CHICAGO, A CITY OF OUR DEAD (A slightly revised version of a commentary by Joan Hough appearing in a Demastus "Southern Heritage News and Views, August 7, 2008)
CAMP DOUGLAS IN CHICAGO, Illinois
In Chicago, Illinois is the largest mass grave in the western hemisphere. Six thousand Southern soldier boys lie dumped in a single grave in a swampy area - now reclaimed by adding dirt. (Reminds me of the mass graves the Communists buried so many folks inand blamed the killings on the Germans.) The young soldiers- all privates--were removed from single graves and dumped in the one in the swamp. The dumped Confederates were part of the 12,000 Confederates held as prisoners at the "80 acres of Yankee Hell," officially named Camp Douglas. Two thousand more dead Confederates, who should have been buried in the same dump, instead, simply disappeared--due to "poor record keeping" or so it was claimed. The Dump Grave was unmarked for around 25 years until Confederates moved to Chicago and raised money to build a monument of stone they imported from Georgia. Publicity released by the Northerners, of course, would have the world believe that Yankees built the monument from mostly their own money.
The sons of the South died as a direct result of horrendous, tortuous treatment and neglect given them by the enemies of the Confederacy and the U.S. Constitution.
It is a proven fact that although food was plentiful in the North, Confederate prisoners of war were deliberately starved at Camp Douglas, and left to die of exposure because of a lack of warm clothes and blankets. The North, unlike the South, had no shortage of medicine, food or blankets because the Confederate Army did not blockade northern ports, nor march through the North burning all the crops and the houses, and stealing the bed covers and the baby clothes, along with the wedding rings and ear bobs of the lady of the house. Lincoln, himself, refused to allow Yankee doctors to take advantage of the free passage Jefferson Davis offered and take medicines and treat Yankee prisoners held in Southern prisons. He, also, refused to have them treat Southern prisoners held in Northern prison camps (p 145. The South Under Siege by Frank Conner). Southern prisoners were murdered at Camp Douglas. This may have been the result of Republican Senator Wade’s expressed desire to have all Confederate prisoners killed.
General Grant, with Lincoln's approval, prohibited prisoner exchanges. Ulysses Grant, that great overall commanding General in Lincoln's Army halted the Prisoner exchange policy. He stated that by the exchange of prisoners the North would get no men fit to go into their army and every soldier given the Confederates would go immediately into theirs, so the exchange would virtually give aid to the South and give none to the North. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USACWexchange.htm The Victors, of course, deny this--claiming the North wanted to exchange prisoners, but Jeff Davis refused. [Sure!]
Somehow Lincoln's army operating the Hell hole in Chicago---misplaced about 2000 dead Confederates. Oddly, nobody knows where those poor Southerners lie buried, that is, if they were even buried. Some Southerners wonder if there were, at that time, many ovens in Chicago. Certainly, a holocaust of some sort left 8,000 captured Southern boys dead--in a happening that was just as accidental as was the modern attack on the United States listening ship, the Liberty.
The mortality rate at the Chicago vermin-infested prison camp was the highest of all prison camps north and south, making the deaths at Andersonville less shocking--especially when one realizes that the prisoners at Andersonville were fed no less than what most of their captors themselves had to eat and what Southern women and children were able to eat after Senator Sherman's brother General Sherman found his joy in inflecting death on all civilians in his Southern path.
Amazing, how historians have told us over and over that Andersonville was a place of horror requiring that the Confederate in charge be executed as a WAR CRIMINAL.(True history revealed the man innocent.) As one might expect, the Lincoln-cult, truth-revisionist historians and academicians have neglected to reveal the truth about their Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois, the "80 Acres of Hell" wherein were exterminated thousands upon thousands of young Southern boys by men with ties leading directly to Abe Lincoln and his Marxist-run Republican Party. One cannot help but wonder about the degree of sadism lodged in Mr. Lincoln and the persons in Mr. Lincoln's party. One must wonder as to the identity of the head of that prison. It would be interesting to learn his name and background.
I think the descendants of every Confederate lost at Camp Douglas deserve an apology and to be paid RESTITUTION. In case of the Confederates, without descendants, buried in Chicago , restitution should be paid to the Sons of the Confederacy and to the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
The present U.S. Congress, out of its own pockets, should apologize and pay restitution, or apologize and excuse the descendants forevermore from paying taxes.
Maybe the Republican Party and its members should pay restitution--or maybe the citizens of Chicago or the citizens of the North--because their ancestors sat by and allowed the Holocaust to continue there in their pious North land. This makes more sense than paying blacks because their ancestors were captured and sold by their own black countrymen to Yankee business men.
Maybe the North should pay for those dead young men to all be returned home to be buried in their beloved Southern soil under Southern skies.
As a Southern mother, I would want that for my own child. And, believe me, I would want the beloved Confederate flag, flown, unmolested, over his grave.
Those proud Southerners, who appeared on the Chicago scene years later and managed to get the Northerners to help them/to allow them to erect a monument to the slain Southern soldier boys, deserve the undying gratitude of all descendants of Confederates. God bless them and bless those lost boys dumped in the dump after being dug up from their single graves.
The big show staged by the REPUBLICAN YANKEES in Chicago, complete with cannon firing, orations and lovely ladies decking the cannons with flowers does not qualify as an adequate recompense to the Southerners who lost their loved ones in Chicago. The magnanimous Yankee victors had themselves a grand celebration honoring themselves while, occasionally, mentioning the dead Southerners. The event occurred in the 1890's (35 years after the end of the War of Northern Aggression). Those Yankees took all credit for buying and placing and thinking of the monument for the Confederate boys dumped in the Dump. The Yankees created a highly-publicized festivity designed around the placing of a marker on the Confederate Dump; a big portion of the affair was the praising of Lincoln and his minions for saving the Union [ by invading the sovereign South and, with bloody bayonets, forcing its people into slavery that lasted for more than ten years.] http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=990CE0D6133DE433A25752C3A9639C94649ED7CF&oref=slogin
Kind Mr. Lincoln and his Marxist-"Radical" Republicans would have loved this ceremony. What grand propaganda it was! Those Yankees were determined to show the world what munificent folks winners can be. Note how they praise wonderful General Sherman and compassionate Mr. Lincoln in the news article hyperlinked above.
If our cup runneth over, it shouldn't be with gratitude.
(Do read all about Lincoln and his Marxists in RED REPUBLICANS AND LINCOLN'S MARXIST:MARXISM IN THE CIVIL WAR by W.D. Kennedy and Al Benson, Jr. Read an in-depth report on Grant's no prisoner exchange policy in Frank Conner's The South UNDER SIEGE 1830 - 2000. Both books are now available through Amazon online book shop.)
