Cahaba Prison

[debwallsmith]

I thought it was the other way. When they shut down Andersonville, they transferred the prisoners to another camp. Maybe it was Florence?

Andersonville wasn't shut down until May 1865. Prisoners were transported in large numbers to other prisons from Andersonville beginning in September 64.

 

[Pollaco]

Andersonville wasn't shut down until May 1865. Prisoners were transported in large numbers to other prisons from Andersonville beginning in September 64.

It was "liberated" in May 1865 but why was it still in operation a month after the collapse of the Confederacy?

 

[Lusty Murfax]

Sadly, many of these men survived the camp only to be crammed onto the Sultana. There was an incident in which my friend the late Bill Bryant wrote of in his book on the prison and the Sultana disaster. The camp CO had a lot of trouble with a Union officer whose name I forget. The guy was some sort of scout and would often be the one to stand up for his rights and those of the prisoners. He was "disappeared." I later read that a gravesite well away from the others had been excavated and emailed the museum if they thought it was this "trouble-maker." They answered that they couldn't be sure, but he had officer's buttons and they believed in all likelihood it was him.

My Great Grandpa, Pvt. John Haley of the 102nd Ohio I.R. was captured at the battle of Athens and imprisoned at Cahaba for about nine months. After their release the POWs marched to Vicksburg and boarded the Sultana. Obviously, my GGPa was amongst the lucky ones who survived. He was blown off the boat into the river and caught hold of a floating log. He was able to kick his way to the Arkansas side of the River and crawled up onto the bank. The unit history mentions him as a survivor and included a story that he was helped out of the River by one of his messmates. He was 54 years old when he fathered my Grandpa Haley.

 

[DixieRifles]

Andersonville wasn't shut down until May 1865. Prisoners were transported in large numbers to other prisons from Andersonville beginning in September 64.

Correct. I was referring to the transfer of the large group who were mobile enough to survive the trip.

 

[danny]

I had never heard of Cahaba before but with only a two percent death rate among the prisoners who stayed there it seems to be one of the more humanely and well run prisons for captured combatants during the Civil War.

and/or less crowded

 

[debwallsmith]

It was "liberated" in May 1865 but why was it still in operation a month after the collapse of the Confederacy?

 

[debwallsmith]

According to the NPS, it "ceased operation in May 1865." There is no mention of it being liberated. There were only 21 men left at Andersonville in the first week of May and they were all exchanged. A total of 6821 were exchanged in April. I suspect that the 21 still there in May were probably too ill to be transported.

 

[lelliott19]

I just ran across this very detailed description of the layout of the Cahaba Prison, written by Hiram R Andrews (Co B,12th Iowa) who spent six weeks there during the summer of 1864. I thought others might be interested in reading it. Andrews survived his time in Cahaba; was active in the GAR and died in Seattle in 1917. He was 77 years old. He is buried at the GAR Cemetery in Seattle, King County, WA.

 

[connecticut yankee]

Looks as if maybe a chimney.

Cahaba or Castle Morgan Civil War Prison - Old Cahawba, Alabama

Cahaba Civil War Prison, also known as Castle Morgan, stood at the famed Alabama ghost town of Old Cahawba and held as many as 3,000 Union prisoners of war. The site of the Confederate prison is now preserved at Old Cahawba Archaeological Site.

www.exploresouthernhistory.com

I thought this was interesting from the article:

"Despite such conditions, however, Cahaba
ranked among the least deadly of the war's
military prisons. Historians estimate that as
many as 147 men died while confined there,
a death rate of about 2% (compared to
around 28% at Andersonville, Georgia, and
25% at Elmira, New York. It is a little known
fact that Northern prisons had a 3% higher
death rate than Confederate prisons during
the war, despite the notoriety of such places
as Andersonville."

 

[Robert Gray]

For most of Cahaba's operation (July 1863-1865), Colonel H. A. M. Henderson was the commandant and Dr. Richard H. Whitfield was the surgeon in charge. The prison had the lowest death rate of any prisoner of war camp - North or South. The low death rate was mainly due to the efforts of Henderson and Whitfield to provide clean water and proper sanitation. More than half of the 2000 ex-prisoners on board the Sultana were from Cahaba.

In 1883, Colonel H. A. M. Henderson, the former commandant of Cahaba, was then a Methodist minister of the church where Ulysses S Grant's mother was a member. At the specific request of President Grant, HAM Henderson delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Grant's mother, Hannah Simpson Grant.

She adorned her profession by living in "godly simplicity," endeared herself by her quiet graces to the congregation, and died in faith, without a shadow upon her name. She had strong characteristics blended with feminine grace. Domestic in her inclination, simple in her tastes, averse to ostentation, sweet and simple in her manners, she devoted her matronly gifts and graces to the training of her children, and sought no honor but that which came from God. Adversity could not crush her nor prosperity elate her. While she rejoiced in the distinctions conferred by a grateful country upon her son, she was "of boasting more than of a tomb afraid." She shrunk from the public gaze, and like a Barzillai of old, when invited to the palace, preferred the shades of private life, and a quiet home with her daughters, to the honors that would have waited upon such a Matriarch at the White House....

This photograph taken during prisoner exchange negotiations between Union and Confederate officers under flags of truce at Camp Fisk in Vicksburg, Mississippi, April 1865. The Confederate officer seated in the picture is Captain Howard A. M. Henderson.