Because of the topography, drainage was poor, and the area was subject to extreme heat in the summer and cold in the winter. This exacerbated the problems created by inadequate food, clothing, fuel, housing, and medical care. As a result, approximately 3,000 prisoners died there over 22 months. It is estimated that a total of 52,264 (WOR) prisoners, both military and civilian, were held prisoner there. Although it was designed for 10,000 prisoners, during most of its existence it held 12,600 to 20,000 inmates.Approximately 50,000 Confederate enlisted men were contained within the walls of Point Lookout Prison Camp during it's operation 1863-1865. Prison capacity was 10,000 but at any given time, there would be between 12,000 and 20,000 soldiers incarcerated there.

The camp's Provost Marshall was Major A. G. Brady assisted by Major Gen. Benjamin Butler.

The Chesapeake Bay detained the inmates on their side of the stockade, while the mouth of the Potomac River kept any working parties from ideas of escaping into Virginia. This setup made life during the winter brutal on the soldiers held there. Housed in shelter halves with firewood scarce and blankets in low quantity, it proved to be a cold miserable place to sit out the war.

The prisoners' ordeal began the minute they were placed on that unhealthy spit of land. They were forced to discard anything bearing the initials "U.S.," which for almost all Confederates meant more than half of their belongings. Men were crowded into drafty tents and allowed only one blanket regardless of the season. Firewood and the essentials for health and comfort were scarce. Confederate Sergeant Charles T. Loehr, captured on April 1, 1865, at the battle of Five Forks, received a rude awakening his first night at the camp. He was one of forty men placed in a tent designed for sixteen. Six or seven of the forty had died by morning, including the two on either side of Loehr.

Confederate Prisoners

War Department General Order 226 assigned Brigadier General Gillman Marston to the newly established Saint Mary's County District to be headquartered at Point Lookout. With an established stockade and grounds to provide, the southern tip of St. Mary's began receiving its first shipment of prisoners from Fort McHenry as well as those in and around Washington City.

The hospital establishment itself was arranged as that of the spokes from a wagon wheel having fifteen separate wards, housing nearly fourteen hundred beds overall, with seventy to each ward. In addition to looking after the combat wounded, cases of typhoid fever, diarrhea and pneumonia were monitored and treated with a fully trained medical staff.

During the summer of 1864, the liberation of Confederate Soldiers residing there became an addendum to the Maryland Invasion of Major General Jubal Early. A blunder in command and control assigned Brigadier General Bradley Tyler Johnson to that task. While Early was floundering about Frederick, Maryland seeking routes and a ford across the Monocacy River, his only native to the area rode off on his impossible mission, finding the hospital prison impractical to carry.

Last Confederate Prisoners

Today there are monuments erected to the men who died while held at Point Lookout. A common marker contains an alphabetized list of those who died. The marker was erected by the State of Maryland in the 1930s. Over the years much of the Point Lookout site and grave yards were lost to the waters and sands of the bay. The grave sites were move several times after 1866. The present cemetery site is Scotland. There are two monuments at Scotland in memory of the Confederate dead, one by the state of Maryland and the other by the Federal Government. The Maryland monument was moved to its present site in the cemetary at Scotland in 1938. The State of Maryland made an effort to reduce further loss by lining the shore with large boulders in later years.