Confederate Stockade Cemetery
Stockade Cemetery is located on Johnson’s Island, Ohio. It once served as a Civil War prison camp from 1862 to 1865 and held thousands of Confederate Prisoners of War. Hundreds of the prisoner’s would never make it out alive and they are said to haunt the grounds to this day. The Stockade was made up of twelve barracks and was designed to hold up to about 2,500 Confederate prisoners. However, this became overcrowded rather quickly, and over its three years in operation, around 10,000 soldiers stayed in the barracks. Although the Confederate prisoners created their own communities and even established their own trade system, life was a nightmare.
Food and other resources necessary for survival became scarce as the population of the stockade increased. Also, these barracks were not designed appropriately to withstand the tough climate that Lake Eerie produces. Thus, soldiers froze to death in the winter and suffocated from the heat in the summer. Currently, the barracks and prison no longer operate. Only related to the prison is the Confederate Stockade Cemetery.
There are countless graves within the cemetery that are unmarked. The official record of soldiers buried in the cemetery is 209, but most people believe that there are remains of hundreds of other soldiers buried all over the island. The cemetery has a strong reputation of being haunted, including a phantom troop of Confederate soldiers marching around singing the song Dixie. There is also a memorial statue of a Confederate soldier called “The Lookout” that is believed to be haunted. He stands over all of the other soldiers in the cemetery and changes position on its own at the stroke of midnight.
(Source: Belanger, Jeff. Encyclopedia of Haunted Places. 2005.)
