Hello Mic, Somewhere I think I have that same letter? Did he join Forrest in December of 1861 or January of 1862? The place if I remember right was Memphis, Tennessee.

And also I think I have a complete roster of all of the blacks being brought to Camp Chase from Donelson. I think there were 74 in all. The handwriting is absolutely atrocious yet it's the only thing I've saw. If you don't have the roster let me know and I'll look on my emails. It is available on ancestry under Camp Chase also it was on micro-film and this is where I copied it from years ago. Somehow I'll see that you have the copy in the future. But good luck with trying to read it. Each black had a separate physical description from what I remember but only a given name.

The 1860 slave census for Red River County, Texas might also list how many blacks were slaves and how many if any were free.

If I remember right Sergeant Jamison was taken to Camp Douglas and Walter was sent to Chase. The soldiers parted company to separate prisons in Cairo, Illinois from what I remember and Walter and Haywood probably did not know Sims that well at the time.

If the blacks were buried at the Southeast Cemetery they should be the only ones that had been buried there. Green Lawn in the early days had a separate cemetery for the blacks and Green Lawn was established in 1848, again from memory.