- Title
- Our state
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-
- Date
- June 1999
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
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Our state
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tar heel history
by Alan I lodge
War and Peace
Descendants of prisoners and guards at the Salisbury Confederate Prison, a facility described as
"evil-smelling, dolorous, and the scene of much unalleviated suffering," have joined to uncover the
realities of North Carolina's only prisoner-of-war camp and to make peace with the past.
"Nothing is ended until it is forgotten."
— I ailed Daughters of the Confederacy
One of our state's most significant
yet tragic historic sites, the former
Civil War penitentiary for Federal sol¬
diers in Salisbury stood as the only
Confederate prison in North Carolina
and the second largest institution of its
kind in the South. As many as 10.000
Federal troops were incarcerated with¬
in this 16-acre site: it was designed to
hold 2,500.
Established November 2. 1861. the
prison compound consisted of a three-
story brick structure that had been a
cotton factors', six smaller brick build¬
ings. the superintendent's house, and
several small utility buildings. It sat
along the tracks ol the North Carolina
Railroad near what is now the
Salisbury National Cemetery.
Salisbury Prison didn't wait long for
its first shipment of Federal troops. On
This artist’s rendition from 1864 provides a “ bird's-eye view " of the Confederacy's prison property in Salisbury.
June 1999 Our State 69
• III».
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