[3] In May 1861, North Carolina seceded from the Union and the Confederacy sought a site in Rowan County for a military prison.

This was recorded in a drawing by Maj. Otto Boetticher, which is believed to be one of the first art works showing the game being played.

As the prison became overcrowded, the death rate increased from 2 to 28 percent because of malnutrition, poor sanitation, and disease.

Because of the poor conditions and high mortality, in February 1865 the Confederates moved thousands of prisoners to other locations, including 3,729 who were marched to Greensboro and taken from there by train to Wilmington, North Carolina, and 1,420 others who were transferred to facilities in Richmond, Virginia.

By the time Union Gen. George Stoneman reached Salisbury in the spring of 1865, the prison had been emptied and was being used as a supply depot.

Stoneman ordered the prison structures burned and a wood fence built around the mass graves.

On August 29, 2017, archaeologist Ari D. Lukas announced that ground-penetrating radar had located a former barracks on a vacant lot on Bank Street, which used to be part of the cotton mill/prison complex.

In a March 28, 2019 presentation, Timothy Roberts, an investigator with Cultural Resources Analysts, reported the findings.

[13] On Memorial Day 1999, the Veterans Administration announced the donation of about 40 acres (16 ha) for cemetery purposes, at the W.G.

[13] The land included the Brookdale Golf Course, donated by Samuel C. Hart American Legion Post to be used by the hospital when it opened in 1953.

Two years later, a $2.8 million expansion began on 31 acres (13 ha) of the former golf course, with space to bury 12,000 more people.

Also, the cemetery was adding 2400 "pre-placed in-ground crypts"; these allowed 1500 burials per acre compared to 700 with normal graves.

[15] As of Memorial Day 2012, the original cemetery, with about 7000 markers, was closed to new burials, except for spouses of those already buried.

Mark Hughes of Kings Mountain, North Carolina has campaigned to get the number corrected on the monument, and also to add grave markers for the 3500 men whose identities can be determined from sources such as an 1868 Roll of Honor.

As of 2014, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs does not plan to change the monument or add individual markers.