Cahaba Prison, Civil War prison ruins in Cahaba, Alabama, United States

Cahaba Prison, also called Castle Morgan, was a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp built around a brick cotton warehouse erected in 1860 on Arch Street above the Alabama River. The warehouse covered about 15,000 square feet and stood inside a larger wooden stockade.

The Confederate Army built a wooden stockade around a brick cotton warehouse on Arch Street, and Cahaba Prison opened there in June 1863 under Captain H. A. M. Henderson, a Methodist minister. Intended for about 500 men, it held 660 by August 1864 and over 3,000 by March 1865 after prisoner exchanges stopped. It was evacuated in March 1865, and the county seat moved from Cahaba to Selma in 1866.

The site reflects how a commander's approach to managing prisoners shaped daily life during wartime, treating captives with dignity in circumstances of conflict. This humane treatment set it apart from many other facilities of that era.

The prison stood on Arch Street above the Alabama River bank, near the confluence with the Cahaba River, close to Selma. The site was flooded in 1865, and Cahaba lost its county seat to Selma in 1866. Nothing of the warehouse or stockade is described in the sources, so check locally before planning a visit.

After the prison was evacuated in March 1865, the exchanged men were sent to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where the exchange took place on April 9, 1865. Many of them then boarded the Sultana, a steamboat that sank in the Mississippi River while carrying them north, and died in the disaster.