pddoc.com

    The Photographic History of the Civil War
                  Volume 7 -
Prisons and Hospitals

  A Wet Day at Camp Douglas

 

A Wet Day at Camp Douglas, Near Chicago, Illinois

At any period the sanitary conditions at Camp Douglas were not satisfactory. The ground was low and always flooded after a rain, as seen in this photograph, and stagnant pools of water stood there with no means of draining them off. The highest rate of mortality for any one prison during one month of the war was reached at Camp Douglas in February, 1863. Unused to the rigors of the Northern climate, the Southern prisoners died like flies in their unsanitary surroundings. The mortality rate for this one month was ten per cent. Judging from the men shown in this photograph, some of the prisoners were fairly comfortable. The Confederate gray of some of the uniforms can be plainly discerned. The pipes show that, they were not denied the luxury of tobacco.

page 159  in 1911 book

Hit Counter
visits to this page.
Page last revised05/24/2006

More Civil War Material:
American Civil War Anecdotes, Incidents and Articles.

This online edition of The Photographic History of the Civil War includes improved images using digital images from the Library of Congress, when available. It also includes additional images that are either cropped from the Library of Congress digital images or are related to the specific topic being discussed in the article or page.

Volume 7 of the History is the first volume I'm publishing online simply because it was the one I was interested in when I decided to publish.

More to come, I hope.

 

Copyright © 2004 Michael P. Goad  All rights reserved.