SALISBURY, NORTH CAROLINA—Remains of a Confederate Civil War prison have been unearthed in downtown Salisbury, according to a Salisbury Post report. An excavation carried out by Cultural Resources Analysts found that the back of a lot owned by the Historic Salisbury Foundation was likely part of a portico to a cotton mill that served as a barracks for the prison. Timothy Roberts, who led the excavation, said a dense concentration of brick, mortar, and granite appears to indicate a corner or edge of the structure. Some of the material from the building, in particular brick, is thought to have been used in buildings that still stand nearby. The portico is known to have existed from drawings of the mill building and prison site, including those sketched by Union prisoner Robert Knox Sneden. When it was built, the prison was estimated to have a capacity of 2,500 prisoners, but by 1864 it held as many as 10,000, leading to disease, starvation, and uprisings that were put down ruthlessly. Almost all the captives were released in February 1865 as part of a prisoner exchange program, and Union forces burned the prison down in April 1865, at the end of the war. To read in-depth about excavation of another Civil War prison that was illustrated by Robert Knox Sneden, go to “Life on the Inside.”
