MAJOR T. WOODBRIDGE, M. D., Surgeon in charge, sworn and examined: —
Q. What has been and is now your position in the army of the United States?
A. I am Surgeon of the 128th Regiment O. V. I., and Surgeon in charge of the Depot for Prisoners of War on Johnson’s Island, near Sandusky, Ohio.
Q. How long have you held this position?
A. Since the establishment of the prison. I came to the island in February, 1862. The first prisoners came in April, 1862. I have had medical supervision of the prison from then until now.
Q. What is your opinion of Johnson’s Island as to health and salubrity?
A. I believe Johnson’s Island to be as favorable to health as the climate of Newport or Saratoga in summer, and as that of Cincinnati or Dayton in winter. The latitude is about 41˝° North, longitude 82° 42' West. Height of lake above tide-water five hundred and sixty-five feet. The island rests upon a bed of Devonian limestone, which rises gradually from the shore to the centre, terminating in a ridge of limestone rock, thus affording complete natural drain- age. The water used is principally that of the bay, which comes in fresh constantly from Lake Erie.
Q. What diseases, if any, are peculiar to Johnston's Island or the neighboring islands in Lake Erie ?
A. I know of no diseases peculiar to those islands or prevalent in them. Johnson’s Island is a small one, containing only about three hundred acres of land, and previous to the establishment of the prison, if I am correctly informed, was not inhabited by more than one family at a time; but the Peninsula, with Kelley's Island and the Put-in-Bay Islands, have been inhabited for between thirty and forty years. I have conversed frequently with some of the oldest citizens of the peninsula and the islands, but have never heard them speak of any liability to diseases, but such as is common to other parts of Ohio.
Q. Is there any truth in the assertion made by rebel authorities that residence on the island for a few months produces in a great number of prisoners dangerous and fatal pulmonary disorders ?
A. Not the slightest.
Q. What has been the rate of mortality among the prisoners ?
A. In 1862—from April to December inclusive—the number of deaths was thirty-seven. During the year 1863 measles and smallpox were brought into the prison by prisoners sent from Alton and other prisons, and many wounded at the battles of Gettysburg, augmenting our mortality list above what it would otherwise have reached. The number of deaths for 1863 was ninety-seven. This makes, from the time of the first arrival of prisoners in April, 1862, to January 1st, 1864, (twenty-one months,) a mortality list of one hundred and thirty-four, out of an aggregate of six thousand four hundred and ten, received into the prison in that tune. As there were exchanges and removals of prisoners, the number in prison never exceeded twenty-seven hundred at any one time.(1) Many of the prisoners came here with health impaired, by bad diet, exposure, and often by wounds received in battle. The bill of mortality owes little to the climate of the post, when we consider that men in prison, away from home and friends, are weighed down by anxieties and despondency, thus making the treatment of disease more difficult.
Q. Please state the number of prisoners now at the post ?
A. About two thousand three hundred and six.(2)
Q. Please state the number of deaths daring the past two months.
A. In the month of May there were five deaths; in the month of June only one.
Q. What accommodations are provided for the care of the sick ?
A. The hospital building is one hundred and twenty-six by thirty feet, with a transverse hall six and a half feet wide in the centre. There are four wards, each forty- eight by thirty feet. There are eighty beds in all, giving to each patient, when the wards are full, seven hundred and twenty cubic feet of atmospheric air. The dispensary is furnished with all the medicines and stimulants furnished to hospitals for our own soldiers, and more than double the quantity is used by prisoners than by the same number of our troops. I have always had the assistance of competent Confederate surgeons, who cheerfully aid by giving their time to this duty. When there are no commissioned surgeons in prison, there are surgeons holding commissions in the line who do this duty. The cooking for the hospital is done by the most experienced and skilful cooks we can find in the prison.
In addition to rations, the sick are furnished with flour, potatoes, corn-meal, milk, butter, eggs, chickens, tea, &c. &c. The : bedding is amply sufficient to make each patient comfortable. A pest-house is built outside the prison, to which all cases of smallpox, measles, or other contagions, are removed on first development
J. WOODBBIDGE,
Surgeon 128th O. V. I.
Subscribed in my presence and sworn to before me at Sandusky, Ohio, this 5th day of July, 1864.
[SEAL.] HENRY C. BUSH,
Notary Public in and for Erie County, Ohio.
(1)The average number of prisoners for the entire of the year 1863 was eleven hundred and fifteen.
(2) In May, 1864t, there were two thousand one hundred and thirty-four, and In June, 186t, two thousand three hundred and nine.