SANDUSKY, Ohio — Just beyond the wrought iron gate, a Confederate soldier grasping a rifle holds a hand up to shade his face as he scans the horizon.
The Lookout, sculpted by Moses Ezekiel, guards the Confederate Stockade Cemetery on Johnson’s Island, the resting place of some 267 Confederate soldiers once held at a nearby prison.
The Johnson’s Island Prison, built during the Civil War in 1862, was the only facility built by the Union solely for the purpose of housing Confederate war captives.
Today, the prison persists both as a cemetery and an archaeology site. Half a mile from the bronze statue, tidy lawn, and orderly white headstones, Professor David Bush of Heidelberg University and eight volunteers — most of them entering college, in college, or just graduated — are excavating the prison. They started their most recent dig on June 6 and will work for five weeks as part of the university’s Field School.
‘The Lookout’ at Johnson’s Island Confederate Cemetery was sculpted in 1910 by Moses Ezekiel. It has not drawn the controversy that some prominent monuments in Louisiana and elsewhere have had this year.
The prison is quiet while they work. So is the cemetery. ...
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