Death Register from Camp Douglas Chicago, Illinois

Camp Douglas, the Union prison camp in Chicago, Illinois, grew quickly and was poorly administered by a series of commandants. Prisoners accused several of cruelty. The camp had a maximum capacity of 6,000. But by 1864 it housed more than 12,000 Confederate soldiers as well as a few civilians suspected of sympathizing with the Confederacy or planning escapes. The official death count at Camp Douglas was 4,454. Some 1,500 men, however, were “unaccounted for.”