Wind Blowed Cold, Babe: The Swannanoa Stockade

Wind Blowed Cold, Babe: The Swannanoa Stockade. . , Life at the stockade was brutal., Prisoners were forced to endure bitter winters and sweltering summers with little protection from the elements. Rations were cornbread and beans; bacon and cabbage when available., Each stockade, consisting of a series of wooden bunkhouses, sheltered at least 150 prisoners, nearly 95% of whom were Black males. These strong men and boys , some as young as 14 , were sentenced to work on the railroad for as little as stealing a newspaper. Many were wrongfully convicted. Most had been born into slavery., They worked up to seven days a week, 10 hours a day using rocks, shovels, wagons, rail cars, pick axes, and nitroglycerin to cut tunnels and lay track. Incarcerated women at the stockade, all of whom were Black, were tasked with cooking and cleaning for both prisoners and guards., Though some died in accidents or escape attempts, many died from exposure, overwork, and disease, which spread quickly in close quarters. When a prisoner died, they were most often unceremoniously buried beside the tracks and another prisoner was sent from Raleigh to take their place, making the mountainside into a long, narrow graveyard., Incarcerated laborers slept packed into boxcars until they could build stockades along the tracks. The Swannanoa Stockade was located at the eastern end of the Swannanoa Tunnel - 1,000 feet to the southeast of where you stand.

"I am very sorry to state that the death rate in the prison has been very large for the past two years, but it has been mostly among...those who have been engaged for years on railroad work , many of them having taken their regular shifts for several years in the Swannanoa and other tunnels and were finally returned to the prison with shattered constitutions, and their physical strength entirely gone, so that with the most skillful medical treatment and the best nursing, it was impossible for them to recuperate." , - WJ. Hicks Architect and Warden, NC Penitentiary, 1880

Images: (background) Stockade at Swannanoa Tunnel; (inset) Incarcerated laborers and guards pose at the Round Knob Stockade, c1878