[CentOS] rsync to a port other than 22

I am trying to use rsinc to tranfer my ftp directory from one server to another. I have port 22 closed off due to port knocking and I am trying to direct rsync to use another port. Unfortunately I can't seem to get it to use the specified port. Here is my command, if someone could point out my error I would appreciate it:

rsync -avr --port=XXX xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:/var/ftp /var/ftp

The error this generates is:

ssh: connect to host xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx port 22: Connection refused rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [receiver] rsync error: error in rsync protocol data stream (code 12) at io.c(359)

Thanks,

Ed