CAMP DOUGLAS; DEATH CAMP
Well, if he’s an angel, all right then… But he damn well must be a killer angel.
Sergeant ‘Buster’ Kilrain: Ref The Killer Angels (1974) is a historical novel by Michael Shaara
According to Theodore Karamanski, Ref; a history professor at Loyola University in Chicago and the author of Civil War Chicago: Eyewitness to History.
Camp Douglas’s makeshift nature showed in its rickety wooden barracks and crude sewer system. Soon, though, the camp was taking on more and more prisoners and keeping them for longer and longer. But because neither side intended on taking large numbers of prisoners for extended periods of time, Camp Douglas — as well as most other Civil War prison camps — proved unprepared to handle them.
“That is when all the prison camps got a lot nastier,” Karamanski says.
The camp was meant for no more than 6,000 prisoners, and as its ranks grew to roughly 12,000 at its peak it became more dangerous than any battlefield. Overcrowding and poor sanitation spread diseases such as dysentery, smallpox, typhoid fever and tuberculosis. Illness became the camp’s leading cause of death, claiming roughly 4,500 Confederate soldiers, or 17 percent of the total number of men imprisoned at the camp during its nearly four years in operation, according to Karamanski’s estimate. In his book, Karamanski cites an 1862 report by the U.S. Sanitary Commission, wherein an agent admonished Camp Douglas for its “foul stinks,” “unventilated and crowded barracks,” and “soil reeking of with miasmic accretions” as “enough to drive a sanitarian to despair.”
There were also very few rules of conduct for camp guards who were quick to puish prisoners for unfounded reasons. Or kill them for small infractions of the rules. One account tells us that a guard once shot a confederate prisoner because he urinated in the wrong place. Other accounts tell of the kill-line where prisoners would be shot down for coming to close to the camps perimeter. Other eye witness accounts tell of guards shooting indiscriminately into prisoners barracks resulting in the deaths and wounding of hundreds of prisoners. The conditions of Camp Douglas, would by modern standards be considered a death camp, and such offenses would be prosecuted as war crimes. No offenders would be tried for any crimes at Camp Douglas, and Lincoln's administration would be held up as heroic emancipators. Nothing could be further from the truth, war is war and human nature frequently sinks into dark places when humans are given the power of death over prisoners who have no one to turn too.
A Chicago area Chapter of the Son's of Confederate Veterans
hold a memorial service at Oakwoods Cemetery
Camp Douglas Memorial' Camp #516, SCV at Oakwoods Cemetery
On Sunday April 22nd, 2018, members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans held a ceremony to honor the soldiers who had died at Camp Douglas. The members are made up of historic reenactors and historic preservationists. The Reenactors were met by a group of approximately forty protestors. Even though both sides were peaceful and introspect. It was apparent by subsequent newspaper accounts that there was clearly some media bias, as local newspapers and TV outlets improperly labeled these SCV members as "Neo-Confederates" alluding to the members as being white supremacists. This was a seriously incorrect and divisive term.
The following statement can be found on the "Son's of Confederate Veterans" Webpage;
Charge to the Sons of Confederate Veterans
“To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we will commit the vindication of the cause for which we fought. To your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier’s good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles which he loved and which you love also, and those ideals which made him glorious and which you also cherish.”
Lt. General Stephen Dill Lee, Commander General,
United Confederate Veterans,
New Orleans, Louisiana, April 25, 1906.
In the final analysis, civil war historians, members of the SCV and citizens of the southern U.S. kept the promise that Grant and Lee had made at Appomattox, to not disturb the other, AND to treat the defeated with respect and honor. The south never raised a hand or weapon in rebellion against the United States again. But now, the city governments where leftists have seized control have clearly violated the terms of surrender. In some countries, this blatant disrespect and disregard for military agreements could be considered an act of war. And in some peoples opinion, this is exactly what the disgruntled citizens of the U.S. are risking. The rekindling of the civil war is not within the scope of authority, or the concern of any local city government. It is the duty and responsibility of the federal government to execute war within, and outside of the borders of the United States. The state level governments and its subordinates have over stepped their authority and just as the confederacy was conquered by federal authority, these local government entities must be reined in.
"Not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside."
- Sergeant Shakes-Speare
Reference https://www.wbez.org/shows/curious-cit y/chicagos-forgotten-civil-war-prison-camp/92844206-a9bc-4f62-8786-d5afef093379
No comments:
Post a Comment