While Richmond, Va., was trying to get out of the POW business, New York City was inadvertently becoming the prison center of the North. It possessed the major railroads and seaports of the North and, for lack of a better place, Confederates captured by Union forces often were brought into the city. Within four years, more than thirteen different locations in the metropolitan area would be used for confinement . . . within a short time more prisoners than had ever been anticipated would be crammed into each of these structures, causing them to become just as overcrowded and horrifying as those established in the Confederate capitol.

The original building that earned the name "The Tombs" for itself and succeeding jails on the same site in Lower Manhattan (Centre, Elm, Franklin and Leonard streets) was inspired by an ancient Egyptian mausoleum a travel writer described and drew in a book. For The Tombs' history, go to http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/ nycdoc/html/histry3a.html

New York City's first POWs arrived on June 15, 1861. They were the twenty-man crew of the Confederate privateer Savannah that was captured outside Charleston Harbor on June 3. Considered pirates at the time, they were taken to the nearest Federal court which, in this case, was in the city of New York. The ship was escorted to New York Harbor and anchored at the Battery. The crew, being the first privateers captured by the North and the first Confederate prisoners brought into the city, were ceremoniously paraded through the streets in shackles on their way to the Tombs prison on Center Street. "The captain, the executive officer, and the purser were linked together," reported one newspaper, "the others followed in couples." The procession was led by city policemen and flanked by deputy marshals. Crowds of curious spectators gathered along the streets and crowded the windows along the route, taunting and insulting the captives. . . .

Upon arriving at the multi-columned portico entrance of the Tombs prison, the prisoners were led in, one shackled pair at a time, and placed into cells usually reserved for civilian prisoners among the city's most violent criminal element. Reluctantly, the new prisoners became acquainted with their surroundings, described as "foul," and "awful smelling," under the watchful and brutish stares of a ragged and dirty population of convicts. Even the Police department physician, Doctor A. S. Jones, had to admit that a "more miserable, unhealthy, and horrible dungeon cannot well be conceived of."

Unfortunately, it was the only secure place in the city at that time to hold prisoners for trial. . . .

Confined in the new prison section of the building, the Savannah officers had the "luxury' of barred windows overlooking Center Street. Most of the captives, however, sat idly on the edge of their cots throughout the day listening to the hollow clang of cell doors echoing up and down the halls. After 6 PM the corridors were lit by kerosene instead of gas, which added to the eerie, dungeon-like nature of their quarters. By the spring of the next year there would be about three hundred prisoners of war and common criminals mixed together within these walls.

The Tombs was a combination of a city jail and criminal courts building, covering two blocks between Center and Lafayette streets. Its official title when built in 1838 was The Halls of Justice, but because the building resembled an Egyptian mausoleum, New Yorkers quickly began referring to it simply as the Tombs. . . .

Constructed of huge granite blocks, the four-story building was in the form of a parallelogram. The jail section contained 150 cells arranged in four tiers facing inward and overlooking a courtyard where a gallows often stood in plain view of all the inmates. The first tier cells contained "lunatics" and prisoners under sentence. The second tier held those charged with more serious crimes such as murder. The third tier was for those charged with burglary, grand larceny, and similar offenses, while the fourth tier held the less serious offenders.

By the time of the Civil War, the prison had become well-known for being damp, unsanitary, and frequently overcrowded. According to a survey conducted around 1860, the Tombs was considered "one of the four worst prisons in the country" . . . .

Three stages of security guarded this area: a heavy wooden door, an iron barred door covered by closely latticed wire, and a group of civilian, or police, guards. "The inner, wooden, door is left open during the daytime," reported the correspondent, "but the iron one is closely secured." After 6:00 P.M. both doors were closed and locked until daylight the following morning. "In [the] lower corridor are placed three enormous stoves which diffuse ample warmth throughout the building."

While the officers of the Savannah, along with a few other privateers captured soon afterward, were held in the upper, new prison area of the Tombs with larger cells and windows, the crewmen were all held in the smaller, dimly lit cells of the lower section. There they remained until turned over to the War Department and transferred to Fort Lafayette on February 3, 1862. After that date, the Tombs was no longer used for military prisoners.