Camp Douglas (Chicago)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Camp Douglas was a Union prisoner-of-war camp in Chicago, Illinois, USA, during the American Civil War.
[edit] POW Camp
In 1861, a tract of land at 31st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago was provided by the estate of Stephen A. Douglas for a Union Army training post. The first Confederate prisoners of war—more than 7,000 from the capture of Fort Donelson in Tennessee—arrived in February, 1862. Eventually, over 18,000 Confederate soldiers passed through the prison camp, which eventually came to be known as the North's "Andersonville" for its inhumane conditions. 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 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 in Oak Woods Cemetery (5 miles south of the former Camp Douglas).
[edit] Conditions
Inmates were deprived of blankets, medical treatment, and food. Rations were often cut and the small store that operated in the camp was eventually shut down as the war continued. At one point, prisoners ate a dog, and even rat meat came to be regarded as a delicacy.
The president of the U.S. Sanitary Commission once inspected the prison and gave a report of an "amount of standing water, of unpoliced grounds, of foul sinks, of general disorder, of soil reeking with miasmic accretions, of rotten bones and emptying of camp kettles.....enough to drive a sanitarian mad." The barracks were so horrendous, he said, that "nothing but fire can cleanse them."
Although during the first year or so of the camp's existence a number of prisoners of war were allowed to buy their way out of the camp, this means of liberty was eventually cut off. The only way out, aside from escape, was to pledge loyalty to the United States and agree to fight for the Union. Many soldiers took this oath and were sent to fight Native Americans in the West. At the end of the war, only prisoners who agreed to take the oath were given train fare to the South. Those who still refused were forced to return home by their own means which often meant walking across several states.
After the war, the camp was decommissioned and the infamous barracks and other buildings demolished. Today, condominiums fill most of the site.
