Camp Douglas (Chicago)

Camp Douglas was a Union training camp and later prisoner-of-war camp in Chicago, Illinois, USA, during the American Civil War.

Overview

In 1861, a tract of land at 31 st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago was provided by the estate of Stephen A. Douglas for a Union Army training post on the original site of the first University of Chicago. The first Confederate prisoners of war, more than 7,000 from the capture of Fort Donelson in Tennessee, arrived in February 1862 by the Illinois Central railroad which ran along the shore of Lake Michigan just to the east of the camp. Eventually, over 26,000 Confederate soldiers passed through the prison camp, which eventually came to be known as the North's "Andersonville" for its inhumane conditions.

Deaths

It is estimated that from 1862–1865, more than 6,000 Confederate prisoners died from disease, starvation, and the bitter cold winters (although as many as 1,500 were reported as "unaccounted" for). The largest number of prisoners held at any one time was 12,000 in December, 1864. Accounts vary as to precise numbers. According to "80 Acres of Hell", a television documentary produced by the A&E Network and the The History Channel, the reason for the uncertainty is that many records were intentionally destroyed after the war. The documentary also alleges that, for a period of time, the camp contracted with an unscrupulous undertaker who sold some of the bodies of Confederate prisoners to medical schools and had the rest buried in shallow graves without coffins. Some were even dumped in Lake Michigan only to wash up on its shores. Many, however, were initially buried in unmarked pauper's graves in Chicago's City Cemetery (located on the site of today's Lincoln Park), but in 1867 were reinterred at what is now known as "Confederate Mound" in Oak Woods Cemetery (5 miles south of the former Camp Douglas).

Nobody was ever held accountable for the conditions and actions at Camp Douglas, in fact the only Union general to gain the rank without seeing combat was an overseer of Camp Douglas. This is also to this date the largest mass grave in the western hemisphere, as documented by the book "To Die in Chicago".

Conditions

Henry Whitney Bellows, president of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, wrote to Colonel Hoffman his superior after visiting the camp: "Sir, the amount of standing water, unpoliced grounds, of foul sinks, of unventilated and crowded barracks, of general disorder, of soil reeking miasmatic accretions, of rotten bones and emptying of camp kettles, is enough to drive a sanitarian to despair. I hope that no thought will be entertained of mending matters. The absolute abandonment of the spot seems to be the only judicious course, I do not believe that any amount of drainage would purge that soil loaded with accumulated filth or those barracks fetid with two stories of vermin and animal exhalations. Nothing but fire can cleanse them." (in the documentary "80 Acres of Hell").

According to the History Channel documentary, the commander before Sweet imposed the following harsh conditions: 3oz daily meat portions, sitting naked in the winter, crippling sittings on a sawhorse device, and beating or shooting of those trying to circumvent food rationsmdasheven, for example, to punish the eating of snow. [cite book
last = Pucci
first = Kelly
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Camp Douglas: Chicago's Civil War Prison
publisher = Arcadia Publishing
date = 2007
location =
pages = 57
url =
doi =
id =
isbn = 0-7385-5175-9]

During Colonel B.J. Sweet's command of Camp Douglas, he used reduced food rationsmdashremoving vegetables and decreasing the 3oz daily meat portionsmdashto control the prison population and reduce escape attempt numbers. The reduced rations increased instances of diseases such as scurvy and helped to increase mortality rates. Sweet rewarded guards for shooting prisoners, restricted prisoner movement, and enforced nightly quiet hours. Acting on rumors of a pre-election Camp Douglas Conspiracy to break prisoners free, Sweet extends martial law from the blocks surrounding Camp Douglas to the city of Chicago and arrests about a hundred citizens suspected of treason (reference: "80 Acres of Hell").

Prisoners were tortured to try to extract information. Prisoners were hung by their thumbs or forced to ride the "wooden horse" or "mule", with weight hung on their feet to make the experience more painful (reference: "80 Acres of Hell").

Modern day

After the war, the camp was decommissioned and the infamous barracks and other buildings were demolished. Today, condominiums fill most of the site. For many years, a local funeral home later built on the site maintained prisoner records and a Confederate flag at half-staff, despite being a black-owned business in a predominantly African American neighborhood. The business closed December 31 2007. [cite news
url=http://civilwartalk.com/forums/campfire-chat-general-discussions/26719-griffin-funeral-home-chicago-built-site-camp-douglas-closing-end-year.html
title=60-year legacy ends: GRIFFIN FUNERAL HOME | Venerable business, which was built on site of Civil War POW camp, is closing at end of the year
author=Shamus Toomey
date=November 12 2007
publisher=Chicago Sun-Times
accessdate=2007-11-12]

Notes

References

* To die in Chicago : Confederate prisoners at Camp Douglas, 1862-1865. 1994. by Levy, George, Evanston Pub. Co., Evanston, Ill.
* A Civil War prison camp by the lake : Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois 1993. by Fulton, Lori Renee. Master's Thesis, IL State Univ
* A history of Camp Douglas, Illinois, Union Prison, 1861-1865. 1989. by Kelly, Dennis. National Park Service, Southeast Region.
* A comparative study of conditions at two Civil War prison camps : Camp Douglas, Chicago, Illinois and Camp Sumpter, Andersonville, Georgia. 1979. by Kubalanza, Joan Marie G., M.A. Thesis, DePaul Univ.
* Site of Camp Douglas. 1976. by Commission on Chicago Historical and Architectural Landmarks.
* Confederate soldiers, sailors, and civilians who died as prisoners of war at Camp Douglas, Chicago, Ill., 1862-1865 1968. by Praus, Alexis A. E. Gray Publications, Kalamazoo, MI. [most buried at Chicago's Oakwoods Cemetery]
* The History Of Camp Douglas, 1861-1865. 1961. by De Jonge, Karl Everard. Urbana, IL.
* Camp Douglas & its prisoner of war letters. 1951. by Cabeen, Richard. American Philatelic Congress, Reading PA.
* History of Camp Douglas 1942. by Clingman, Lewis B. MA Thesis, DePaul Univ.
* A sketch of the Battle of Franklin, Tenn. ; with reminiscences of Camp Douglas. 1893. by Copley, John M. Eugene Von Boeckmann, printer, Austin, TX.
* Biographical sketch of the late Gen. B.J. Sweet. History of Camp Douglas. A paper read before the Chicago Historical Society, June 18th, 1878 1878. by Bross, William. Jansen, McClurg & Co., Chicago.
* The history of Camp Douglas : including official report of Gen. B.J. Sweet : with anecdotes of the rebel prisoners. 1865. by Tuttle, Edmund Bostwick. J.R. Walsh, Chicago.
* Reply of the Judge advocate, H. L. Burnett, to the pleas of the counsel for the accused : to the jurisdiction of the military commission, convened by major-general Hooker, commanding northern department, in the case of the United States vs. Charles Walsh ... (et al.) charged with conspiring to release the rebel prisoners at Camp Douglas, Chicago, Illinois, and to lay waste and destroy that city. 1865 by Burnett, Henry Lawrence. Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin, Cincinnati.
* Chicago's Camp Douglas, 1861-1865. By Eisendrath, Joseph L.

External links

* [http://www.chicagohs.org/DGBPhotoEssay/DGB02.html Chicago Historical Society - Camp Douglas]
* [http://www.prairieghosts.com/campd.html Camp Douglas]
* [http://www.illinoiscivilwar.org/campdouglas.html Illinois in the Civil War — Camp Douglas]
* [http://www.graveyards.com/IL/Cook/oakwoods/confederate.html Photo of the monument to Camp Douglas's Confederate dead]
* [http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=175445 History Channel - Special:Eighty Acres of Hell]
* [http://www.camp-douglas-1507.org/ Camp Douglas Memorial #1507]