Text from the marker below- On November 2, 1861, the Confederate government purchased about 16 acres here for a prison. The tract included an abandoned three-story cotton mill, a boiler house, six tenements, a superintendent’s house, and several smaller buildings. A stockade was erected around the buildings and the first 120 prisoners of war arrived on December 9. By July 1862, most of the Union prisoners of war had been exchanged, leaving only a small contingent of Confederate and Union deserters, political prisoners, and convicts. The facility received no additional military prisoners until October 1864. Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, to further strain Southern resources, slowed the exchange of prisoners in 1864, and beginning in August stopped the exchanges entirely until February 1865. In October 1864, the prison began receiving large numbers of Union soldiers captured on the Virginia battlefields. By early November, the prison, designed to hold about 2,500, became inundated with about 10,000 men. The overcrowded inmates occupied tents and partial underground shelters throughout the fall and winter of 1864-65 because most of the buildings had to be used as hospitals. In February 1865, after about 3,500 prisoners had died from exposure, disease, and other causes, those remaining were transferred to Wilmington, N.C., and Richmond for exchange. In mid-April, Union Gen. George Stoneman’s cavalry entered Salisbury and destroyed the prison. The main entrance to the prison compound stood 40 yards across the bridge to your right, enclosed by a wooden stockade and a “dead line” that inmates could be shot for crossing. The log garrison house in front of you is the only surviving structure used by the prison.
A map of the Salisbury Prison Stockade superimposed on a modern street map is shown below.
The next two images are on the property where the prison dead house was located during the war. The wartime structure no longer exists.
From the stone above- You are facing the 18 trenches used by the Salisbury Confederate Prison for the burial of prisoners, most of whom died after October 1864. Below is the next three images if the field in which they are buried.
After the war, the Office of the Quartermaster worked to locate the graves of Union soldiers. National cemeteries were established, and bodies were removed from battlefields and other locations to these hallowed grounds. Inspection reports from 1866-69 record 13 to 18 trenches present at Salisbury. Early speculation as to the number of dead ranged from 1,800 to more than 10,000. Because there was not a comprehensive list of the dead, the government decided to erect a monument to commemorate the soldiers who died at the prison and place “Unknown” markers at the ends of the trenches. During this time, the Army began reporting an estimated 11,700 burials on limited trench excavations. This number was ultimately inscribed on the memorial. However, based on earlier documentation and the death figures from 1864-65 when the prison population peaked, a much lower number is more likely.
The Unknown Soldiers Monument
In 18 trenches, just south of this spot, rest the bodies of 11,700 soldiers of the United States Army, who perished during the years 1864 and 1865 while held by the Confederate Military Authorities as prisoners of war in a stockade near this place.
