Camp Douglas: Chicago's Civil War Prison

The other side of the story, the part that history has been written to forget about. History has been written with a one sided slant towards the mistreatment and cruel treatment being committed by the South in Camps such as Andersonville. No surprise the that Northern States would dismantle and choose to forget that in many cases the truth. The Northern Camps in many case would have made the treatment and conditions at Andersonville pale in comparison. Over crowding, poor sanitary conditions, starvation, physical abuse and yes lack of warm clothing leaving the POWs exposed to extreme and extreme weather conditions. The ending of the prisoner exchange programs in an effort by the North to shorten the length of the war adding to the misery of prisoners on both sides. Of course the south with much more limited supplies and resources would have a much more difficult time providing food etc.. especially when its own people were starving. This is a part of our history that needs to be told and remembered. Stop putting it all on the South and Andersonville and admit the true horror of the war. An interesting read and a story that needs to be told....

The book proves a picture is worth a thousand words in conecting a reader to a place and time. This combination of photos and explanatory text provides vivid cameos set against a dark chapter in Chicago's history.

This book has many pictures of Chicago during the 19th century and pictures of the men and women of that era . Theres a good number of Camp Douglas pictures as well and at the end of the book theres a section with modern day photos of the former camp Douglas lands. Don't expect the whole book to be about Camp Douglas . Overall I liked the book, told a more complete story of that area and era. Buy Levy's book - To Die in Chicago. These two books tell it all, well almost.My Civil War relative was a Union Army officer and his regiment trained at Camp Douglas and performed guard duty there for 3 months in late 1862 before being sent down South to fight.

My great grandfather was a POW who died there, so this was documentary was both very personal and also enlightening about how he died. We had thought he died from wounds after returning home. He actually died of acute dysentery at Camp Douglas after being captured by Sherman's forces. He never saw his family again.

Although additional pages and context development would be necessary, this work should have been represented as "Chicago Military and Political Personalities During the Civil War." Too bad the Brandon and likely other Camp Douglas commercial photographs did not survive the 1871 fire. If they were extant, then maybe more for the author and editors to work with. The structure of chapters 2 and 3 seems to bounce all around the main context with the hap-hazard introduction of sub-contexts. Text often does not adequately describe the images. Some text related images are impossible to read without a magnifying glass.