The prisoners who died at Camp Douglas during the Civil
War were buried in either the Chicago city cemetery or the small pox cemetery at the prison
with individual grave markers. Shortly after the war all the graves were disinterned and the
bodies placed in one mass grave in a new cemetery called Oakwood on the south side of
Chicago. A curved ditch was dug and several bodies were placed in it. Then another ditch
was dug parallel to the first using the dirt from the second ditch to fill in the first.
This continued around in a circle until the last ditch was beside the dirt from the first
ditch which was used to fill in the last ditch after the bodies were placed in it.
Officially the count of
the bodies is a little over 4000 but could vary between 6000 and 8000 since records were
poorly kept at the POW camp.
My Great-grandfather Solomon Floyd Cook was one of the prisoners buried in this mass
grave. I had the opportunity to go to Chicago for some training in March of 2000 and
was able to visit the grave site and these pictures were taken then. In a couple of
pictures it would appear that the mounument area is sunk in compared to the surrounding
area. This is because the cemetery is located in what was a swampy area about a half mile
from Lake Michigan. Since the Confederate soldiers were buried before the cemetery offically
opened, they were buried at the original ground level. It was soon seen that the water table
was relatively high so dirt was brought in to raise the level on the rest of the cemetery
which gives the appearance that the Confederate Mound is sunken when in actuality the rest
of the graves are raised.
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The Confederate grave site was basically unmarked for about 25 years until the 1890's when a group of former Confederates who lived in the Chicago area raised money to build a mounument. They ordered the marble and other construction material from Georgia. The monument is faced with several bronze plaques and panels. The plaques list the names of all known soldiers who are buried here (there are perhaps 2000 more due to poor record keeping at the prison). |
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We will continually update our website as information is made available. Anyone wishing to add to or correct information on our website can contact John M. Cook, Jr at [email protected] or write to:
Cook Family History