Captive Boys in Blue

In 1862 the Confederacy used one of Cahawba's brick cotton warehouses to temporarily house men captured at the Battle of Shiloh, and in 1863 officially converted the warehouse into a military prison. The inmates called it "Castle Morgan," reportedly after the daring Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan. Although the warehouse measured only 200 by 125 feet, by the end of the war 3,000 men were confined there, and thousands more passed through during the war. Yet only 142 to 147 men died there, an exceptionally low death rate attributed to an artesian well that supplied fresh water for drinking, bathing, and sanitation. As the war drew to a close, flood waters inundated the prison, worsening conditions, and after several days of standing in foul water the captive Union soldiers were removed from Cahawba and sent to Vicksburg, Mississippi, for parole. At the end of the war, many of the Federal soldiers from Cahawba's prison were placed aboard the steamboat Sultana to return home, but the overcrowded boat exploded near Memphis on the Mississippi River, killing most of those aboard in what is still considered the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history.

Alabama · United States