Cahaba Prison (once known as Cahawba) was named for the small Alabama town that lay nearby on the Alabama and Cahaba Rivers, not far from Selma. Built as a cotton and corn shed measuring roughly 193 feet by 116 feet, Cahaba's walls were 8 to 10 feet high and only partially roofed over. The entire center area was left open.... Into this small stockade the Confederates crowded over 5,000 Union soldiers from late 1863 until the end of the war in April of 1865.  Estimates suggest that each man in the prison had only six square feet of living space per soldier. The daily rations for the prisoners consisted of 10 to 12 ounces of corn meal (including ground cobs and husks ) , and five to seven ounces of bacon or beef. But in the warm months , the meat rations often gave off such a nauseating smell that only a few of the men could force themselves to eat it.  There was a single fireplace in the building and fires were sometime built upon the earthen floor of the barracks.  The fire wood, when furnished at all, was either green sap pine or decayed oak from old fields.  The sleeping arrangements consisted of rough bunks, without straw or bedding of any kind, These bunks could accommodate only four hundred and thirty two men. Today, Cahaba is a ghost town.