What have the excavations on Johnson's Island told us about prison life during the Civil War?

David Bush: We have conducted investigations at Block 6, the prison hospital to explore the medical treatment of the prisoners. We discovered that they appeared to have access to both Union pharmaceuticals as well as purchasing patent medicines. Over the course of the 40 months the prison was in use, the amount of access, according to the archaeological record, diminishes.

Our investigations of Block 8 also revealed harsher conditions towards 1864 and early 1865. You may ask how can we be so specific about these dates archaeologically; and the answer is that the latrines that the prisoners used behind the blocks were only used for a short period of time and then filled in. We have been able to arrange the latrines that we have thus far explored chronologically, and therefore can then trace the access the prisoners had to various types of material culture, and then speculate what that meant about their living conditions.

• We have recovered parasites in the latrines, telling us of some of the illness that prisoners suffered that was not recorded.
• We discovered tunnels running from the latrines which were not previously known.
• We have found many hundreds of items related to the prisoners craftworking activities. This is the largest and most complete account of prisoner craft during the Civil War
• We have learned precisely where the prisoners obtained their items for their craft industry, especially the hard rubber items
• We can document just how the prisoners' affluence is reflected in the archaeological record
• We have discovered personal items from prisoners like J. C. Lee of the 15th Arkansas.
• We discovered various glass items in the 1860s latrines that were not thought to have been made until after 1870.

Every day we seem to discover something new about the prison. We have such a large assemblage of material culture from the prisoners that it will cause Civil War re-enactors to reconsider just what can be appropriate attire.