Prison Life
Fort Jefferson
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The Sally Port entrance. Dr. Mudd's cell is directly above the entrance.
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Dr. Mudd's cell is above the wooden lean-to, opposite the Lighthouse Keeper's cottage.
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The Officers Barracks, gone today.
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Remains of the Soldiers' Barracks. The hospital area where Dr. Mudd treated yellow fever patients was on the ground floor at corner.
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Only known photo of the original lighthouse.
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Lux Radio Theater Recording of The Prisoner of Shark Island, May 2, 1938.
Commentary by Nettie Mudd, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd's daughter, is at the 34:30 mark.
Commentary by Nettie Mudd, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd's daughter, is at the 34:30 mark.
Please note: The movie version of The Prisoner of Shark Island was produced in 1936 by Darryl F. Zanuck. It was directed by John Ford, and starred Warner Baxter as Dr. Mudd. The Lux Radio Theater radio version was produced in 1938 by Cecil B. DeMille and starred Gary Cooper. These great Hollywood showmen were interested in entertainment, not history. Very little of either the movie version or the radio version of The Prisoner of Shark Island is historically accurate. We present the radio version here primarily because it contains the only known voice recording of Dr. Mudd's daughter, Nettie Mudd.
Fort Jefferson occupies about ten acres, roughly the same size as a major league baseball stadium. Inside the brick walls of the fort, the grassy central area, known as the Parade ground, is about the same size as a baseball stadium’s playing field.
Living quarters for soldiers and officers, gunpowder magazines, carpenter shop, bakery, chapel, theater, kitchens, storehouses, and other buildings required to maintain the fort were located around the periphery of the Parade ground. The remaining central grassy area was used for drills, inspections, a small garden, and sports, including baseball, which was exploding in popularity as America’s national pastime. Most of the structures are gone now, victims of the tropical climate, hurricanes, and fires.
Fort Jefferson was essentially a very small and densely populated city. Almost 2,000 people lived there during the Civil War years just before Dr. Mudd arrived. The peak military population was 1,729, but there were also many civilians, a fluctuating number of military and civilian prisoners, and a few slaves, living there. They were all engaged in the construction and maintenance of the fort. Occupations included machinists, carpenters, plasterers, bakers, butchers, painters, blacksmiths, masons, and general laborers. There were also lighthouse keepers and their families, cooks, a civilian doctor and his family. A number of officers brought their families, including children, and a limited number of enlisted personnel brought wives who served as laundresses (typically four per company). The 22 slaves working at Fort Jefferson in 1863 were freed shortly after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
With the war over, the population of Fort Jefferson began to decline and had dropped to 1,013 by the time Dr. Mudd arrived in July 1865. Of these, 486 were soldiers or civilians and 527 were prisoners. When Dr. Mudd was released in March 1869, the population had dropped to 282, of whom only 35 were prisoners.
The military prisoners at Fort Jefferson were a rough crowd. Their offenses included murder, manslaughter, robbery, grand larceny, and desertion. In June 1867, Post Commander George P. Andrews issued Special Order No. 78 which said:
The attention of the officers of this Post is called to the fact that atrocious crimes have been committed by prisoners at this Post who seem to think they cannot be reached by law.
In future every sentinel must use his bayonet and cartridge, and no sentinel who faithfully tries to do his duty shall ever see the inside of the guard house; if a prisoner refuses to obey orders the sentinel must shoot him, and then use his bayonet, at the same time calling for the guard. The responsibility for obedience to this order will be borne by the commanding officer.
Living quarters for soldiers and officers, gunpowder magazines, carpenter shop, bakery, chapel, theater, kitchens, storehouses, and other buildings required to maintain the fort were located around the periphery of the Parade ground. The remaining central grassy area was used for drills, inspections, a small garden, and sports, including baseball, which was exploding in popularity as America’s national pastime. Most of the structures are gone now, victims of the tropical climate, hurricanes, and fires.
Fort Jefferson was essentially a very small and densely populated city. Almost 2,000 people lived there during the Civil War years just before Dr. Mudd arrived. The peak military population was 1,729, but there were also many civilians, a fluctuating number of military and civilian prisoners, and a few slaves, living there. They were all engaged in the construction and maintenance of the fort. Occupations included machinists, carpenters, plasterers, bakers, butchers, painters, blacksmiths, masons, and general laborers. There were also lighthouse keepers and their families, cooks, a civilian doctor and his family. A number of officers brought their families, including children, and a limited number of enlisted personnel brought wives who served as laundresses (typically four per company). The 22 slaves working at Fort Jefferson in 1863 were freed shortly after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
With the war over, the population of Fort Jefferson began to decline and had dropped to 1,013 by the time Dr. Mudd arrived in July 1865. Of these, 486 were soldiers or civilians and 527 were prisoners. When Dr. Mudd was released in March 1869, the population had dropped to 282, of whom only 35 were prisoners.
The military prisoners at Fort Jefferson were a rough crowd. Their offenses included murder, manslaughter, robbery, grand larceny, and desertion. In June 1867, Post Commander George P. Andrews issued Special Order No. 78 which said:
The attention of the officers of this Post is called to the fact that atrocious crimes have been committed by prisoners at this Post who seem to think they cannot be reached by law.
In future every sentinel must use his bayonet and cartridge, and no sentinel who faithfully tries to do his duty shall ever see the inside of the guard house; if a prisoner refuses to obey orders the sentinel must shoot him, and then use his bayonet, at the same time calling for the guard. The responsibility for obedience to this order will be borne by the commanding officer.
Fort Jefferson Order Book authorizing soldiers to shoot prisoners.
Prisoners were primarily housed in open casemates on the unfinished second tier of the Sally Port wing. When they were released from the dungeon, Dr. Mudd, Spangler, Arnold, and O’Laughlen were moved to a casemate in this wing, directly above the Sally Port entrance. They lived here for the next three years until their release from Fort Jefferson - except Mike O’Laughlen who died from yellow fever in 1867
Daily life at Fort Jefferson was dictated by the rhythm of a busy army post. In the morning, bugle calls announced the time to rise and shine, to assemble for morning roll call, and for breakfast. The morning gun was fired as the flag was raised over the fort. Lunch, supper, and various events in between were announced by bugle calls. In the evening, bugle calls announced retreat, evening roll call, and bedtime taps. The evening gun was fired as the flag was lowered for the night. During the night, fort sentries loudly announced the regular changing of the guards. Unfortunately for Dr. Mudd and his companions, they had front row seats to the sights and sounds of all this activity. For most of their time at Fort Jefferson, they lived in a casemate directly over the Sally Port near the area where most of this activity took place. Dr. Mudd wrote:
We have three sentries within ten feet of our door that cry out the hours of the night at the pitch of their voices, which awakens us and destroys all sleep.
When it rained, water pooled on the floor of the casemate. The men gouged small trenches in the floor to drain the water away. In a letter home, Dr. Mudd wrote:
After every rain, our quarters leak terribly, and it’s not unusual to dip up from the floor ten and twelve large buckets of water daily. We have a hole cut into the floor and little trenches cut, so as to concentrate the aqueous secretion, which facilitates the dipping process and freeing the room from noxious miasma.
Sam Arnold wrote of the same problem:
Often during our confinement in the place buckets were used to bail out the collected water, it having been found necessary to dig deep holes and gutters to catch the water, thereby preventing our quarters becoming flooded all over. For months --- yes, over a year --- were we quartered in this filthy place, having as companions in our misery every insect known to abound on the island, in the shape of mosquitoes, bedbugs, roaches and scorpions, by which, both night and day, we were tormented.
Hurricanes were a constant threat. One of them struck on October 22, 1865 while Dr. Mudd was imprisoned in the dungeon. Trees were uprooted. The cattle pen in the middle of the parade ground collapsed and the cattle roamed free in frightened confusion. With the wind still howling in the darkness before dawn the next morning, the upper story of the south section of the officers quarters blew out, killing Lieutenant John W. Stirling in his bed and injuring Captain R.A. Stearns. The walls and roofs of many other fort buildings were severely damaged. It would take months to repair the damage.
Summertime temperatures at Fort Jefferson hovered in the 90’s. Temperatures over 100 degrees were not uncommon. The high temperatures combined with the high humidity produced a broiling sensation that could not be escaped. The winter months provided some relief, but could still be uncomfortable. On January 22, 1866, in the middle of his first winter at Fort Jefferson, Dr. Mudd wrote to his wife:
During the day, owing to the overpowering light and heat, my eyes are painful and irritated…. The weather here since the beginning of winter has been as warm as summer with you…. It sounds strange to read of heavy snows and persons freezing to death, in the papers.
Trying to ease his wife’s concerns about the tropical climate, Dr. Mudd wrote to her:
You seem to manifest some uneasiness on my account, apprehending the injurious effects of the heat upon my feeble constitution. In this regard I must remark that the climate being more moist and equable, is not liable to the evil and depressing effects, as with you. Heat in the sun here is very great, yet rarely attended with “sun stroke”; no fatal case from this cause having occurred since I have been here. Whenever there is a breeze, which is generally the case, it is always pleasant. A strict eye is kept to the cleanliness of the place, and being remote from the main land we have no fears of any infectious or epidemic disease. Unsuitable diet, beef, pork, etc. are more frequent causes of disorders and disease than locality or climate. We stand in need of a vegetable and fruit diet, of which this place is woefully deficient.
The damp tropical conditions also provided a prefect breeding ground for insects of all kinds. At one point, Dr. Mudd wrote:
I am nearly worn out, the weather is almost suffocating, and millions of mosquitoes, fleas, and bedbugs infest the whole island. We can’t rest day or night in peace for the mosquitoes.
He had no way of knowing that the mosquitoes were not just pests, but killers, carrying the deadly yellow fever virus.
Daily life at Fort Jefferson was dictated by the rhythm of a busy army post. In the morning, bugle calls announced the time to rise and shine, to assemble for morning roll call, and for breakfast. The morning gun was fired as the flag was raised over the fort. Lunch, supper, and various events in between were announced by bugle calls. In the evening, bugle calls announced retreat, evening roll call, and bedtime taps. The evening gun was fired as the flag was lowered for the night. During the night, fort sentries loudly announced the regular changing of the guards. Unfortunately for Dr. Mudd and his companions, they had front row seats to the sights and sounds of all this activity. For most of their time at Fort Jefferson, they lived in a casemate directly over the Sally Port near the area where most of this activity took place. Dr. Mudd wrote:
We have three sentries within ten feet of our door that cry out the hours of the night at the pitch of their voices, which awakens us and destroys all sleep.
When it rained, water pooled on the floor of the casemate. The men gouged small trenches in the floor to drain the water away. In a letter home, Dr. Mudd wrote:
After every rain, our quarters leak terribly, and it’s not unusual to dip up from the floor ten and twelve large buckets of water daily. We have a hole cut into the floor and little trenches cut, so as to concentrate the aqueous secretion, which facilitates the dipping process and freeing the room from noxious miasma.
Sam Arnold wrote of the same problem:
Often during our confinement in the place buckets were used to bail out the collected water, it having been found necessary to dig deep holes and gutters to catch the water, thereby preventing our quarters becoming flooded all over. For months --- yes, over a year --- were we quartered in this filthy place, having as companions in our misery every insect known to abound on the island, in the shape of mosquitoes, bedbugs, roaches and scorpions, by which, both night and day, we were tormented.
Hurricanes were a constant threat. One of them struck on October 22, 1865 while Dr. Mudd was imprisoned in the dungeon. Trees were uprooted. The cattle pen in the middle of the parade ground collapsed and the cattle roamed free in frightened confusion. With the wind still howling in the darkness before dawn the next morning, the upper story of the south section of the officers quarters blew out, killing Lieutenant John W. Stirling in his bed and injuring Captain R.A. Stearns. The walls and roofs of many other fort buildings were severely damaged. It would take months to repair the damage.
Summertime temperatures at Fort Jefferson hovered in the 90’s. Temperatures over 100 degrees were not uncommon. The high temperatures combined with the high humidity produced a broiling sensation that could not be escaped. The winter months provided some relief, but could still be uncomfortable. On January 22, 1866, in the middle of his first winter at Fort Jefferson, Dr. Mudd wrote to his wife:
During the day, owing to the overpowering light and heat, my eyes are painful and irritated…. The weather here since the beginning of winter has been as warm as summer with you…. It sounds strange to read of heavy snows and persons freezing to death, in the papers.
Trying to ease his wife’s concerns about the tropical climate, Dr. Mudd wrote to her:
You seem to manifest some uneasiness on my account, apprehending the injurious effects of the heat upon my feeble constitution. In this regard I must remark that the climate being more moist and equable, is not liable to the evil and depressing effects, as with you. Heat in the sun here is very great, yet rarely attended with “sun stroke”; no fatal case from this cause having occurred since I have been here. Whenever there is a breeze, which is generally the case, it is always pleasant. A strict eye is kept to the cleanliness of the place, and being remote from the main land we have no fears of any infectious or epidemic disease. Unsuitable diet, beef, pork, etc. are more frequent causes of disorders and disease than locality or climate. We stand in need of a vegetable and fruit diet, of which this place is woefully deficient.
The damp tropical conditions also provided a prefect breeding ground for insects of all kinds. At one point, Dr. Mudd wrote:
I am nearly worn out, the weather is almost suffocating, and millions of mosquitoes, fleas, and bedbugs infest the whole island. We can’t rest day or night in peace for the mosquitoes.
He had no way of knowing that the mosquitoes were not just pests, but killers, carrying the deadly yellow fever virus.
Before his attempted escape in September 1865 Dr. Mudd had been working in the prison hospital. After his attempted escape he was assigned to manual labor - sweeping down various parts of the fort. But in February 1867, he was assigned to the carpentry shop. In a February 20, 1867 letter, Dr. Mudd wrote:
I have had my occupation changed to that of the carpenter’s shop, which affords me more exercise and a greater diversion to my thoughts. I occupy my time principally in making little boxes, ornamenting them with different colors and varieties of wood.
He worked in the carpentry shop until the yellow fever epidemic began in August 1867. Between the end of the yellow fever epidemic in November 1867 and his pardon in February 1869, Dr. Mudd was again detailed to the carpentry shop, but sometimes also worked as a clerk in the Provost Marshall’s office. The carpentry job provided useful and creative work to help keep Dr. Mudd’s mind off his troubles. Edman Spangler, who worked in the carpentry shop his entire time at Fort Jefferson, tutored Dr. Mudd. As he gained experience, Dr. Mudd began to make rather intricate items such as walking canes, cribbage boards, jewelry boxes, and even items of furniture, some of which contained beautiful inlaid patterns.
I have had my occupation changed to that of the carpenter’s shop, which affords me more exercise and a greater diversion to my thoughts. I occupy my time principally in making little boxes, ornamenting them with different colors and varieties of wood.
He worked in the carpentry shop until the yellow fever epidemic began in August 1867. Between the end of the yellow fever epidemic in November 1867 and his pardon in February 1869, Dr. Mudd was again detailed to the carpentry shop, but sometimes also worked as a clerk in the Provost Marshall’s office. The carpentry job provided useful and creative work to help keep Dr. Mudd’s mind off his troubles. Edman Spangler, who worked in the carpentry shop his entire time at Fort Jefferson, tutored Dr. Mudd. As he gained experience, Dr. Mudd began to make rather intricate items such as walking canes, cribbage boards, jewelry boxes, and even items of furniture, some of which contained beautiful inlaid patterns.
There was no fresh water on the Tortugas islands. This is of course how the islands came to be called the Dry Tortugas. Cisterns built into the fort’s foundation caught and stored rainwater, but this water was not of sufficient quality or quantity to meet the needs of the fort. The primary source of drinking water was from steam condensers, but at the time Dr. Mudd arrived, the single old condenser then in operation could not produce enough drinking water for the almost 2,000 people at the fort, and water rationing was imposed. Over the course of the next year, the water situation steadily improved as the old condenser was repaired, an additional condenser was installed, and the number of soldiers and prisoners declined significantly. By the end of 1866, there was an ample supply of potable water at Fort Jefferson.
Nothing fresh could be grown on the island in any quantity. Food and other supplies arrived on a military steamer twice a month from New Orleans. The quality of the food was a source of constant complaint. But it was bad for everyone, prisoners and soldiers alike, since everyone ate the same food.
Watermelons, bananas, and pineapples sometimes arrived on ships from Cuba, but at exorbitant prices. Fresh vegetables were rare. Canned tomatoes and beans were sometimes available. Bread, butter, molasses, and coffee were a staple. Sea turtles, some weighing as much as two or three hundred pounds, were sometimes caught by the soldiers and added variety to the diet. Dr. Mudd was mostly a vegetarian at Fort Jefferson. He said meat was of such bad quality he never ate it: "All articles of meat, salt and fresh, are repulsive. I can’t bear the sight of them."
In the final year of his imprisonment, Dr. Mudd was allowed to tend a small vegetable garden in the center of the Parade field. In April 1868, he wrote lovingly of his little garden, saying:
There are a great quantity of ripe tomatoes, peas, beans, and collards in the garden, now suitable for table use. The corn is in silk, and soon there will be roasting ears.
Sam Arnold was also repulsed by the food. He wrote:
Food issued was horrible in the extreme. Many were suffering dreadfully from scurvy and chronic troubles. The bread was disgusting to look upon, being a mixture of flour, bugs, sticks and dirt. Meat, whose taint could be traced by its smell from one part of the fort to the other; in fact, rotten, and to such an extent that dogs ran from coming in contact with it, was served. No vegetable diet was served of any description, and the coffee, which should have been good, as good quality was issued, was made into a slop by those who had charge of the cookhouse.
Arnold was not exaggerating. A soldier serving at Fort Jefferson at about the same time wrote:
I have just been to dinner we had boiled Pork Potatoes & a piece of Bread & a dish of Rain water with wiggles in it we drink lots of wiggles & the Bread is well filled with Black Bugs about 1/4 of an inch long we pick out some of them & eat the rest there is scarcly anything that turns my stomach now it has got to be proof against dirt & nastiness.
The bad food and poor living conditions affected everyone’s health. Scurvy was a major medical problem at Fort Jefferson, resulting from the lack of fruits and vegetables containing vitamin C. Arnold and Dr. Mudd both suffered from rheumatism. Dr. Mudd lost weight – he normally weighed about 150 pounds. Shortly before his release, Dr. Mudd wrote to his wife that his hair was much thinner than when he left home, and that he had shaved off his mustache and trimmed his goatee quite short. He said he scarcely recognized himself when he looked in a mirror.
Nothing fresh could be grown on the island in any quantity. Food and other supplies arrived on a military steamer twice a month from New Orleans. The quality of the food was a source of constant complaint. But it was bad for everyone, prisoners and soldiers alike, since everyone ate the same food.
Watermelons, bananas, and pineapples sometimes arrived on ships from Cuba, but at exorbitant prices. Fresh vegetables were rare. Canned tomatoes and beans were sometimes available. Bread, butter, molasses, and coffee were a staple. Sea turtles, some weighing as much as two or three hundred pounds, were sometimes caught by the soldiers and added variety to the diet. Dr. Mudd was mostly a vegetarian at Fort Jefferson. He said meat was of such bad quality he never ate it: "All articles of meat, salt and fresh, are repulsive. I can’t bear the sight of them."
In the final year of his imprisonment, Dr. Mudd was allowed to tend a small vegetable garden in the center of the Parade field. In April 1868, he wrote lovingly of his little garden, saying:
There are a great quantity of ripe tomatoes, peas, beans, and collards in the garden, now suitable for table use. The corn is in silk, and soon there will be roasting ears.
Sam Arnold was also repulsed by the food. He wrote:
Food issued was horrible in the extreme. Many were suffering dreadfully from scurvy and chronic troubles. The bread was disgusting to look upon, being a mixture of flour, bugs, sticks and dirt. Meat, whose taint could be traced by its smell from one part of the fort to the other; in fact, rotten, and to such an extent that dogs ran from coming in contact with it, was served. No vegetable diet was served of any description, and the coffee, which should have been good, as good quality was issued, was made into a slop by those who had charge of the cookhouse.
Arnold was not exaggerating. A soldier serving at Fort Jefferson at about the same time wrote:
I have just been to dinner we had boiled Pork Potatoes & a piece of Bread & a dish of Rain water with wiggles in it we drink lots of wiggles & the Bread is well filled with Black Bugs about 1/4 of an inch long we pick out some of them & eat the rest there is scarcly anything that turns my stomach now it has got to be proof against dirt & nastiness.
The bad food and poor living conditions affected everyone’s health. Scurvy was a major medical problem at Fort Jefferson, resulting from the lack of fruits and vegetables containing vitamin C. Arnold and Dr. Mudd both suffered from rheumatism. Dr. Mudd lost weight – he normally weighed about 150 pounds. Shortly before his release, Dr. Mudd wrote to his wife that his hair was much thinner than when he left home, and that he had shaved off his mustache and trimmed his goatee quite short. He said he scarcely recognized himself when he looked in a mirror.
Many military posts, including Fort Jefferson, had convenience stores run by civilian businessmen known as sutlers. Soldiers and prisoners could both purchase items at the sutler's store. Prices were high and the quality low, but there was nowhere else to go. Sutlers sold clothing, ink, pencils, writing paper, preserves, tobacco, canned food, pins, mirrors, pocketknives, toothbrushes, hairbrushes, and a wide variety of other everyday items. Emily Holder, the wife of a Fort Jefferson assistant surgeon, wrote that she was able to buy a stove and other necessities for setting up housekeeping from the sutler’s store. Whiskey was also available from the sutler’s store, and drunkenness on the part of soldiers was a common disciplinary problem at the fort.
Prisoners could purchase items at the store with the three dollars per month credit they were given there. Some prisoners also received money from home, or earned money doing odd jobs at the fort. Dr. Mudd received some spending money from his family, and also earned some money by making small ornamental boxes which sold in Key West. In an 1867 letter to his wife, he said:
Do not give yourself any uneasiness about my fare, etc. We can supply our few wants by making little boxes, frames, etc., which are in great demand. Today we contributed to the Southern Relief Fair at Key West little articles, which were worth to us over seventy-five dollars. Our work-boxes sell readily at twenty-five and thirty cents apiece.
Spangler also made extra spending money. Dr. Mudd wrote that:
Spangler made money by trafficking with the soldiers, and we are mainly indebted to him for something extra to the crude, unwholesome, and sometimes condemned Government ration that was issued to us.
Prisoners also received food and other items in packages from home. Dr. Mudd and his fellow prisoners received clothing, canned fruit and vegetables, tobacco, and sometimes even whiskey, although the whiskey often mysteriously disappeared from the packages before being given to the prisoners.
Friends and family supported Dr. Mudd during his imprisonment by sending him letters and newspapers as well as spending money and food. Two mail boats a week normally arrived at Fort Jefferson, but sometimes the boats were delayed due to quarantine procedures designed to protect against yellow fever and other diseases. Dr. Mudd’s mail usually encountered additional delays as it passed through the fort’s military censor. While the mail from family and friends was usually upbeat about his chances for release, the newspapers allowed him to form a more realistic view of the political climate and his likelihood of release.
Fort Jefferson also had a small library that both prisoners and soldiers could use. In an October 18, 1867 letter to his wife, Dr. Mudd said: “I have access to a very choice library of over 500 volumes.” Records show that the small library also subscribed to newspapers such as the New York Herald, the Washington Chronicle, and the London Illustrated News.
Samuel Arnold, who usually worked as a clerk in the office of the fort’s commanding officer, was sometimes placed in charge of the library when the regular Army librarian, Private Alfred Herbert O’Donoghue, was away.
A soldier wrote:
We have a good library, pretty well stocked with books, and receive also some New York papers, besides other publications; so that in this respect we are very fortunate, isolated as we are from the outer world.
Alfred O’Donoghue, the Librarian, was a highly over-qualified Army Private. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland in 1857, and was a correspondent for the Dublin Daily Express and the London Times before immigrating to the United States in 1863 and joining the Union Army. After service at Fort Jefferson, he left the military and moved to Missouri where he married and became a successful editor and lawyer. O’Donoghue also established and ran a Fort Jefferson school for illiterate soldiers. He held classes for about 35 illiterate soldiers each weekday.
Prisoners could purchase items at the store with the three dollars per month credit they were given there. Some prisoners also received money from home, or earned money doing odd jobs at the fort. Dr. Mudd received some spending money from his family, and also earned some money by making small ornamental boxes which sold in Key West. In an 1867 letter to his wife, he said:
Do not give yourself any uneasiness about my fare, etc. We can supply our few wants by making little boxes, frames, etc., which are in great demand. Today we contributed to the Southern Relief Fair at Key West little articles, which were worth to us over seventy-five dollars. Our work-boxes sell readily at twenty-five and thirty cents apiece.
Spangler also made extra spending money. Dr. Mudd wrote that:
Spangler made money by trafficking with the soldiers, and we are mainly indebted to him for something extra to the crude, unwholesome, and sometimes condemned Government ration that was issued to us.
Prisoners also received food and other items in packages from home. Dr. Mudd and his fellow prisoners received clothing, canned fruit and vegetables, tobacco, and sometimes even whiskey, although the whiskey often mysteriously disappeared from the packages before being given to the prisoners.
Friends and family supported Dr. Mudd during his imprisonment by sending him letters and newspapers as well as spending money and food. Two mail boats a week normally arrived at Fort Jefferson, but sometimes the boats were delayed due to quarantine procedures designed to protect against yellow fever and other diseases. Dr. Mudd’s mail usually encountered additional delays as it passed through the fort’s military censor. While the mail from family and friends was usually upbeat about his chances for release, the newspapers allowed him to form a more realistic view of the political climate and his likelihood of release.
Fort Jefferson also had a small library that both prisoners and soldiers could use. In an October 18, 1867 letter to his wife, Dr. Mudd said: “I have access to a very choice library of over 500 volumes.” Records show that the small library also subscribed to newspapers such as the New York Herald, the Washington Chronicle, and the London Illustrated News.
Samuel Arnold, who usually worked as a clerk in the office of the fort’s commanding officer, was sometimes placed in charge of the library when the regular Army librarian, Private Alfred Herbert O’Donoghue, was away.
A soldier wrote:
We have a good library, pretty well stocked with books, and receive also some New York papers, besides other publications; so that in this respect we are very fortunate, isolated as we are from the outer world.
Alfred O’Donoghue, the Librarian, was a highly over-qualified Army Private. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland in 1857, and was a correspondent for the Dublin Daily Express and the London Times before immigrating to the United States in 1863 and joining the Union Army. After service at Fort Jefferson, he left the military and moved to Missouri where he married and became a successful editor and lawyer. O’Donoghue also established and ran a Fort Jefferson school for illiterate soldiers. He held classes for about 35 illiterate soldiers each weekday.
There was little opportunity for entertainment at a military prison located on a desert island. However, the officers and civilians at the fort did organize plays for entertainment. Both soldiers and prisoners were able to attend. Alfred O’Donoghue wrote that the fort had:
…a very good theatre, gotten up entirely, at very great cost and labor and well supported, by the present battalion. There are performances nearly every week. The plays are sent on from New York, and the dramatic company is kept pretty well informed in theatrical matters. The great difficulty that the managers labor under is the want of female characters, personated by real women. Soldiers do not, as a rule, make good lady characters, and especially here, the face of every man being so well known, their employment in the female department destroys the illusion of reality so necessary to good playing. A shout of derisive laughter often greets the false woman in expansive crinoline; the awkwardness of the figure and long stride betray the deception. Besides, despite of care, very ridiculous accidents in the dress arrangement will sometimes occur, pins will get out of place, and skirts will fall, betraying the masculine trowsers.
For a brief period we had indeed a real live woman character; the very pretty and very talented wife of a non-commissioned officer, since promoted to another department, consented to act with the boys. Her acting and deportment were both excellent, and the enthusiasm on such occasions among the audience was unbounded. On the evening previous to her departure a benefit was given her, and a goodly pile of greenbacks raked in.
George Grenfell, a prisoner, didn’t agree that the fort had “a very good theater.” He wrote:
A learned physician, Dr. Mudd, has descended to playing the fiddle for drunken soldiers to dance to or form part of a very miserable orchestra at a still more miserable theatrical performance.
…a very good theatre, gotten up entirely, at very great cost and labor and well supported, by the present battalion. There are performances nearly every week. The plays are sent on from New York, and the dramatic company is kept pretty well informed in theatrical matters. The great difficulty that the managers labor under is the want of female characters, personated by real women. Soldiers do not, as a rule, make good lady characters, and especially here, the face of every man being so well known, their employment in the female department destroys the illusion of reality so necessary to good playing. A shout of derisive laughter often greets the false woman in expansive crinoline; the awkwardness of the figure and long stride betray the deception. Besides, despite of care, very ridiculous accidents in the dress arrangement will sometimes occur, pins will get out of place, and skirts will fall, betraying the masculine trowsers.
For a brief period we had indeed a real live woman character; the very pretty and very talented wife of a non-commissioned officer, since promoted to another department, consented to act with the boys. Her acting and deportment were both excellent, and the enthusiasm on such occasions among the audience was unbounded. On the evening previous to her departure a benefit was given her, and a goodly pile of greenbacks raked in.
George Grenfell, a prisoner, didn’t agree that the fort had “a very good theater.” He wrote:
A learned physician, Dr. Mudd, has descended to playing the fiddle for drunken soldiers to dance to or form part of a very miserable orchestra at a still more miserable theatrical performance.
There were no ministers permanently stationed at Fort Jefferson, but Dr. Mudd practiced his religion as well as he could. He wrote in various letters:
... I have not omitted saying my beads a single day since living on this horrid island.
... after the discourse, I repaired to my quarters, took my usual supper, said my beads, and enjoyed for a time a promenade up and down my gloomy quarters.
... I shall say to-day a pair of beads for your intention.
... I heard mass yesterday. There are many Catholics among the citizen laborers, and we have quite a large congregation, nearly all going to communion.
... I have had the happiness to go to confession and communion... Bishop Verot and Father O’Hara visited us on the 28th.
... I had the consolation of going to confession, and receiving holy communion on the 8th.
... I went to confession and communion... The name of the priest is Father Allard.
... I have not omitted saying my beads a single day since living on this horrid island.
... after the discourse, I repaired to my quarters, took my usual supper, said my beads, and enjoyed for a time a promenade up and down my gloomy quarters.
... I shall say to-day a pair of beads for your intention.
... I heard mass yesterday. There are many Catholics among the citizen laborers, and we have quite a large congregation, nearly all going to communion.
... I have had the happiness to go to confession and communion... Bishop Verot and Father O’Hara visited us on the 28th.
... I had the consolation of going to confession, and receiving holy communion on the 8th.
... I went to confession and communion... The name of the priest is Father Allard.
