Recounts in lively detail his service in the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department. Ford was mustered into service with Missouri state troops in May 1861, serving in the infantry at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, May 1861, and at the Battle of Pea Ridge (Elk Horn), March 1862, two of over 100 battles in which he participated. He describes his battle experiences, as well as marches, encampments, and expeditions to recruit men for Confederate military service. In 1862 he went to Missouri to recruit a company for General Joseph (Jo) Orville Shelby's Brigade of Cavalry, in which be became orderly sergeant and later captain in command of the company. He campaigned in Missouri and Arkansas, participating among other engagements in the 1863 Cape Girardeau Expedition. Of interest are his comments about the poor quality of Indian troops, whom he considers worthless in a hotly contested engagement and impossible to discipline. He also describes in detail the capture of a Federal gunboat at Clarendon, Ark., on the White River. Ford's reminiscences contain descriptions of incidents of brutality and mistaken and confused identities due to lack of uniform dress which characterized the irregular warfare conducted in this theater of the Civil War. At the War's end he started with Shelby to Mexico to avoid surrendering but as head of the men who preferred to return to their families, about one-half of Shelby''s force, he surrendered in Shreveport, La., on June 15, 1865.
