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Complete Forecast for  Sep 07 2008

TOP JOBS

By ADAM RUSSELL
Staff Writer

A prisoner of war’s first duty is survival, their second, to escape. Article III of the U.S. Military Code of Conduct, made official in 1955, states “If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape.”

Captured soldiers throughout American history have adhered to that principle.

In March 1864, officers from the 26th Indiana, prisoners inside Camp Ford prepared for escape from the Confederate prisoner of war camp by tunneling.

The plan began in the bunkhouse of the 26th Indiana, the closest to the north wall of the camp. The prisoners, by most historical accounts, dug a 106 foot tunnel between 5 to 7 feet below the surface that would end beyond the grave of the first soldier to die in the camp. The tunnel was described in material published by one of the prisoners, Col. Charles C. Nott, as wide enough for two men to pass and tall enough to sit up in. Two men worked the tunnel at the same time. One excavated with tools consisting of a bayonet or sword, a broken shovel and a box, which the other filled and removed the dirt.

By April the men made preparations for a nighttime escape. April 15 was designated as the best suited because of the late rising moon.

On April 13, camp superiors were given orders to expand the camp to accommodate another 4,000 prisoners of war. The expansion moved the northern perimeter 600 feet and left, as Nott put it, “our unfortunate tunnel high and dry in the middle of this new enclosure.” The tunnel was abandoned.

Saturday morning, 144 years after the Union soldiers cut their way through the East Texas clay and dirt in an attempt to escape captivity, a team equipped with ground penetrating radar made their second attempt to locate the tunnel.

Randy Gilbert, a local lawyer and amateur historian, coordinated the group, including a radar team, an archeologist and volunteer, to search for another piece of the camp’s history.

In 1997 the Center for Ecological Archeology at Texas A&M University surveyed the Camp Ford grounds, just north of Loop 323 on U.S. Highway 271, in search of the tunnel and other historically significant pieces. They did not find the tunnel but were able to define the perimeter of the camp’s walls and a few of the building sites. Gilbert said despite the inability to find the tunnel, the work done by the A&M crew laid the foundation for the day’s search. At the onset of the morning, Gilbert was cautiously confident. More technologically advanced equipment and a general idea of the tunnel’s location gave him that confidence.

“Hopefully we will find it,” he said. “If we are successful we could turn this into a major historical and archeological project.”

Camp Ford and adding to its history is Gilbert’s passion. Prisoner roster lists, hand-drawn camp renderings by prisoners and the diagram of the camp by which Texas Parks and Wildlife Department archeologist Todd McMakin and the Yellow Rose Ground Penetrating Radar crew of Ray McCoy and Rhett Williams will narrow their search can be credited to Gilbert and other Smith County Historical Society volunteer’s interest and efforts.

McMakin and a volunteer set up the grid for McCoy and Williams to make their east and west 24 inch swaths with the radar device. McMakin said an early discovery would be nice but that they were confident the tunnel lay within a 100 by 50 foot area inside the camp’s pre-expansion perimeter. The anticipation built as Williams began sweeping the grid with the radar.

“I find this stuff fascinating,” McMakin said as he walked around the site. “Can you imagine how much work those guys put in to (the tunnel)? Anything like this that I can be involved with is well worth the time.”

After working the radar back and forth for a short time the crew was on to something. The radar showed an anomaly within the soil. McMakin explained that the soil is naturally textured and that any changes in its profile could indicate a find. Williams located the beginning and ending of the anomaly which McMakin marked with orange paint and small yellow flags. Gilbert remained guarded as the crew continued the survey and place more markers.

“You hate to get terribly excited but when you start putting marks on the ground it’s…,” he said pacing away from the crew.

The crew continued their work. By mid-afternoon, Gilbert said, the survey had located an 88 foot anomaly about two to three feet wide running north. It may not be the tunnel in question, Gilbert said, but he was told it was a tunnel none-the-less. McMakin said “ground truthing” would be the next step in authenticating the find as a tunnel. Another crew will visit the sight and core drill within the markers, to identify the void.

Gilbert said he has no plans as to how the SCHS would or could display the tunnel if it is authenticated and in tact but hopes an adequate way to feature the tunnel can be found. Gilbert said from an academic standpoint, the process of going from historical record to tangible evidence of an unused Civil War escape tunnel is amazing and unique. He said having nearly every state in the Union represented by prisoners in the camp and tangible evidence of their experience during their imprisonment makes the discovery significant.

“(The soldiers) thought so much about their country that they were willing to fight and die to preserve the Union,” Gilbert said. “This is a tangible part of the period. It ties into the people that were there and helps us remember them.”