As the Civil War lengthened in 1861, Federal authorities created a permanent prison system for thousands of Confederate captives, and Lieutenant Colonel William Hoffman selected Johnson's Island in Sandusky Bay as a suitable site because its location, size, wood supply, cleared land, and lease terms made it practical. Construction moved quickly, and by mid February 1862 a prison stood there; the first 200 prisoners arrived on April 11, 1862, and after June 1862 the prison held chiefly Confederate officers. The prison stockade enclosed about 16 acres within a 15 foot wooden fence and ditch over bare limestone, with 13 two-story blocks inside, including 12 barracks and a hospital, but the hastily built green-lumber buildings shrank, left gaps, and offered poor sanitation, harsh winter cold, and monotonous food. Outside the stockade stood about 40 support buildings for prison operations. Daily life centered on morning and evening roll calls, while prisoners filled the long hours with baseball, reading, language lessons, debating, poker, theater, and art, and they could buy supplies at a sutler store, though at inflated prices. Food was fairly abundant until 1864, when Secretary of War Edwin Stanton cut rations in half in retaliation for reports of suffering by Federal prisoners in the South, and prisoners then relied in part on rat hunts for added food. After General Lee's surrender and the Confederacy's collapse in 1865, most of the 2,800 prisoners signed an Oath of Allegiance, and by July 31, 1865, nearly all had been released. By September 1865 no Confederates remained there except 206 bodies in the cemetery, 52 listed as unknown. The prison buildings and furnishings were sold at public auctions from November 1865 through April 1866, the island returned to L.B. Johnson on June 8, 1866, and later agriculture, quarrying, and summer resorts destroyed nearly all visible traces of the prison, leaving mainly archaeological remains and the cemetery, whose fence, headstones, ownership, and administration changed over time.