and sick were sent by steamship down the Mississippi River and over to Mobile, Alabama, where they were delivered on parole to Confederate authorities. Confederate commanders designated Enterprise, Mississippi as the rendezvous point (parole camp) for the Vicksburg parolees to report to after they got clear of the last Federal control point at Big Black Bridge. By August 3, 1864 it was apparent that most of the Arkansas units had bypassed the established parole camps, and with the assistance of their Union captors, simply crossed the river and returned home. On August 3, 1863 it was reported that only a very small number of the paroled Arkansas troops had reported to parole camps east of the Mississippi River. On August 8, 1863, General Pemberton, wrote to Adjutant General and Inspector General of the Confederate Army, Brigadier General Samuel Cooper to report that the troops from Trans-Mississippi Department (including Arkansas) had abandoned the Army of Mississippi before permission was obtained to furlough them. The troops were ordered to rendezvous at Camden, Arkansas. General Pemberton also requested to send Arkansas troops paroled at after the surrender of Port Hudson to that Camden as well. Because so many of the Vicksburg parolees, especially from Arkansas, simply went home, Major General Pemberton requested Confederate President Davis to grant the men a thirty furlough beginning on July 21. Soldier who did not report to the parole camp with in the time limits of the furlough were not punished as deserters as long as the soldier eventually showed up at a parole camp to be declared exchanged and returned to duty. On August 9, 1863, Confederate Secretary of War James A. Seddon wrote to General Kirby Smith, Commanding the Department of the Trans-Mississippi, informing him that Colonel T.P. Dockery of the 19th Arkansas had been ordered to cross the Mississippi River and reassemble the men of his former brigade at Camden Arkansas. Dockery was to arm, recruit, and return to active service the men of his brigade as quickly as they were exchanged. Seddon opined that prisoners who, with the connivance and instigation of the enemy, left Vicksburg before being properly accounted for by their officers, were not properly listed a prisoners, and therefore were free to re-enter service immediately. Seddon also indicated that it might be advisable to distribute these men to other commands rather than keeping them together, but he left that matter up