Aside from the daily roll calls and the police of their quarters the duties of the prisoners were few. For the most part, they enjoyed all of the liberties consistent with their position. Their confinement was necessity, and visiting was prohibited on file grounds of public policy. Disloyal visitors sometimes lent aid to prisoners who planned to escape and the restriction of visiting was found to be conducive to better discipline. Mail from the prisoners and letters coming into the prison camp were subjected to a censorship, and the prisoners were limited to one page of personal matter in their letters.

 Prison labor was used to make improvements in their camps. Generally, the prisoners did not object to this work. Hoffman marveled that they did not even complain of having to do things of such "doubtful propriety" as putting up the fences that enabled their captors to hold them more securely.

 Prisoners who worked were able to overcome, to some extent, the mental depression attendant upon their condition. The deprivation of liberty rested heavily on men who were accustomed to a life without restrictions. The nerves of the prisoners were constantly on edge, and they passed from periods of excitement to ones of depression as the ever-current rumors of exchange varied from hopeful to hopeless. To overcome the effects of confinement on the nervous system and to pass away the time in prison, the prisoners played games, gambled and, in their nervous condition even fought.

 Two prisoners were reported killed by their fellows at Camp Douglas. To relieve the depression religious services were held in the prisons. It did not overcome the mental depression of the prisoners. Many of them were sick or wounded when they were taken captive, and others fell victims to the colder climate and the inevitable exposure. Aside from the exposure and mental depression, much sickness resulted from the physical conditions of the camps. At Camp Douglas, President Bellows of the United States Sanitary Commission found deplorable conditions. Declaring that only some special providence, or some peculiar efficacy of the lake winds, could prevent the camp from becoming a source of pestilence. He called upon Hoffman to abandon the location before "the amount of standing water, of un-policed grounds, of foul sinks, of rotten bones and the emptying of camp kettles," resulted in disaster.

 The post surgeon indorsed this report with the declaration that the hospital was overcrowded and Hoffman recommended to Meigs a system of drainage for the camp. Hoffman then ordered Tucker, successor to Colonel Mulligan as commandant of the prison, to begin a system of police which should clean the camp, although he explained to Meigs that the use of prison labor would considerably reduce the estimated expense. Meigs, however, would authorize only minor improvements for the camp, justifying his action by an appeal to humanity, which required that the prisoners be given the treatment of enlisted men in the United States Army, and by the further argument that, whatever the prisoners received, it would be better than the rebels accorded to their prisoners.

 Robert N. and Ezekiel M. Bailey both became so ill they were sent to the hospital. Ezekiel died there on Feb. 25, 1862 from disease. Robert was admitted with Pneumonia on the 28th of Feb. and released on March 13. In the meantime, Ezekiel M. Bailey had been buried in the Confederate Mounds in the Oakwood Cemetery, Chicago, Ill.

 The 46-foot monument was dedicated on Memorial Day, May 30, 1895. Over 100,000 people attended the ceremonies, including large numbers of men from both armies. President Cleveland and his cabinet were there as well. In 1911, bronze panels were added to the base, with the soldiers' names, ranks, units, and home states.

 The Confederate Mound at Oak Woods is the largest Confederate burial ground in the entire North.

A SOLDIER'S DEATH DREAM

Upon the closing of City Cemetery, the bodies interred there were moved to the new cemeteries, Rosehill, Graceland, and Oak Woods. The federal government purchased a section of Oak Woods in 1867 to accommodate the 4200 known casualties of Camp Douglas. The coffins were placed in concentric circular trenches. Although the government only had 4200 names, cemetery records indicate that closer to 6000 coffins were buried here. In addition to the unknown number of Southerners, twelve Union soldiers are buried here as well, guards from the camp. Their markers, reading "Unknown U.S. Soldier", stand in a single row behind one cannon.

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Last Update Friday, 09-Mar-2018 02:40:33 CST