Camp Morton was established on a 36-acre (150,000 m2) tract of land that bordered present-day Central Avenue and Nineteenth, Twenty-second, and Talbott Streets.

[1] Two days after the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, Indiana's governor Morton offered to raise and equip ten thousand Indiana troops in response to President Abraham Lincoln's call for volunteers to suppress the Southern rebellion and preserve the Union.

[2][3] Morton and his adjutant general, Lew Wallace, chose the site of the Indiana State Fairgrounds for a mustering ground and military camp at Indianapolis.

The 36-acre (150,000 m2) tract of partially wooded farmland north of the city loosely bordered present-day Central Avenue and Nineteenth, Twenty-second, and Talbott Streets.

[9] Existing buildings could not house all the incoming troops, so new sheds were built with bunks; however, the soldiers had to bathe in Fall Creek.

[10] The hastily built facility had difficulties accommodating so many men with equipment, tents, and food, but order was established within a few weeks.

[13] When Camp Morton was established in 1862, it was initially under state control until the U.S. government assumed responsibility for its prisoners.

[15][16] On February 17, 1862, two days after the fall of Fort Donelson, near present-day Clarksville, Tennessee, Morton informed Union general Henry W. Halleck that Indianapolis could, if necessary, hold three thousand Confederate prisoners.

A walled palisade was constructed of wood around the perimeter of the camp; it also included reinforced gates and a walkway for sentry patrols.

[20] Confederate officers who had commissions were separated from their men and quartered in a barracks on Washington Street and elsewhere in the city until they could be moved to the prison camps in Ohio and Massachusetts.

[21] Colonel Richard Owen took over as commandant of the prisoner-of-war camp and served in that role until June 20, 1862, when his regiment was called to active duty and he departed Indianapolis with his men.

Under his command, camp discipline was strict, but humane, and allowed for self-government among the prisoners, which local leaders criticized on occasion.

Books and periodicals were available in the camp, and a photographer was allowed to make daguerrotypes of the prisoners' likenesses to send to their friends and families in the South.

Following their departure, Camp Morton was used as a military training ground for Union troops and Indiana volunteers who were sent home on parole.

Most of his regiment had been captured at Muldraugh Hill, Kentucky, where they were paroled on the field, and had been living at Camp Morton awaiting a prisoner exchange.

Soldiers from Biddle's regiment were assigned to guard duty at the camp, with the assistance of other military companies.

In April 1863, the camp's prisoners were ordered to City Point, Virginia, and in June a new group arrived, this one from Gallatin, Tennessee.

On July 23, 1863, eleven hundred of Morgan's men who had been captured during the raid were brought to Camp Morton.

In mid-August more than eleven hundred prisoners, including most of Morgan's men, were transferred to Chicago's Camp Douglas.

[36] In July 1863 Captain Albert J. Guthridge was placed in charge of the camp when Biddle and his regiment were reassigned to other duties.

Augustus M. Clark, a medical inspector who filed a report on October 22, indicated the camp had 2,362 prisoners with a mortality rate exceeding 12.45 percent.

Clark reported that the prisoners had sufficient food, clothing, and water, but noted the camp's structures were dilapidated and poorly maintained.

[35] Stevens helped improve the camp by providing blankets, better food, and medical care,[33] but the winter of 1863–1864 was bitterly cold, with temperatures falling below zero degrees Fahrenheit.

Forty members of the Veteran Reserve Corps, who were serving time in the prison's guardhouse, were given dishonorable discharges and released without pay.

The individual gravesites were marked with wooden boards bearing painted identification numbers that were worn away by the passage of time.

[45][46] In the 1870s construction of an engine house and additional tracks for the Vandalia Railroad caused the Confederate prisoners' remains to be removed and reburied in a mass grave at Greenlawn.

[47] The remains from the Confederate gravesite were moved to Indianapolis's Crown Hill Cemetery in 1931 and buried in a mass grave in Section 32.

[45][46] Property remaining at Camp Morton after the last prisoners left was sold at public auction in July 1865 and the buildings were vacant by August 2.

"[53]39°47′40.76″N 86°9′8.14″W / 39.7946556°N 86.1522611°W / 39.7946556; -86.1522611 In 1916, students and teachers of Indianapolis Public School 45 erected a stone monument to mark the location of the camp at Alabama and Nineteenth Streets.

[47][54] In 1962, the Indiana Civil War Centennial Commission erected a state historical marker in the 1900 block of North Alabama Street, near the site of Camp Morton.