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Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Camp Douglas: Chicago's Civil War Prison

Camp Douglas: Chicago's Civil War Prison

Hardcover

Civil War Period (1850-1877)Regional: Midwest

Publisher Price: $31.99

ISBN10: 1531632262
ISBN13: 9781531632267
Publisher: Arcadia Lib Ed
Published: Dec 3 2007
Pages: 130
Weight: 0.91
Height: 0.38 Width: 6.69 Depth: 9.61
Language: English
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.

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Regional: Midwest