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Pvt. Baxter, along with the rest of the company, must have been surprised, and pleased, by the first rations they drew. No one in the 20th Mississippi would have bet on receiving, in a Yankee prison camp, the following items: crackers, baker?s bread, chip beef, fresh beef, ground coffee, sugar, beans, and cheese. They were also surprised by the quarters; "very good barracks," Sgt. Taylor commented in his diary.
Camp Douglas was on the estate of the late Senator Stephen A. Douglas in the Chicago Southside. Its boundaries were roughly 31st and 33rd Streets between Cottage Grove Avenue and South Parkway. Lake Michigan lay a few blocks to the east, the old fair grounds to the west. The land was low and swampy, and satisfactory drainage was never achieved.
The camp	had been established	in August, 1861, as	a
mobilization and	collection point for	the Northern Military
District of Illinois. Later it was used as a camp for Union soldiers paroled after capture by Southern forces. Grant?s victory at Fort Donelson	changed all this, and Camp Douglas	became	a
prison camp for	the rest of the war.	Later on it	gained	a
reputation that put it practically in the same category as that of the South?s Andersonville. But for the seven month?s that Baxter spent in Camp Douglas, conditions, though not good, were at least endurable.
On the Tuesday following arrival of the 20th Mississippi, all officers (including Lt. Champlin of Company E) were moved to Camp Chase near Columbus, Ohio. Left in charge of the company was 1st Sgt. Taylor, the senior noncommissioned officer. By now Taylor had the company well settled in its barracks, and the mess organized and functioning. The prison barracks housing Company E was typical of those at Camp Douglas. Patterned on the U. S. Army barracks of the period, a typical building was a one-story wooden structure 90 x 24 feet, with 20 feet cut off at one end for a kitchen. The remaining 70-foot section was divided into three rooms. Tiers of bunks standing three high could accommodate as many as 170 men. Company E seems to have been less crowded, for on March 6 there were only 92 men in their barracks.
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