Some five hundred Massachusetts soldiers occupied Galveston while Union Major General N. P. Banks ordered several strong regiments to be transferred from Louisiana to this Texas toe-hold.[39] Before these reinforcements could embark for Galveston, however, Major General John B. Magruder, recently named commander of the Confederate Military District of Texas, instituted a lightening stroke to regain the island for the South. He called for volunteers from Sibley’s veterans and a number of militia companies to mass at Virginia Point. Then in the early hours of January 1, 1863, two converted gunboats, the _Neptune_ and the _Bayou City_, attacked the United States fleet while Magruder, whose men had crept across the railroad bridge, attacked the Galveston wharves. Within a matter of minutes the attack ended in marked success. The Texans took three Federal ships and over three hundred and fifty prisoners. Galveston was once more under the Stars and Bars.[40] In various actions during the first two years of the war, Texans took a number of prisoners of war. These men had to be held in custody until arrangements could be made for their exchange. Some of the prisoners were kept in “prison canyon” near Camp Verde in Kerr County. There was a pit-like gully where Union soldiers were allowed to build shacks and to get adequate exercise with little risk of escape. At one time this crude system held six hundred inmates.[41] A much larger and better equipped prison was Camp Groce, near Hempstead. Prisoners were housed in four long rows of rough barracks that were described as “enclosed cowsheds.” Because of open country to the north and much military patrol activity to the south, few prisoners attempted to escape from Camp Groce.[42] The largest prison in the state was Camp Ford, four miles northeast of Tyler. Eventually it consisted of ten acres enclosed by a stockade of eighteen foot logs. Prisoners made dugout shelters on a hillside and roofed these “shebangs” with split logs. About 5,000 men were held in confinement there when the prison was operating at maximum capacity.[43]