50- Dark Days in Time: The Tragic History of Old Cahawba pt 1

Join us for todays episode when we travel to the town of Old Cahawba (also spelled Cahaba). From its beginning as a Native American village, it was then transformed into Alabama's original capital, the town changed from the capital, to a small town built by cotton and the hundreds of slaves that cultivated it, once again changing during the civil war to hold the union prison called Castle Morgan. Not many of the prisoners died during Castle Morgan's run, but that does take away the problems the prisoner's faced. And for many the tragedies don't end there.

Primary Sources

Fry, Anna Gayle. Memories of Old Cahaba. New York: Neale Publishing Company, 1909.

Hawes, Jesse. Cahaba: A Story of Captive Boys in Blue. Chicago: Rogers & Smith Company, 1888.

Rush, Jacob. Recollections of Prison Life at Cahaba (memoir and surviving accounts).

United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.

Historical and Archaeological Sources

Alabama Historical Commission. Old Cahawba Archaeological Park.

Friends of Old Cahawba. Historical publications and interpretive materials.

National Park Service. Civil War and Old Cahawba historical resources.

Old Cahawba Archaeological Park. Site interpretation and archaeological reports.

Additional Historical References

Historical maps of Old Cahawba.

Archaeological excavation reports.

Nineteenth-century Alabama newspapers.

Contemporary Civil War military correspondence.

Published biographies of William Wyatt Bibb and early Alabama political history.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=22669

https://historynet.com/surviving-a-confederate-pow-camp/

https://theforgottensouth.com/cahawba-alabama-ghost-town/