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Atlanta (Fulton County Jail)
Prisoner of War Camp
Search, View, Print Union & Confederate Civil War Prisoner of War Records, 1861-1865
Confederate 1861-1864
Atlanta, Georgia
One of the first prisons to hold Union soldiers in Georgia was the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta. This facility, built before the war, was large enough to serve as a holding area for more than 150 prisoners in early 1862. The prisoners had been sent to Atlanta to relieve overcrowding at sites in Richmond, Virginia—the same reason such larger prisons as Andersonville later came into existence. On several occasions throughout the war, makeshift facilities were used in and around Atlanta before prisoners were transferred to other sites farther south. This was especially true as large campaigns in both Virginia and Georgia in 1864 swelled the numbers captured.
