In 1864, the Confederate States of America built a prisoner of war camp here called Camp Lawton. The stockade enclosed 42 acres and was designed to hold 40,000 prisoners. The first prisoners arrived from Andersonville in late September 1864, but because of the rapid approach of Sherman's forces on the March to the Sea, the camp was abandoned in late November. During those few weeks, more than 500 of the approximately 10,000 prisoners died of disease and starvation. Unlike Andersonville, Camp Lawton had a plentiful supply of clean water because Magnolia Springs flowed through the center of the camp, entering through the center of the north wall and exiting just east of center on the south wall. About midway through the stockade, the stream was dammed and forced through hewed timber troughs called sinks, with water above them used for drinking and bathing and water below them reserved only for sanitary purposes. One historical document gave the stockade's dimensions as 1,398 feet on the north and south sides and 1,329 feet on the east and west sides, with a gate formed by a box 30 feet square midway on the eastern side. Inside, streets divided the area into 32 rectangles, each 140 by 315 feet, each intended to hold 1,000 men with a little more than 44 square feet per man. About 30 feet inside each wall was the dead line, and any prisoner who crossed between it and the wall could be shot by the guards.