City Jail

Charleston’s District Jail was built in 1802, and expanded two decades later, with still more additions in the decade before the Civil War. Its architect, South Carolinian Robert Mills, described the structure: …a large three-story brick building with very roomy and comfortable accommodations. There has been lately added to it a four-story wing building, devoted exclusively to the confinement of criminals. It is divided into solitary cells, one for each criminal, and the whole made general fire proof. A spacious court is attached…. Union soldiers, white and black, who had been captured in the battle of Battery Wagner, July 1863, were confined here. The African Americans were separated from their caucasian comrades, assigned to tents in the prison yard—where they actually had access to better ventilation and hygiene than prisoners confined in jail cells.

This is the caption as printed in 100 Significant Civil War Photographs: Charleston in the War. It has not yet been through this site’s research and fact-checking pass.