Because of the continued supply problems and overcrowding of the City of Richmond's prisons, General Robert E. Lee suggested the use of Danville, Virginia, as another place to hold POWs. It had good railroad connections, availability of wood, cheaper abundance of provisions, was a safe distance from enemy attack, and a short distance to City Point.

"The Federal Government seems to have made permanent arrangements to keep their prisoners during the war," Lee advised Secretary Seddon on October 28, 1863. "I think that a like disposition on our part would manifest our indifference on the subject and would bring them to terms of exchange sooner than anything else we could do." Seddon replied within a few days: "I commenced immediately instituting inquiries, with a view to the selection of an appropriate place, convenient, yet secure, in which the prisoners might be retained for an indefinite period. Arrangements are being made to send a considerable portion to Danville."

The town of Danville, located at the extreme south-central part of the state, 143 miles southwest of Richmond and 4 miles north of the North Carolina border, was symbolic of ante-bellum southern culture. Situated in the heart of rich tobacco country and thus far spared the ravages of military actions, it possessed homes of some of the finest examples of Victorian and Edwardian residential architecture in the South. It's economy revolved around the textile and tobacco industries, and the small community had grown into one of the largest tobacco auction centers in the nation.

By November 11, General Winder ordered Captain Turner to arrange for the transportation of a number of prisoners to Atlanta and Columbus, Georgia, and 4,000 to Danville. On November 17, Captain Turner, a Contingent of guards, and the POWs arrived at the new facilities in Danville.

The prison consisted of six vacant brick buildings, mostly tobacco and cotton warehouses in the heart of downtown Danville. One, a three-story structure with an estimated capacity of 700, had an attached bakehouse and cooking range with the capability to prepare rations for 3,000. Opposite this building was a large frame house with a large room to be used as the commandant's headquarters, as well as workshops for garrison use. Three other warehouses, all within a hundred yards of one another, had a combined estimated capacity of 2,300 prisoners. Two additional buildings, not far away and both located within the town's business district, also came into use. The combined capacity of these two was about 1,300.

For the most part, these buildings, overlooking the Dan River that ran through the center of town, were similar to the warehouses used at Richmond. They were three stories with attics, bare of furniture, with rows of large wooden support posts running down the middle. Each floor was a wide-open area of about 2,400 square feet. Prisoners were confined only on the upper two floors, while the lower floor was heavily patrolled by the sentry. Wooden staircases along the inside walls connected the floors.

"The lower floor", according to prisoner George Putnam, "was used merely once or twice a day to bring water from the river."

The buildings were designated as Prisons No. 1 through No. 6. Prisons No. 1 through No. 4 were located near the intersection of Spring and Union streets. No. 1 was the largest, and included the bakehouse addition. Prisons No. 2 through No. 4 were warehouses owned by J. W. and C. G. Holland. Prison No. 5 was situated at Floyd and High streets, a few blocks away; the Dibrell Brothers Tobacco Warehouse, a large portentous structure at the corner of Lynn and Loyal streets, with two ornamental turrets on the front, was designated Prison No. 6.

Although Danville became know as a prison for Federal officers, enlisted men were also included initially, and Prison No. 6 was used for the confinement of black POWs. Major Mason Morfit, formerly prison quartermaster in Richmond, was transferred to the facility and placed in charge. Within weeks of being established, the Danville prison was overcrowded; an average of 650 prisoners were confined on each floor of each building.

"At the outset," noted Putnam, "the men were arranged in two rows with their heads to the wall and two rows with their heads to the center." Major Abner R. Small continued, "We lay in long rows, leaving narrow aisles between the rows of feet. The wall spaces were preferred because a man could brace his back there and sit out the long day or the longest night. There was a row of posts down the center of the room, but these were too few and too narrow to give much help; I know, because I had a place by one of them.

The space allotted to each POW amounted to about four square feet, just enough to lie down in, according to some prisoners. At each end of each floor was an old-fashioned stove fitted out for burning wood, which was brought in from a woodpile in the yard of prisoners under heavy guard. The supply of wood was scant, according to one prisoner, and "there were long hours when the fires were out [and] permission to bring in more wood received no attention."

As the weather grew colder, sleeping positions near the stoves increased in value. While some men tried to pull rank, the trade of valuable possessions was finally settled upon as the fair method. Pieces of blankets, dilapidated boots or shoes, and pocketknives became the most common articles traded.

Cold penetrated the building through the broken windows and drafty walls. Blankets were scarce, overcoats and shoes had often been confiscated, and vermin were a constant irritation. As one prisoner noticed, "the vermin grew bigger as we grew smaller."

It eventually became the custom at Danville, as the prisoners lay down "sardine style" for the night and all became quiet across the floor, for two or three prisoners to somberly break into a song and the rest to join in. Some of the most frequently sung tunes were "Home Sweet Home," "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground," and "Mother, Will You Miss Me?" The singing usually continued until the senior officer on the floor called "Taps" and then the room became quiet as everyone tried to sleep."

The Danville POWs experienced firsthand how the average southerner coped by using food substitutes because of the Union blockade. From the beginning, prison rations included black bread made from ground sorghum cane and coffee made from burnt rye. "[We got] a piece of beef with it, about two ounces," recalled prisoner William M. Smith, "[and] a little beef soup with red peas in it, and rice."

Eventually, there was nothing more available and the daily rations at Danville consisted of nothing but a pound and a half of cornbread per man. Prisoners there often carved slivers off the rafters to boil for "coffee." According to one prisoner, the rafters above the top floor of most of the warehouses had been whittled to near the breaking point by late 1864.

Even water became scarce at Danville. Originally, for something to do, the men often drew lots for the opportunity to make the water run. The water parties usually consisted of six to eight POWs guarded by two or three sentinels. Each prisoner on the detail was expected to carry a pail full of water, but as time went on and the men became weaker, a full pail or even a half-full pail became difficult to manage. Eventually, it required two men to carry one half-full pail of water back to the prison.

Death from disease was increasing rapidly. Smallpox broke out in the Richmond prisons shortly before the transfer of prisoners and apparently was carried to Danville. By November 30, 12 POWs had died, 4 from smallpox. By the end of December 1863, 111 POWs had died, including 58 from smallpox. By the end of the following month, another 139 died, 91 from smallpox, and the increasing death rate continued month after month. The disease continued to spread throughout the prison buildings, among the guard, and into town.

Illness and death became problematic at the Danville prison. Before the facility became a prison center, several of Danville's warehouses had been converted into military hospitals and placed under the direction of Doctor Fauntleroy, a local physician. The main hospital, for Confederate soldiers, was at the corner of Jefferson and Loyal streets. Another structure used as a hospital was built during the war on a hill overlooking the prisons and railroad shops after the prisoners arrived, for use as a smallpox ward. This was located nearby on what was referred to as Poor House Hill in the town's black neighborhood. By January 1864, all three hospitals were overcrowded and treating an average of four hundred to five hundred POWs.

"The mayor and common council of Danville, " wrote Mayor Thomas P. Arkinson in a letter to Confederate Secretary of War Seddon, "petition for the removal of the Yankee prisoners located among us to some other place, or at least outside the limits of the corporation of Danville ... The hospitals of the prisoners and sick are located in the very heart of the town, and are not all in one place, but scattered in the most public and business places, so as to infect the whole atmosphere of the town with small pox and fever now raging within the limits of the corporation.

There is no record of any response by the War Department and although additional petitions were filed, the Confederate government continued to confine the prisoners where they were. By the end of January there were still four thousand POWs confined in the city; smallpox raged through the facilities, through the business district, and through the town. Danville undertaker John J. Hill found himself busier than ever before.

Parasites were another big problem in the Danville prison buildings. "The beasts crawled over the ground from body to body, " exclaimed prisoner George Putnam. "By daylight, they could be picked off. The first occupation of the morning was usually to free oneself from their immediate presence."

Several escape attempts caused prison security to be tightened. Prisoners were no longer allowed access to the ground levels of yards of the buildings. When latrine use was necessary, prisoners were escorted out six at a time under heavy guard, and they were not allowed within six feet of the guard. Any violation of this rule resulted in the POW being shot or bayoneted. At the same time, POWs were no longer allowed at the windows of their buildings for any reason. Several violations of this latter rule subsequently occurred, and the violators were immediately shot. "They shot seven men for looking out," claimed prisoner Joseph Grider. "One was shot on my floor."

Prisoner John Carroll, 5th Maryland (U.S.) Infantry, had his arm shattered during one such incident and hadn't even been at the window. "A man standing near me was washing his tin plate out of the window and some drops of water fell on the head of the guard below," explained Putnam. "Without a word of caution, the guard turned, put up his piece, and fired. The ball, missing the man at whom it was directed, went through the floor a little farther along and shattered the arm of a fellow who was entirely innocent in the matter."

By late summer, the smallpox subsided and chronic diarrhea became the prevalent cause of death at Danville. Of 51 deaths in September, 40 were the result of diarrhea. It continued killing the POWs through the winter. During the three month period of November 1864, through January 1965, there were 416 deaths, 267 of which were from chronic diarrhea. Burials were conducted on land about a mile and a half outside of town.

By October 1864, Major Mason Morfit was transferred out and Captain A.M. Braxton took over command of the Danville complex. He only served a couple of months before he was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Robert C. Smith.

Colonel Smith, once a line officer, had suffered a wound to the shoulder, and was no longer fit for field duty. He also had POW experience, having been captured and imprisoned in the North for some time. The captives at Danville described him as a "kind, sympathetic man who would not voluntarily inflict any unnecessary hardships upon those under his charge." He quickly decided that he disliked the position of prison commandant and requested transfer several times.

"He must do as other commanders of prisons have done and are still doing," responded Brigadier General John H. Winder to one of Smith's transfer requests, "that is, to make the best use he can of the means of his command. Relieving him would not remedy the evil; it would only throw it on somebody else." Stuck where he was, Smith began to drink heavily in order to isolate himself from the rapidly declining conditions of the prison.

By January 1865, rations were down to nothing but cornbread. Prisoners had very little in the way of clothing, many lacked shoes, and, according to one prisoner, of 350 men who occupied on floor of a building, no more than 70 had even a scrap of a blanket.

The guards, Colonel P. M. Henry's regiment of Virginia Reserves, living on the same rations as the POWs, were overworked and exhausted.

"The prisons at this post," advised Arthur S. Cunningham, during an official inspection of the prison, "are in a very bad condition, dirty, filled with vermin, little or no ventilation, and there is an insufficiency of fireplaces for the proper warmth of the Federal prisoners therein confined ... It is a matter of surprise that the prisoners can exist in the close and crowded rooms... The mortality at the prison, about five per day, is caused, no doubt, by the insufficiency of food ... and for the reasons in addition, as stated above."