminine clothing at that time, courtesy of the citizens of Cairo who provided her with a dress.

From Cairo, Clark, closely veiled, made her way down the river by steamer to Vicksburg with her fellow POW's.  The timberclad gunboat, Lexington, served as an armed escort.  As they hove to, the passengers noticed Confederate soldiers lining the banks of the river city.  One diarist noted,  "The Rebel pickets taking advantage of the presence of the flag of truce which accompanied the prisoners, showed themselves in groups along the levee smoking and lounging about in the most nonchalant manner imaginable."   (The Civil War on the Mississippi:  Union Sailors, Gunboat Captains, and the Campaign to Control the River, p. 187)

Lexington
Wikipedia

Confederates sailed out on the Charm to trade prisoners.  The steamboat was 165 feet long with a 26 foot floor and 5 ½ feet depth of hold.  She had two 25-foot paddle wheels with seven foot buckets.  Part of her opulent amenities that Mary Ann Clark may have noticed included a chandelier and silverware.

 After arriving back on shore, the prisoners would have been taken to any number of camps in the area to await a formal exchange. Clark more than likely ended up in Jackson because she was spotted there in late December 1862.  Sources say that she was exchanged for a Union woman "taken under similar circumstances in Virginia."  This woman is unknown.  There was a female captured while serving with Franz Sigel during the fall of 1862.  However, the Confederates returned her to the Federals under a flag of truce. Or they attempted to anyway.  I couldn't find whether the Federals did indeed take her back.  Besides her, I could not find any other woman soldier serving with the Union army who was captured around the same time as Mary Ann Clark and sent to prison.

There were two steamboats that more than likely transported Clark and her fellow POW's to Vicksburg.  Both left within a week of each other   The Mary Crane departed Louisville on November 29th, 1862, and the City of Madison on December 5th.  Julius Aroni, a newspaper editor, witnessed the arrival of the overcrowded City of Madison on December 20th.  Among the approximately 900 prisoners on board was Mary Ann Clark and John Hunt Morgan's brother, Captain Charlton Hunt Morgan, who had been wounded and taken prisoner at Shiloh. 

From Find a Grave

Another prisoner Aroni mentioned was Charles Maigne.

No, not him! 

He might be one of these guys:

Co. C, Terry's Texas Rangers
which was Maigne's company
Wikipedia

Private Charles Maigne, the POW, was serving with Terry's Texas Rangers (or the 8th Texas Cavalry) when all 5'3" of him was captured in Whitley County, Kentucky following the Battle of Perryville.

From Fold3

According to his service records, Maigne departed Louisville on the Mary Crane on November 29th, 1862.  Did he change steamers at Cairo and make the final leg of the trip to Vicksburg on the City of Madison?

Two years after these prisoners came through Vicksburg, my relative found his way to the river city as a paroled POW as well.  Captured at the Battle of Nashville, John Lizana of the 3rd Mississippi Infantry was initially sent to Louisville and then to Camp Chase before arriving at Vicksburg at the end of the war.  He survived the war and imprisonment but not for long.  Acute bronchitis claimed his life in May 1865.  He almost made it home.  I have yet to locate his grave.

John's brother, Ernest, didn't make it either.  But I don't know exactly what happened to him.  His service records just say, "Dead 1862."  He's buried at Soldier's Rest Cemetery in Vicksburg.

One of my uncles
Soldiers Rest, Vicksburg
Headstone says Cav but he was Infantry

 Over the course of the war, the prisoner exchange system broke down and resumed several times.  Such was the case a month before John died when officials established Camp Fisk at Four Mile Bridge on the outskirts of Vicksburg to serve as an exchange point to alleviate the overcrowding problem at the prison at Cahaba, Alabama.  Some of those Union prisoners paroled there that April ended up perishing in the Sultana disaster.

The Sultana wasn't the only steamer that exploded during the war.  The City of Madison itself blew up at Vicksburg in August 1863, when a deck hand dropped a box of percussion caps amidst a cargo of ammunition being transported.  The Charm was also lost, but not by explosion.  She was burned and sank in May 1863, in the Big Black River.

Camp Fisk is pretty much gone today.  However, visitors can still drive by the area where it was located.  It's approximately two miles from the visitor center.  Mark and I went there back in November and snapped some pictures.  There's a small stream to the right in this photo that served as a water source for the camp.  We got some pictures of that, too, but can't find them for the life of me.  *grumble*

Location of Camp Fisk
Photo by Mark Hidlebaugh

Just like Camp Fisk, Mary Ann Clark vanished into history.  Following her exchange at Vicksburg, she headed east to Atlanta where she was last seen in January 1863.  After that, her story is lost until after the war when she remarried.  (She had divorced her abusive husband before enlisting)

Until next formation...rest.