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Thousands of Confederate soldiers died in Chicago during the Civil War,
not from battle wounds, but from disease, starvation, and torture as
POWs in a military prison three miles from the Chicago Loop.
Initially treated as a curiosity, attitudes changed when newspapers
reported the deaths of Union soldiers on southern battlefields. As the
prison population swelled, deadly diseases—smallpox, dysentery, and
pneumonia—quickly spread through Camp Douglas. Starving prisoners caught
stealing from garbage dumps were tortured or shot.
Fearing a prisoner revolt, a military official declared martial law in
Chicago, and civilians, including a Chicago mayor and his family, were
arrested, tried, and sentenced by a military court.
At the end of the Civil War, Camp Douglas closed, its buildings were
demolished, and records were lost or destroyed. The exact number of dead
is unknown; however, 6,000 Confederate soldiers incarcerated at Camp
Douglas are buried among mayors and gangsters in a South Side cemetery.
Camp Douglas: Chicago’s Civil War Prison explores a
long-forgotten chapter of American history, clouded in mystery and
largely forgotten. |