Guard House and Sally Port

Guard House and Sally Port. . The Sally Port was the main entrance of the Fort and was a gate wide enough for wagons and mounted troops to pass through in column formation. For a time, this guard house served as the Territorial Prison. No photographs or drawings of this structure are known, but the 1874 Surgeon General's report on military posts describes these buildings as one guard house, with the sally port passing through it. The rooms of the guard house are described in some detail in the same report: "On one side of the sally-port is the guard-room...and in the rear of this a room...used for colored prisoners. On the opposite side of the sally-port is a room...used for the confinement of white prisoners.... The guard-room and the room occupied by white prisoners are warmed by open fireplaces; but there is neither fireplace nor stove [for the] colored prisoners. The prison-rooms had, during a period of three years, an average sixteen men confined in them - the greatest number reached was thirty-two.... In one corner of the guard room is a trap door opening upon a stairway which leads down to the cells where prisoners are kept in solitary confinement.... Each cell is 5 feet 7 inches long, 2 feet 10 inches wide, and 4 feet 10 inches high.... Eight augur holes and the chinks around the doors are the only means of admitting air and light from the passage-way into the cells.... The men, with seldom more than a single blanket, sleep upon the earthen floor, which, from being frequently sprinkled to lay the dust, contains much moisture. Colds and rheumatism are frequent among the inmates...."