Qualla: Castle Morgan: The Civil War Prison Where Survival Led to Disaster https://qualla.com/cahaba-prison en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Castle Morgan: The Civil War Prison Where Survival Led to Disaster https://qualla.com/cahaba-prison Castle Morgan: The Civil War Prison Where Survival Led to Disaster: Introduction https://qualla.com/cahaba-prison/ The cruelest irony of the Civil War played out in two acts. In the first, Union soldiers survived captivity at Cahaba Prison in Alabama -- a stockade built around a brick cotton warehouse where, against the odds, the death rate remained lower than at nearly any other Confederate camp. In the second, those same survivors boarded the steamboat Sultana for the journey home and died by the hundreds when its boilers exploded on the Mississippi River. The men who endured Castle Morgan's overcrowding, bad water, and meager rations made it through to the war's final days, only to perish within sight of freedom. Their story is one of endurance rewarded with catastrophe.

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/d/p/cahaba-prison-wp/djdp-castle-morgan-the-civil-war-prison-where-survival--intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Castle Morgan: The Civil War Prison Where Survival Led to Disaster: A Warehouse Becomes a Stockade https://qualla.com/cahaba-prison/ In June 1863, the Confederate Army needed somewhere to hold its growing number of Union prisoners. They chose Cahaba, a fading former state capital at the confluence of the Alabama and Cahaba Rivers in Dallas County. A large brick cotton warehouse built in 1860 on Arch Street, ab...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/d/p/cahaba-prison-wp/djdp-castle-morgan-the-civil-war-prison-where-survival--a-warehouse-becomes-a-stockade.mp3 0:06 2 full Castle Morgan: The Civil War Prison Where Survival Led to Disaster: The Minister's Prison https://qualla.com/cahaba-prison/ Cahaba Prison earned a distinction unusual for Civil War camps: one of the lowest death rates on either side of the conflict. Captain Henderson's humane treatment of his prisoners accounted for much of this. But conditions were far from comfortable. The prison surgeon, R. H. Whit...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/d/p/cahaba-prison-wp/djdp-castle-morgan-the-civil-war-prison-where-survival--the-ministers-prison.mp3 0:06 3 full Castle Morgan: The Civil War Prison Where Survival Led to Disaster: The Spy, the Captain, and the Failed Escape https://qualla.com/cahaba-prison/ Jacob Rush of the 3rd Ohio Cavalry arrived at Cahaba Prison on October 13, 1864. He had enlisted at fifteen, having lied about his age, and was captured as a spy -- an encounter that brought him face to face with General Nathan Bedford Forrest before his transfer to the prison. I...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/d/p/cahaba-prison-wp/djdp-castle-morgan-the-civil-war-prison-where-survival--the-spy-the-captain-and-the-failed-escape.mp3 0:06 4 full Castle Morgan: The Civil War Prison Where Survival Led to Disaster: The Sultana's Toll https://qualla.com/cahaba-prison/ The prison was evacuated in March 1865 as the war ground toward its end. The surviving Union prisoners were marched to Vicksburg, Mississippi, for exchange. What should have been the journey home became a death sentence. The men were loaded onto the Sultana, a commercial side-whe...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/d/p/cahaba-prison-wp/djdp-castle-morgan-the-civil-war-prison-where-survival--the-sultanas-toll.mp3 0:06 5 full Castle Morgan: The Civil War Prison Where Survival Led to Disaster: What Remains at the Confluence https://qualla.com/cahaba-prison/ Nothing remains of Castle Morgan today. The cotton warehouse, the stockade, the grounds where prisoners paced and plotted -- all have vanished into the landscape at the river confluence. Cahaba itself became a ghost town after the county seat moved to Selma in 1866. The site is n...

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]]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/j/d/p/cahaba-prison-wp/djdp-castle-morgan-the-civil-war-prison-where-survival--what-remains-at-the-confluence.mp3 0:06 6 full