The prison's initial sixteen and one-half acres were enclosed by carefully hewn, closely fitted logs that reflected a deliberate design, while at the far northeast corner haphazardly spaced tree trunks marked the camp's ten-acre addition and revealed hasty construction as Confederate plans collapsed under severe overcrowding by the summer of 1864. When the site was chosen, dense pine and oak forest covered the slopes, and slaves felled the straightest pines, cut them to a uniform length, hewed them with broadaxes, and set the logs in a ditch 5 feet deep so they stood 17 feet above the ground. Based on archeological evidence, the stockade is an accurate reconstruction of the prison's North Gate.