A review of To Die in Chicago: Confederate Prisoners at Camp Douglas (Pelican, 1999) by George Levy
The dead are buried somewhere in Chicago and there are over 4,000 of them—that much we know. Treatment was just as harsh in most other Northern prison camps – worse in Elmira. But at least they keep better track of the corpses produced. Here at Camp Douglas things were done Chicago—style.
Beginning in August of 1864, they started burying the small pox cases right on the Douglas Estate. But over 3,300 others ended up six miles north in the pauper’s section of what was then the old city cemetery. It is now Lincoln Park. Some of the dead may still be there but the graves were shallow, the water – table high. Many washed out into the lake. Many others were probably dumped into the lake -the contractors were getting $1.50 per body, and nobody was looking.
When the old cemetery was closed after the war, the bodies were moved to Oak Woods Cemetery, some five miles South of the camp. Due to the confusion and possible corruption involved (the contract was awarded to a Chicago Alderman and his brother) nobody can say for sure how many dead Confederates are really resting at Oak Woods.
We know this—they have a noble monument, made appropriately enough of Georgia marble, and erected to their honor in 1895 by the Ex-Confederate Soldiers Association of Chicago. President Cleveland attended the ceremonies on Memorial Day. Then, as now, there were those who complained about the presence of a Confederate war memorial in the belly of the Windy City.
George Levy, the author of To Die in Chicago, is an amateur historian who attended the University of Chicago. Back in the 1860’s, the main hall of the University used to be right across the road from the pest house at Camp Douglas. The camp itself rested in part on property originally owned by the famous Illinois Senator whose name it bears.
Levy has done a wonderful job of pulling together obscure and disparate sources to illuminate as best he can a dark and all but forgotten corner of Chicago history.
His study emphasizes just how much of the suffering at Camp Douglas was really unnecessary. The men suffered miserably from a lack of anti-scorbutics but fresh fruit and vegetables were plentiful in near-by Chicago markets. There was an acute shortage of blankets-an item the federals could have easily provided for. But such shortages were no accident —they were imposed by camp commanders as punishment for escape attempts.
Much unnecessary suffering was also caused by the federal military prison system, which rewarded camp commanders who kept the budgets low. The easiest way to do this was to cut the prisoners’ rations.
