Prisons in Illinois - Defunct Prisons in Illinois, Camp Douglas, United States Penitentiary, Marion, Menard Correctional Center (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 23. Chapters: Defunct prisons in Illinois, Camp Douglas, United States Penitentiary, Marion, Menard Correctional Center, Pontiac Correctional Center, Joliet Correctional Center, Rock Island Arsenal, Thomson Correctional Center, Stateville Correctional Center, Illinois Department of Corrections, Camp Butler National Cemetery, Cook County Jail, Tamms Correctional Center, Dwight Correctional Center, Carthage Jail, Metropolitan Correctional Center, Chicago, Graham Correctional Center, Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin, Logan Correctional Center. Excerpt: Camp Douglas, in Chicago, Illinois, was a Union Army prisoner-of-war camp for Confederate soldiers taken prisoner during the American Civil War. It was also a training and detention camp for Union soldiers. The Union Army first used the camp in 1861 as an organizational and training camp for volunteer regiments. It became a prisoner-of-war camp in early 1862. Later in 1862 the Union Army again used Camp Douglas as a training camp. In the fall of 1862, the Union Army used the facility as a detention camp for paroled Union Army prisoners pending their formal exchange for Confederate prisoners. Camp Douglas became a permanent prisoner-of-war camp from January 1863 to the end of the war in May 1865. In the summer and fall of 1865, the camp served as a mustering out point for Union Army volunteer regiments. The camp was dismantled and the movable property was sold off late in the year. In the aftermath of the war, Camp Douglas eventually came to be noted for its poor conditions and death rate of between seventeen and twenty-three per cent. On April 15, 1861, the day after the U.S. Army garrison surrendered Fort Sumter to Confederate forces, President Abraham Lincoln called 75,000 State militiamen into federal service for ninety days to put down the insurrection. On May 3, 1861, Pres...