Eighty Acres of Hell

I haven't seen this documentary but hope to in the future. 2 of my descendants died at this camp, 2 of my great-grandfather's brothers (on my Dad's side). I've been able to trace them through census and civil war documents. Their names are inscribed on the plates surrounding the monument erected at Camp Douglas, in memory of those who died there.

My descendants were originally stationed at Fort Donelson, TN. They were captured there by the Union Army in one of the most significant battles of the civil war, then transferred to Camp Douglas. I have no knowledge how or what they died of, except the apparent barbaric conditions of the Camp in general.

I just saw this doc for the first time today, they are rerunning it this morning on the HIstory Channel. I have a photocopy of a photocopy of a letter from an ancestor who was imprisoned there, and would like to find out if he survived it? He was captured in February of 1864 and wrote to his uncle to beg for ten dollars (I assume to buy food or something) in May of that year. I know that 1864 was a particularly rough year for prisoners at CD. I was hoping to find out more info. My ancestor was John J. Erwin, Co. FF (or SS? - it's hard to read his handwriting on the letter) 14 Ky Regiment. He would have been from Calloway County, Kentucky, most probably.

This documentary (with actors dramatizing some scenes) tells the story of the "Andersonville of the North," the Civil War's Camp Douglas in Chicago. About one third of all of the camp's POWs died there, sometimes due to deliberate torture and often from malnutrition and disease. Some inmates resorted to eating rats.

This is a fairly well-executed (if typical) combination of re-enactment, talking heads, archival photos, maps, narrative (including excerpts from eyewitness accounts), and footage of whatever physical evidence still exists, which consists of the cemetery where many of the Confederates inmates are buried in Chicago. Fortunately, there are almost no shots of the same images over and over and over which used to be typical of these kinds of projects. The use of non-speaking re-enactors is liberally used instead. Well done--even though commandant B.J. Sweet's beard is the second-most obvious fake I have ever seen.

A number of little-known but noteworthy facts turn up such as that Colonel Sweet put the city of Chicago under martial law and actually jailed civilians in his camp. These civilians were tried by military tribunal. After the war, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that these military trials of civilians had been unconstitutional. Too late, because some of the civilians had already died in Sweet's hell-hole.

The contrast pointed up at the end of the film says it all: While the commandant of the Confederates' Andersonville POW camp in Georgia was hanged, the far worse commandant of Camp Douglas in Chicago was promoted to brigadier general!

I've submitted a link for approval to a website that provides factual information as to who is buried at Confederate Mound, Oakwoods Cemetary, Chicago Illinois.

In doing research on my ancestors I discovered that 4 of mine were Confederate prisoners at Camp Douglas, two of which died there of diarrhea and "disease". That's from official records from the prison hospital at Camp Douglas. The two which survived were required to swear allegiance to the United States before they were released. The swearing of allegiance is fitting.

I also found documents where my ancestors enlisted for a year only, but were captured not long after enlisting in the Confederate forces. They were captured at Fort Donelson, Tennessee.

What I don't understand is why this video can't be found for purchase anywhere. I purchased it a few years back, but can't find anyone selling it now.

Having served in the Army from 1974 to 1976 as a 2nd Lt and working at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois but living in Davenport, IA, during this time, the difference in winter temperatures versus where I was from, Texas, was pretty drastic. I can only imagine how hard the winter was on the prisoners with insufficient resources for staying warm and having come from a warmer winter climate.

How would I know the resources were insufficient, one might ask. Both of my parents came from poor families and were share croppers around Farmer, TX. I have an autobiography from one of my Aunts that grew up in one of these families. There was just one fireplace in the house, no electricity or plumbing. They used a number of layers of quilts to stay warm inside the house in the winter, as well as sleeping two or three to a bed so the body heat helped also. This was Texas, not Illinois. Winter temps were warmer in Texas. Corn cobbs and other resources were used as toilet paper in the outhouse. They drew drinking water from a water well cistern which is still there to this day, but dry now. Very unsanitary. Bugs freely floated on top of the water in the cistern. Extra protein is what my Aunt called it. They took a bath once or twice a week. No antibiotics existed as they grew up. The first antibiotics were developed and mass produced starting around 1940. My Aunt's Father, my Granddad, died of tuberculosis in about 1940. He died at their house. So, no antibiotics existed during the time of the Civil War.

So, I can only imagine the living conditions at Camp Douglas. Cut back on food rations, throw in some inhumane physical abuse and it indeed must as seemed like a hell on earth.

The video pins all the deaths and all the poor conditions at Camp Douglas on Colonel Sweet. He was guilty of many of the crimes and errors at the camp, but not all of them. I find him to be more like Andersonville's Wirz than unlike him. Both men were out of touch with reality, plagued by conspiracy theories or in denial. Both were "damaged goods" in a dead-end job.

Sadly, the video tries to downplay conditions at Confederate camps, Andersonville in particular. In fact, the history of Camp Douglas reveals that conditions there were better than at Andersonville. Many of the men in charge at the camp tried to improve conditions. Their most humane and sanitary efforts were thwarted by the War Department on one hand, and a desire for revenge on the other hand. Revenge for conditions in Confederate camps, the news of which leaked freely and flowed North.

There were some beastly sadists in charge of Camp Douglas, but they are given secondary attention in the video.

When statistics are used, they are biased toward the South. The thirty percent death rate statistic is based on billing done by the cemetery that accepted bodies from the camp after the war. However, this being Chicago, it is likely that the bill was inflated and empty boxes were buried to collect the fee. Or that one man's bones filled two boxes.

Camp Douglas and Andersonville were comparable, yet each prison has its own story. To pick a goat and pin all the blame on him is American bloody shirt-waving at its worst. This video is hardly history. It is politics with a goal to polish up the image of the South. By a similar token, the trial and execution of Wirz was a political statement with a goal of tarring the South, even as it justified retributive War Department policies regarding prisoners at places like Camp Douglas.

Although it gets the blood pumping, this piece is unenlightening if viewed as history.