Cahaba: The Forgotten Prison

By Peter Cozzens, Rockville MD

Presentation to CCWRT on 17 November 2011, Summarized by Andy Simmons

Photography by Mike Rogers

©Cincinnati CWRT, 2011

In November, the Cincinnati Civil War Round Table was proud to have Peter Cozzens, prolific author, statesman, and historian, make a presentation entitled, Cahaba: The Story of Captive Boys in Blue. Also a collector of Civil War regimental histories and ephemera, Mr. Cozzens discovered a rare book of the same name. Eventually able to acquire the book himself after 20 years of searching, Mr. Cozzens decided to share this story in part because of the prison camp’s little known existence and history and in part to show a dramatic contract between this prison camp and others maintained by the Confederacy.

The story begins on May 11, 1883, at the death of Hannah Simpson Grant, mother of President Ulysses S. Grant. President Grant turned over the arrangements of that funeral to Reverend Howard A.M. Henderson. The man in whom Grant had placed so much trust was a former member of the Confederacy and commandant of a prison camp. Henderson was an exception to the normally despised, inhumane, and often unfeeling prison camp commanders like Henry Wirz of Andersonville.

One major difference between the two men was that Henderson kept the prisoners alive. In Andersonville, 45,000 prisoners passed through the camp, 12,913 died, for a 24% death rate. Cahaba saw 5,000 prisoners pass through, yet had only 147-225 deaths, making the death rate 3.7%. Although many of the conditions were similar to those at Andersonville, it was Henderson and his humanity that gave men hope.

Cahaba was located south of Selma, Alabama, at the confluence of the Cahaba and Alabama Rivers. It was built in June 1863 from an unfinished 16,000 square foot brick warehouse. There were 250 bunks in the warehouse, sleeping two men per bunk. A portion of that warehouse was not roofed and exposed to the elements. A 15 foot stockade was built around the warehouse, and at the southeast corner, where the water flowed out of camp. a 6 seat latrine was constructed. The water came from an artesian well that ran through town and into the camp.

Photograph from Peter's author page at Library Thing website, a community of 1,400,000 book lovers.

Henderson understood northerners. He was educated at Cincinnati Law School and attended Ohio Wesleyan. He became a Methodist minister before the war. He was determined to run Cahaba with as much compassion as discipline and order permitted. Despite of his intentions, the prison had its share of problems. The most serious was the water supply. The water source passed through town for about 200 yards before entering the camp where it was exposed to “filth of all kinds.” The quartermaster corps built a covered pipe from the well to the camp, which solved the drinking water problem.

The biggest problem at Cahaba was overcrowding. Although having a capacity for only 500, there were 600 prisoners in March 1864. By October of that year, after Grant ended prisoner exchanges, there were 2,150 prisoners, leaving approximately 7 ½ square feet per man. Army regulations in the north and south required 42 square feet per man.

Along with overcrowding, rations became a problem. The typical daily ration was 10-12 ounces of cornmeal, usually with the husks ground in, 5-7 ounces of bacon or beef, and 1-2 hardtack crackers. Although the prisoners did not starve, a gnawing desire for food permeated their dreams. Rats were also a huge problem; the population grew with the prison population. Prisoners reported being awakened each night so many times by rats that it was unendurable. Rats were only a minor annoyance when measured against the infestation of lice. They crawled over the clothes by day and into the ears, nostrils and mouths of the men by night. An Ohio soldier reported that his clothes were so covered with lice they it looked more like pepper and salt than blue.

The human vermin, fellow prisoners dubbed muggers, presented a serious problem. They watched new prisoners and preyed on the weakest. They beat them senseless, drugged them with chloroform, and stripped them of valuables. This lasted until Richard Pierce, a 7 foot giant known as “Big Tennessee,” entered the camp. Although mild-mannered and shy, after his friend was beaten, he found the six muggers responsible and beat them so badly they joined the Confederate Army. Despite two exceptions, the 179 conscripted guards were relatively humane to the prisoners.

In July 1864, a new officer arrived to take command of the prison named Lt. Colonel Samuel Jones. Captured twice and paroled, Lt. Colonel Jones said he intended to make the “G_ D_ Yankees suffer.” Amanda Gardner, a resident living near Cahaba, demanded that Jones end his cruelty. Henderson intervened and stopped the punishment, but his other duties concerning prisoner exchange caused him to be away from Cahaba frequently so the punishments did continue. One particularly egregious example was in January 1865 when the camp was flooded by the Cahaba River. Jones refused to allow the prisoners to seek higher ground, causing them to stand in waist-deep, cold, fetid water for nearly 9 days until the water receded.

Amanda Gardner, however, continued her efforts to provide relief to the prisoners by sending her daughter to give them food, cutting up carpets to make blankets, and setting up a lending library from her large collection of books. Seemingly insignificant, this library helped men alleviate boredom and contributed to the low death rate. Another factor was an excellent hospital and a good supply of medicine.

One of the sad ironies of fate of the Cahaba prisoners came after their release and while they were being exchanged. Prisoners were transferred to Camp Fisk near Vicksburg. More than one-half of the Cahaba prisoners were loaded onto the steamboat Sultana and lost their lives when the boilers exploded. With few survivors of Cahaba, the prison and its memories were mostly lost. Today, little remains except two period buildings and a small monument.

See more about Peter Cozzens at his website: Peter Cozzens' website. Peter is currently at work on a history of the Indian Wars of the American West to be published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2015.