Ghosts of the Civil War

. Ghosts . of . the . Civil . War .
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A few minutes by car out of suburban Chicago, there is a stretch of road that was lined in trees [in the 1950s]. There have been several reported sightings of soldiers in grey (Confederates) walking in a resigned manner along the side of the road; people have seen the soldiers while driving, turned around to drive by again, and seen nothing.

This area, a two-lane road lined in trees, is the nothing that remains of the prison camp for Confederates called Camp Douglas. The camp was destroyed after the war, and most of the brutality in the camp's history was kept shielded from the public eyes of either side for a long time after the end of the war.

A monument erected 30 years after the Civil War in a nearby cemetary is all that remains to tell the tale of Camp Douglas, where six thousand Confederate soldiers died and a few thousand more lived to tell of the brutality of the camp. In one particularly bad winter, more than 1000 died. These six thousand were buried in a mass grave only one acre large, much smaller than the eighty-acre camp (fondly called the "Eighty Acres of Hell") where prisoners were "deprived of clothing to discourage escapes". Some prisoners, if lucky, wore sacks with slits for arms and a head; blankets were taken from those who had them, showing the startling conditions that the Union brought upon the Confederacy, their fellow states until the dawn of the war.

The Camp Douglas monument. The text on the image is engraved on a plate on the statue.

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Ghosts of the Civil War © Adrienne Wolter 2004. Information found on this site is from the webmistress' interpretation of information presented elsewhere (these sources can be found on the Credits and Bibliography page). The layout, coding, and blended image at the top are all © Adrienne Wolter 2004. However, obviously no photographic images found on this site are my own, as I never had the opportunity to actually experience the Civil War/ghost sightings. You can cite this website in a MLA bibliography as follows:
Wolter, Adrienne. Ghosts of the Civil War. ¡Adriennewolter.com!. [DATE RETRIEVED SUCH AS 19 05 2004] <http://www.adriennewolter.com/ghosts/>.
Do not plagarize.
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. Ghosts . of . the . Civil . War . . . . . A few minutes by car out of suburban Chicago, there is a stretch of road that was lined in trees [in the 1950s]. There have been several reported sightings of soldiers in grey (Confederates) walking in a resigned manner along the side of the road; people have seen the soldiers while driving, turned around to drive by again, and seen nothing. This area, a two-lane road lined in trees, is the nothing that remains of the prison camp for Confederates called Camp Douglas. The camp was destroyed after the war, and most of the brutality in the camp's history was kept shielded from the public eyes of either side for a long time after the end of the war. A monument erected 30 years after the Civil War in a nearby cemetary is all that remains to tell the tale of Camp Douglas, where six thousand Confederate soldiers died and a few thousand more lived to tell of the brutality of the camp. In one particularly bad winter, more than 1000 died. These six thousand were buried in a mass grave only one acre large, much smaller than the eighty-acre camp (fondly called the "Eighty Acres of Hell") where prisoners were "deprived of clothing to discourage escapes". Some prisoners, if lucky, wore sacks with slits for arms and a head; blankets were taken from those who had them, showing the startling conditions that the Union brought upon the Confederacy, their fellow states until the dawn of the war. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ghosts of the Civil War © Adrienne Wolter 2004. Information found on this site is from the webmistress' interpretation of information presented elsewhere (these sources can be found on the Credits and Bibliography page). The layout, coding, and blended image at the top are all © Adrienne Wolter 2004. However, obviously no photographic images found on this site are my own, as I never had the opportunity to actually experience the Civil War/ghost sightings. You can cite this website in a MLA bibliography as follows: Wolter, Adrienne. Ghosts of the Civil War. ¡Adriennewolter.com!. [DATE RETRIEVED SUCH AS 19 05 2004] <http://www.adriennewolter.com/ghosts/>. Do not plagarize. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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