Friday, May 18, 2007


Confederate Memorial: Cousin Brad Crownover respects the memorial statue honoring the soldiers who died while in captivity at the Union Civil War prison compound near Marblehead, OH.

CIVIL WAR CEMETERY—

Two hundred sixty seven Confederate soldiers are buried on Johnson’s Island near Marblehead, OH. The dedicated memorial is described as Ohio’s most significant Civil War site.

The well maintained burial plot is all that remains from a 16.5 acre, prison compound that was designed to house 3,000 POWs and a garrison of 1,000 Union soldiers.

In 1861 Union officials discovered the need for prisoner of war facilities and Johnson’s Island was one site selected because Lake Erie protected it from raids by Confederate sympathizers in Canada and it was far removed from the Confederate states.

The prison operated 40 months during the Civil War and confined a total of approximately 10,000 captured Confederate soldiers; mostly officers in its later history. The population varied throughout the war due to prisoner exchanges. Prisoners arriving after the battle at Gettysburg were held there as long as 18 months.

Prisoners were treated “fairly well” until war officials learned of the treatment of Union soldiers by the Confederates at such places as Andersonville. Thereafter, both rations and privileges were sharply reduced. Only one prisoner, however, was ever killed by guards for disobedience of camp rules.

Even with these restrictions prisoners were often eating better than their colleagues still fighting for the Confederacy.

Only 12 prisoners were known to have escaped; mostly by the deception of dressing in clothing similar to the guards and walking across the ice to Sandusky or Marblehead.

Fifteen Confederate general officers ultimately were held in the prison. One of them worked on a massive escape plot but could not participate because he had lost a leg at Gettysburg. That plot was foiled when a Union warship with 14 cannon steamed into Sandusky Bay and anchored near the island.

The prison depot was closed at the end of the war in 1865. None of the buildings remain and most of the site has been built over by the lavish homes of today’s island residents.

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