Near the southwest corner of Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood stands a 30-foot granite monument dedicated to the thousands of Confederate soldiers who died as prisoners of war at Camp Douglas.  The monument marks a mass grave containing the remains of more than 4,000 Confederate prisoners, reinterred here from the grounds of the prison camp and the old Chicago City Cemetery. 

Camp Douglas, located on land owned by politician Stephen A. Douglas—Abraham Lincoln’s opponent in the 1860 presidential election—originally served as a Union recruitment and training center. However, after the Union victory at Fort Donelson, Tennessee in December 1862, the camp became a major detention facility for Confederate prisoners of war.  It had a maximum capacity of 10,000 prisoners, and over the course of the war, more than 26,000 Confederate prisoners passed through its gates.  Disease, particularly smallpox, and exposure to the elements claimed the lives of more than 4,000 prisoners.  The camp established two small cemeteries on its grounds, but most of the casualties were buried in Chicago’s old City Cemetery along the shores of Lake Michigan, in what is now Lincoln Park. 

The lease for Camp Douglas required the removal of the entire camp, including the cemeteries, at the end of the Civil War.  In 1866, Chicago closed the old City Cemetery due to its constant flooding, forcing the Federal Government to find a permanent burial ground for the remains of the Confederate prisoners.  A lot within the Oak Woods Cemetery was selected, and approximately 4,200 remains were reinterred here between 1865 to 1867.  Landscape architect Adolph Strauch designed the cemetery, envisioning it as a park-like setting, rather than a naturalistic garden, using curving pathways and slightly elevated burial plots.  Many notable local residents, including several mayors, governors, and congressmen are buried throughout Oak Woods Cemetery.

Cannonball Monument Courtesy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery Administration, History Program

Confederate Mound is an elliptical plot, approximately 475 feet by 275 feet, located between Divisions 1 and 2 of Section K.  The most prominent feature of the plot is the Confederate Monument, a 30-foot granite column topped with a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier, a figure based on the painting “Appomattox” by John A. Elder.  At the base of the tapered square shaft are three bas-relief images: “The Call to Arms” showing a group rallying for the cause, “A Soldier’s Death Dream” depicting a fallen soldier and his horse on the battlefield, and “A Veteran’s Return Home” showing a soldier arriving at a ruined cabin.  General John C. Underwood, a regional head of the United Confederate Veterans, designed the monument and was at its dedication on May 30, 1895, along with President Grover Cleveland and an estimated 100,000 on-lookers. In 1911, the Commission for Marking the Graves of Confederate Dead paid to have the monument lifted up and set upon a base of red granite; affixed to the four sides of the base were bronze plaques inscribed with the names of Confederate soldiers known to be buried in the mass grave.

Four cannons surround the monument, forming a square 100 feet on each side.  Between the monument and the northern cannon, 12 marble headstones laid in an arc mark the graves of unknown Union guards at the Camp Douglas prison camp.  Also near the monument are the plot’s flagpole and a large cannonball pyramid.