Topics Related to Salisbury Prison

On December 9, 1861, the Confederate prison at Salisbury took in its first Yankee prisoners.Early in the war, the Confederacy purchased an old cotton mill in southeast Salisbury for $15,000 and converted the structure into a place of confinement. Many of the incarcerated spent their time writing, whittling or playing baseball. These constituted some of the first baseball games played in the South. One prisoner noted that early life within the prison was “more endurable than any other part of Rebeldom.”