Point Lookout - Fort Lincoln

Point Lookout, Maryland 

After the battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863, Union authorities began sending Confederate prisoners to Point Lookout for incarceration. In time more than 20,000 prisoners were housed in primitive prisoner pens with only tents for shelter. The Union Army garrison stationed at Point Lookout to guard the prisoners made their home in an earthwork fort called Fort Lincoln. Today, the earthwork walls of the fort still stand and inside are reconstructions of the buildings that were known to be on the site during the Civil War.

The enlistedman's barracks housed approximately 85 Sergeants, Corporals and Privates. The smaller building on the left is the officer's quarters.

Inside the enlistedman's barracks. Each bunk provided sleeping space for two soldiers. The small room on the right housed non-commissioned officers.

By the end of the war 52,000 Confederate prisoners had passed through Point Lookout. Exposure, disease and starvation claimed the lives of nearly 4000 prisoners. Originally they were buried in cemeteries near the camp, but in 1870 their remains were moved to a mass grave north of the park where a monument to the Confederate dead stands.