Significant Reminder

The Camp Douglas Restoration Foundation and its team members, of the Chicago recent late summer successful archaic dig, found something of significance. They uncovered part of the foundation of the Chicago Civil War headquarters on Chicago's near southeast side.

Do you know that Chicago's Civil War Camp Douglas was North America's second largest POW camp, and held a death rate as high as Andersonville?

The team of players involved held a seed of hope culled from George D. Levy's research and book. Then they needed the resources, the plan, the volunteers, work, more work, and so on.

Those very bright archaeologists, at this unusual urban dig, are surely super excited at the outcome. In addition, this adds excitement for the 2013 Chicago Civil War digs being planned.

I bring it up again because there remain many that simply don't know about this history. It's relatively newly discovered history, a decade ago, after Levy's research. So it's being taught now to most kids in history class, but we never heard of Chicago's huge relationship with the Civil War.

And the factual conditions there were uglier than you could imagine.

This is why looking at the Spanish Golden Age historical time period, then looking at the American Civil War time period makes for such a remarkable difference, you have to wonder why art forms aren't as celebrated to make for happy people, and you have to wonder why war still happens, only to make misery.

Sheila Cull