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Getting Smithed at the “Dead House”

admin — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

In December of 1861 an empty cotton factory in Salisbury became a prison to house Northern prisoners of war. It was a brick building that stood three stories high with several cottages and outbuildings. One of these outbuildings was a blacksmith shop, which would later be known as “The Dead House’. The Confederate soldiers built a stockade around the property and guard platforms transforming the cotton factory into the Salisbury Confederate Prison. It was originally only suppose to house approximately 2,500 prisoners of war but by 1864 it became overran with more than 10,000 men. The conditions became barbaric with overcrowding, starvation and death. The death toll rose daily as hundreds of men would die everyday. Before the prison became overran, deaths were held with dignity and a proper burial on prison grounds. When the death rate became out of control, mass burial took effect. The dead and near dead would be taken to the blacksmith shop now known as the “Dead House’. They would be stripped of their clothing, loaded onto wagons and buried in a trench with other dead bodies in an abandoned cornfield nearby. Some estimate than more than 11,000 men may be buried in those trenches.

Berry Uncommon Kindness: The Grave of Hugh Berry

admin — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

In the Salisbury National Cemetery of North Carolina, originally known as the Salisbury Confederate Prison, thousands of Union soldiers found their final resting place. They sleep on a soft, rolling hill, many without individual markers because the specifics are unknown. After the Civil War, it was officially named a National Cemetery in 1870 and enclosed in a stone wall. Of the numerous Union soldiers far from home in states including Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts to name only a few, stones were placed for any identified resting place as well as mass graves. Salisbury ws the sight of unspeakable horrors, malnourishment, and suffering as the men despaired and prayed for deliverance.You can find a quick rundown here There were acts of kindness. One that stands out as a beacon of hope for humanity is the personal efforts made by a local woman, Sarah Johnston, a neighbor of the prison. She opened her home, with permission from the prison commander, to care for recovering soldiers, regardless of which side was theirs. One soldier in her care, Hugh Berry, was from the Union and unfortunately did not survive. Ms. Johnston was a mother, took pity on the young man and buried him in her garden.

Body of Work: Trenches Holding Thousands

admin — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Salisbury Confederate Military Prison exists today as a quiet historic site with one remaining small building and trenches holding the bodies of thousands of prisoners. The story of this military prison and its silent witnesses is the story of how things can get out of control during war, despite best intentions and charity by local civilians.

Salisbury,N.C. Was home to one of the Confederacy’s first military prisons, established to house Union prisoners in 1861. It began as a small and somewhat comfortable prison camp but as the war’s intensity increased the population swelled from 1,500 to 28,000. Inadequate food, poor water, lack of winter clothing and the diseases that spread among the prisoners resulted in many deaths. Finally individual burials were impossible, mass grave trenches were dug to bury the dead. They died with no marker of memorial, destined to be forgotten, mourned from a distance by home-bound family and friends.

Mass burials are the products of volume and immediacy. Neither side had the logistics of personnel to dedicate for prisoners, there were more immediate needs by their troops in the field. The only way to deal with the enemy’s dead in a nearly humane manner was to bury them quickly and mark the trench.
Today these mass graves memorialize in silence the sacrifice of soldiers past who served and fell for their causes. They deserve to honored and remembered.

A Good Day to Die: From Prison to Hospital

admin — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Salisbury, N.C. Was once home to one of the Confederacy’s first military prison camps. A warehouse was converted into a prison for Union soldiers and later Confederate and Union deserters and even civilian criminals were housed there. There were a number of small outbuildings and the stockade surrounded a rather pleasant campground with good water and trees. But by 1864 the population had grown from 1,500 to over 28,000. Conditions were so bad that a death toll of 28 had resulted in mass graves for casualties.

Medical care in the Civil War was as poor as conditions in prison camps. The United States last large scale military campaign had been in Mexico in 1846. The numbers of troops committed was comparatively small, logistics involved an invasion and no real prisoner of war activities, Army surgeons were capable of managing the relatively small number of wounded. No one was prepared for the scale of logistics and materials management that the War of 1861 brought.

Medical care for wounded and sick was just as inadequate. For a sick prisoner, being moved to the hospital was the first step into a mass grave. The hospital meant being out of the weather, but that was about all. Medical supplies, food and even being cared for by a doctor or medical steward were no certainty.

Today Salisbury Confederate Prison testifies by the mass grave trenches, stillness and the remaining small house that still stands, as witnesses to how war enacts violence on the already wounded. Their memory endures.