"Outdoor wayside exhibit frames on roof of Castle Williams." by U.S. National Park Service , public domain
Governors IslandPrisoners on the Island |
Prisoners on the Island at Governors Island National Monument (NM) in New York. Published by the National Park Service (NPS).
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Governors Island
National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Governors Island National Monument
New York
Prisoners on the Island
A pre-World War I postcard depicting Castle Williams' courtyard prior to the addition of the concrete-enclosed catwalks that currently dominate the Castle's interior
walls
Changing Times and
Changing Needs
Fort Jay and Castle Williams, both constructed in the early 19th century to protect New York
Harbor, did their jobs without ever firing a shot during the War of 1812—the British never
entered the Harbor during that conflict. They were both admirable fortifications, and, especially
in the case of Castle Williams, would create a new standard for coastal defense structures.
However, changing technology allowing weapons
to fire farther and more accurately forever changed
Governors Island's role by the 1840s in the defense
of New York City and the nation. Governors Island,
come the mid-1800s, would no longer be used
primarily for the defense of New York Harbor as it
had been for decades before. The army would find
other uses for it.
A Question of Rank
By the summer of 1861, as both the Union and the
Confederacy found the ongoing Civil War to be
dragging on much longer than they expected,
Castle Williams' bombproof casemates, once used to
compelling both governments to deal with the
house over 100 cannon in total, would serve several
purposes over their military careers Library of Congress
inevitable collection of prisoners they were
assembling. Neither side was prepared to deal with
the tremendous number of captives they amassed,
and over the course of the war both sides collectively established 150 makeshift, improvised
prisons constructed out of everything from simple fences around swampland to abandoned
warehouses. The US Army, scrambling to find lodgings for captured Southerners, turned to forts
along the Atlantic coast, including old Fort Jay and Castle Williams. Captured officers were sent
to the northern barracks of Fort Jay, while interred enlisted men were crammed into the old
artillery casemates of Castle Williams, now sealed and barred off into individual cells.
Officers kept in the barracks at Fort Jay were well taken care of. Their lodgings were snug but
comfortable, they were allowed to stroll most of the island at their leisure, they were permitted
to write home to their friends and families, and they occasionally played baseball in the fort's
parade grounds. In general, officers on both sides respected each other and treated each other as
gentlemen.
Captured enlisted men kept in Castle Williams have a very different
experience, however: while frequently the Castle was kept well
below capacity (at one point as few as five prisoners), during at least
two periods throughout the war it peaked at well over 1,000 men
crammed into the cells. With many inmates per cell and no heating,
running water, or beds—the structure had been built, after all, to
house cannon, not people—conditions at the Castle were squalid.
Disease was rampant: cholera, typhoid, and measles all were
frequent killers, and the frequent vomiting induced by water-borne
diseases made summertime inmates especially miserable when the
Castle was kept full. While those captured early in the war were
occasionally given outdoor time, by the end of the war, all those
interred within the walls of Castle Williams were confined to their
cells twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. These conditions |
Lieutenant Alonzo Bell poses for
mirrored those found in prisons throughout the South.
the camera prior to his capture at
Lieutenant Alonzo Etheridge Bell of the North Carolina Volunteers
spent a few months in 1861 as a prisoner in the barracks at Fort Jay. He writes at length about the
prisoner's life on Governors Island, particularly discussing the calm, comfortable climate in the
officers' quarters, the pervasive boredom, and the constant funerals that all on the island
attended for the enlisted men in Castle Williams. Bell's spirits are clearly affected by the grim
routine of a funeral every few days,
though his status as an officer allowed
him some separation from the worst
conditions on the island.
Other Civil War-era prisons make
Castle Williams look tame, however:
prisons both North and South at places
like Elmira, New York and, most
famously, Andersonville, Georgia had
deaths tolls numbering in the
thousands. Camp Sumter at
Andersonville consisted of nothing
more than fenced-off swamps in which
hundreds of men were thrown and told
to create shelter out of whatever
materials they could find. The
A Confederate prisoner sits in a Union prison camp, his
captors standing guard behind him National Park Service
prisoners had to contend with
pervasive disease and malnutrition
along with greedy prison gangs, who would beat and even kill other prisoners for their food and
shelter. Vigilante justice became common at these prisons—entire trials would be held for
captured gang members, ending frequently in punishments that included running the gauntlet
and even execution by hanging. Compared to these prisons, Castle Williams was at least
somewhat more humane to its inmates.
The Post-War Prison
Following the Civil War, the US Army vastly improved the facilities at Castle Williams, adding
insulation, heating, running water, and, eventually, electricity. It was designated a US Army
Prison in 1895 and was made a branch of the Fort Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks in 1915, of
which the prison facility at
Alcatraz in San Francisco was
also a branch. Castle Williams
held mostly low-grade
offenders, serving sentences of
less than one year in a distinctly
low-security environment.
The Castle developed a
reputation for being the most
desirable location in the US
Army prison system, and while
the outstanding view from the
fort and the friendly nature of
the guards helped that
reputation, the foremost cause Inmates listening to a performance by the Castle Williams prisoners' band
Collier's Magazine
was the shortage of hard labor
to be performed on Governors
Island—at Alcatraz, the prisoners had the backbreaking task of building their own cells out of
heavy stones, while at Governors Island, there was little else to be done besides mowing the
lawns or working as a courier. It was not an uncommon sight to see soldiers who had gone
AWOL surrender themselves outside of the Battery Maritime Building, hoping to be imprisoned
at Castle Williams.
A Familiar Theme
"Castle Bill", as it was endearingly called by its residents, would remain in use as a branch of the
US Army Disciplinary Barracks until Governors Island's closure as an Army base in 1966. The
Coast Guard did not maintain a prison in Castle
Williams but readapted it for their own needs,
using it as a community center featuring arts and
crafts classrooms, a ballet studio, meeting rooms
for the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, a daycare room,
and a teen club, From the 1970s on, it was
repurposed as a warehouse and landscaping shop,
though every Halloween a portion of the Castle
was used as a haunted house.
Just as Castle Williams had originally been built
with the purpose of protecting New York Harbor
from foreign attack in the early 19th century and
proceeded to spend over a century as a prison, the
A casemate in Castle Williams as it looks today
new Coast Guard base took the aging sentinel and
continued to use it to fill their needs. Today, the
National Park Service has plans to continue this tradition by adapting the Castle for use as an
interpretation center for New York Harbor, filling the casemates with exhibits and
programming relating to the historical, ecological, and cultural facets of the harbor and allowing
visitors access to the roof to enjoy the tremendous view of New York Harbor.
EXPERIENCE YOUR AMERICA