6 Quotes by George Levy

We also ate all the rats we could catch. No doubt many died after the war from disease contracted account of these things.

Add the shortage of blankets, warm clothing, and vegetables, and the result was likely to be more suffering and more death than had occurred earlier. The war was not over for Hood's army as it came through the gates of Camp Douglas. Another struggle for survival was beginning, and the odds of success were no better in Chicago than at Franklin or Nashville.

The camp lived up to expectations as warmly dressed guards forced them to undress outside the gate where they searched them for valuables and weapons. The captives stood for a long time in ice and show on that grim December 5, numb and shaking, while guards robbed them, according to Copley. Chicago had now received prisoners from most major battlefields of the Civil War, except Gettysburg and Antietem.

The situation was fast approaching that of 1863, when Chicago doctors labeled the prison an extermination camp.

Guards punished anyone caught taking bones from the garbage by fastening the bone between his teeth, across his mouth, and then tying like a gag. "And then the poor fellow was made to fall down and crawl around on his hands and knees like a dog, a laughing stock for Federal soldiers, spies, and camp followers," Bean recalled bitterly.

Like Humpty Dumpty, in the old nursery rhyme, putting the country back together again would not be easy. This feeling of separation and alienation was not a passing thought but lived into the next century.