The Stockade was built originally to accommodate only ten thousand prisoners, and included at first seventeen acres.

Near the close of the month of June the area was enlarged by the addition of ten acres.

The ground added was situated on the northern slope of the largest hill.
The average number of square feet of ground to each prisoner in August 1864: 35.7 Within the circumscribed area of the Stockade the Federal prisoners were compelled to perform all the offices of life--cooking, washing, the calls of nature, exercise, and sleeping.

During the month of March the prison was less crowded than at any subsequent time, and then the average space of ground to each prisoner was only 98.7 feet, or less than seven square yards.

The Federal prisoners were gathered from all parts of the Confederate States east of the Mississippi, and crowded into the confined space, until in the month of June the average number of square feet of ground to each prisoner was only 33.2 or less than four square yards.
These figures represent the condition of the Stockade in a better light even than it really was; for a considerable breadth of land along the stream, flowing from west to east between the hills, was low and boggy, and was covered with the excrement of the men, and thus rendered wholly uninhabitable, and in fact useless for every purpose except that of defecation.