Confederate POW To Go Home; 2 Ceremonies Set
By Kathryn Jorgensen
October 2002

Take an officer from the CSS Atlanta who died in Boston and was buried four times and introduce a Massachusetts naval historian whose great-grandfather was captain of the Atlanta when it went down after the Civil War. This is the poignant story of Lt. Edward J. Johnston, New England’s last Civil War prisoner of war.

On Oct. 12 he will be exhumed one last time — 139 years minus one day after his death — and pardoned. His remains will be reburied with his wife in Fernandina Beach, Fla., on Oct. 26.
Johnston was first assistant engineer on the CSS Atlanta when it was captured by the Union. Its officers arrived at Fort Warren prison on George’s Island in Boston Harbor in late June 1863. He died there on Oct. 13, 1863.

According to Bob Hall of the Olde Colony Civil War Round Table of Massachusetts, Johnston was buried on the island as he had requested… .”

When the fort closed, Johnston was reburied on Governor’s Island and Deer Island, which both closed, before finally being buried in Ayer at the Fort Devens Army cemetery in 1939.

About nine years ago Dana Chapman of Morrow, Ga., heard about Johnston from friends who took part in a Civil War living history program at Fort Warren. Chapman, a member of the Georgia Civil War Commission, tried to find the grave.

As a former member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and a medical reenactor she says the story captured her imagination and she learned what she could about Johnston.

The family had learned of Johnston’s death by letter from a priest who was at the deathbed of someone else. Chapman knows that for almost 20 years early in the 1900s a member of the UDC in Boston took flowers to his grave.

In the 1930s, when Johnston’s wife was still living, a grandchild found and visited the grave. The family wanted to rebury him, but the cost of moving the steel box that held the remains and the 1500-pound gravestone was too costly.

“It was appalling to me that the federal government had to move him four times. Why couldn’t they have moved him to Florida when the family asked?” Chapman asks.

Johnston was born in Dublin, Ireland, and came to the U.S. when he was 3, but his date of birth is not known. Chapman says they don’t know where the family moved, but when he was about 14 he went to sea and became an engineer. He returned to Ireland when he was about 17 and stayed for a couple of years, then returned here and married. He was about 39 when he died. According to the 1860 census he had four children.

Chapman says the cause of his death was likely exposure, a combination of pneumonia, dysentery and diarrhea. The fort was incomplete. Boston residents responded “gallantly” to the mayor’s plea for blankets and supplies for the prisoners and guards.

She calls Fort Warren “one of the most humane stories of POWs of the war, North or South.” She says that Johnston was well thought of. Prisoners and guards paid for his granite grave marker which has followed him through the reburials.

Chapman’s effort to find Johnston’s grave was unsuccessful. The idea of returning his remains to the South resurfaced this past January with naval historian Joe Geden of the Olde Colony Civil War Round Table. His great-grandfather was captain of the Atlanta when it sank in 1869.

Geden wrote about Johnston in the Olde Colony newsletter and the word was spread through The Civil War News and the Internet thanks to Bob Hall. It wasn’t long before Chapman was alerted and volunteers were ready to help return Edward Johnston to his family.

Because of his ship’s name and its base in and capture near Savannah, people had assumed he was from Georgia and the Sons of Confederate Veterans in that state were contacted about helping with the reburial. The project was dubbed “Bring A Georgia Confederate Home.”
However, family members were located in Florida. It was learned that Johnston lived in Jacksonville when he joined the navy. His wife and some of her children and their spouses are buried in Fernandina Beach. Two great-grandchildren died this year, but about 50 great-great-grandchildren have been contacted.

Many descendants now live in the North. “They can’t understand why we’re all so gung ho to help bring him home,” Chapman comments.

Family members will likely be stunned at how important the disinterment and reburial are to so many people. People from all over the world have shown an interest in the ceremonies, says Chapman. An SCV member from Georgia who is a Civil War navy reenactor has volunteered to pay the estimated $10,000 cost.

The Massachusetts contingent has planned a military ceremony at Fort Devens on Oct. 12 with the cooperation of the Massachusetts Commissioner of Veterans Services. Military personnel and reenactors will form an honor guard for the procession to and from the grave. The ceremony will include remarks by officials, a pardon and return of citizenship, eulogy, rifle salute and drummer and fifer. More than a dozen great-great-grandchildren will be among the guests.
Pallbearers will carry the remains to a vehicle which will lead the procession out of the cemetery. A state police escort will meet the procession.

The cortege will include a funeral home van and vehicles for the gravestone and honor guard. They will be escorted by state police through the various states during the three-day drive to Florida.

Chapman says the route down Interstate 95 was chosen because Johnston was “up and down” that part of the coast. Reenactors are encouraged to pay their respects as the cortege passes. In Charleston the H.L. Hunley honor guard will fire a salute from a bridge.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans, United Daughters of the Confederacy, reenactors and area officials are going all out “to welcome this man home.”

A Confederate honor guard will be posted for 11 days at the Oxley-Heard Funeral Home in Fernandina Beach which for years has handled burials for Johnston’s descendants.

On the morning of Oct. 26 the casket will be moved to the CSS Belle, a navy reenacting boat, which will carry it up the Amelia River to a docking point near Bosque Bella Cemetery.

The Confederate military ceremony will begin at 2. Johnston’s casket will be covered with two flags — a copy of the CSS Atlanta flag made by Chapman and the bonnie blue flag from the casket of his granddaughter who was president of the Florida UDC. Chapman is also making a navy uniform for a family member.

For information about the route and opportunities to view the procession contact George Hagan at ghagan@isoa.net. Bob Hall can be reached at occwrt@aol.com and Dana Chapman at confederatenurse@yahoo.com for information about the ceremonies. Information will also be posted at http://hometown.aol.com/gordonkwok/occwrt.html

Donations are welcome for the Johnston Memorial Fund. They may be sent to George Hagan, 283 Worth Wood Rd., Albany, GA 31705.