During the summer of 1862, hundreds of Union prisoners were interned here in a wood stockade on the west side of Front Street and were treated reasonably and guarded lightly, so few tried to escape because they expected exchange, a common practice early in the war. North of the stockade, a separate enclosure held Union sympathizers, bridge burners, and accused informants captive in a poorly ventilated store or warehouse. In July and August, the prison interior became so hot that survivors called it "The Iron Furnace." Those prisoners were heavily guarded and severely treated while awaiting trial by a military court, and many found guilty were sentenced to death, forced to dig their own graves, and then shot by a firing squad or hanged from a gallows. Some still remain near this site in unmarked graves lost to time. Reverend John H. Aughey escaped two days before his scheduled execution and after the war wrote "Tupelo," recounting his escape and his experience in "The Iron Furnace." In 1858, when local construction on the M&O railroad began, businessmen in the surrounding area disassembled their businesses and moved them to Tupelo. By the time the war was underway, six or seven clapboard structures stood on the west side of Front Street, including a storehouse, one or two stores, two saloons, and two hotels, the Ledbetter House and the Robertson House. These businesses first served railroad workers, but when soldiers arrived, the saloons turned rowdy and the hotels became brothels. The hotels were two stories high with about six small rooms on the second floor, furnished with a small bed, wash stand, bowl, pitcher of water, and straight-backed chair. The streets were muddy and foul-smelling from horses and mules, and a temporary depot with a loading platform stood beside the railroad tracks. Union troops burned all of these buildings to the ground when they withdrew from town after the Battle of Tupelo on July 14-15, 1864.
