Johnson Island4
Image by Counselman Collection
We were invited to a friend’s beautiful wedding held outside on Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie. Johnson’s Island is a 300-acre island in Sandusky Bay, located on the coast of Lake Erie, about 3 miles from the city of Sandusky, Ohio. It was originally the site of a prisoner-of-war camp for Confederate officers captured during the American Civil War. Johnson’s Island was the only Union prison exclusively for Southern officers but it also held regular soldiers. During its three years of operation, more than 15,000 men were incarcerated there. In late 1861, Federal officials selected Johnson’s Island as the site for a prisoner of war camp to hold up to 2,500 captured Confederate officers. The island offered easy access by ship for supplies to construct and maintain a prison and its population. Sandusky Bay offered more protection from the elements than on other nearby islands, which were also closer to Canada in the event of a prison break. Woods of hickory and oak trees could provide lumber and fuel. The U.S. government leased half the island from private owner Leonard B. Johnson for 0 a year, and for the duration of the war carefully controlled access to the island. Now it is full of million dollar homes lining the shores. The 16.5-acre prison opened in April 1862. A 15-foot high wooden stockade surrounded 12 two-story prisoner housing barracks, a hospital, latrines, sutler’s stand, three wells, a pest house, and two large mess halls (added in August 1864). More than 40 buildings stood outside the prison walls, including barns, stables, a limekiln, forts, barracks for officers, and a powder magazine. They were used by the 128th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which guarded the prison. Among the prominent Confederate generals imprisoned on Johnson’s Island were Isaac R. Trimble and James J. Archer (both captured at the Battle of Gettysburg), William Beall, Thomas Benton Smith, Edward "Allegheny" Johnson and Missouri cavalryman M. Jeff Thompson. Lieutenant Christopher Columbus Nash, later the sheriff of Grant Parish, Louisiana, who directed the Colfax Riot in 1873, was also imprisoned at Johnson’s Island. After the unraveling of a Confederate espionage ring which had been plotting the seizure of the Great Lakes warship USS Michigan and a mass breakout of prisoners, Forts Johnson and Hill were constructed over the winter of 1864–65. They were not operational until March 1865, in the war’s final months, when the prisoner population peaked at 3,200. More than 15,000 men passed through Johnson’s Island until it was closed in September 1865. Wardens lost only about 200 prisoners as a result of the harsh Ohio winters, food and fuel shortages, and disease. Johnson’s Island had one of the lowest mortality rates of any Civil War prison. Confederates made many escape attempts, including efforts by some to walk across the frozen Lake Erie to freedom in Canada. A handful of escapes were successful. In 1990 Johnson’s Island was designated a National Historic Landmark. A causeway was built to connect it with the mainland. The Confederate cemetery, as well as Fort Hill in the interior of the island, are still accessible to the public, as you can see from my photos. This cemetery was right beside of where the wedding we attended took place.