About: Camp Douglas (Chicago)

Camp Douglas, in Chicago, Illinois, sometimes described as "The North's Andersonville," was one of the largest Union Army prisoner-of-war camps for Confederate soldiers taken prisoner during the American Civil War. Based south of the city on the prairie, it was also used as 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 Confederate prisoners (these were Union soldiers who had been captured by the Confederacy and sent North under an agreement that they would be held temporarily w