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The Old
Capitol Prison ‑ Showing Additions Built After 1861
At the outset of the war, the only tenant of the Old
capitol — where once the United States Congress had been housed — was an
humble German, who managed to subsist himself and his family as a cobbler.
Six months later the place was full of military offenders, prisoners of
state, and captured Confederates, and the guards allowed no one to stop even
for a minute on the other side of the street. Many prominent Confederate
generals were confined in it, with scores of citizens suspected of
disloyalty to the Union. Captain Wirz, the keeper of Andersonville Prison,
was imprisoned here, and was executed on a gallows in the yard. These views
show the extensions built upon each side of the prison to contain
mess-halls, and also to shelter prisoners of war. Iron bars have been placed
in all the windows, and sentries and soldiers stand upon the sidewalk. Here
Mrs. Rose O'Neal Greenhow, the Confederate spy, was incarcerated.
Soldiers outside the
Prison |
