My New Book on Civil War in Illinois

[STS Lincolnite]

Here in southern Indiana, there are several smaller "prison camps" that local people say were here during the civil war. However, I think "prisoner encampments" would be a more accurate term. Somewhere over the years they began to be called "prison camps" incorrectly. A prison camp would be a more substantial permanent or semi-permanent camp where prisoners of war were held. The local (I am thinking of one in Monroe County and one in Lawrence County) "camps" were set stops along the way from the battle front to Camp Morton in Indianapolis or Camp Douglas in Chicago. When transporting prisoners to those places there were set stops where the prisoners and their guards would stop along the way to sleep, eat, etc. As I said, to me these would be more correctly be called prisoner encampent sites (no intent for prisoners to be held there, just a consistent stop along the way). I am sure that are lots of those those type of encampment sites in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, etc. And as Herb alluded to there are probably lots of encampment sites that have been lost to memory and history. There are in fact some confederate graves near one of the encampment sites in this area as some of the prisoners died enroute to their final prison camp destination.