How does your garden grow? Chicago home yields Minie ball during search for more Camp Douglas artifacts, features

Recent dig at residence in a series of townhouses (Michael Gregory)

Archaeologists usually aren’t welcome on private property. But Michael Gregory and some colleagues proved to be the exception when a Chicago homeowner allowed them to excavate in a back yard garden late last month.

The resident had visited one of a half dozen such digs at nearby John J. Pershing Magnet School for Humanities on Calumet Avenue. He talked with Gregory and others who are looking for further evidence of a Federal military training center and prison camp known as Camp Douglas.

“’I have a garden in the back yard. You are welcome to excavate it,’” Gregory recalls the homeowner telling him. After working out details, Gregory and about a dozen others worked at the Bronzeville neighborhood residence on Oct. 29 and Oct. 30.

“As we dug down to the camp deposit level, we did find a number of interesting artifacts -- gilded ceramic sherds, milk bottles, ceramic doll parts, a toy train engine, a Navy insignia clasp, a burned book, canning jar parts,” the archaeologist told the Picket. The items were most likely dumped in the early 20^th century.

(Courtesy of Michael Gregory)

And there was a little pay dirt in the single rectangular hole dug into a vegetable garden: A .58-caliber Minie ball, about 75 centimeters (30 inches) down, a depth where they were expecting to find Camp Douglas materials.

The Camp Douglas Restoration Foundation and volunteers are trying to find precise locations of camp features in an urban area that has seen extensive development in the past century, and where much of history is covered by miles of pavement and buildings. 

They are stymied by the fact that nothing from the massive Union facility is still standing.

But there have been some successes. Foundation official David Keller told the Picket a couple years back that the 2012 discovery of the camp headquarters foundation was an important find.

The crew worked last week under overcast skies and in mid-40s temperatures. They were cheered and fortified by the homeowner’s hospitality: A warm fire and hot soup.

“I am hoping the Minie ball is not our only artifact,” said Gregory as he discussed plans for a return to the home in the spring to dig in three more locations. The work at the 1880s, two-story home was the first Camp Douglas excavation on private property.

One bullet, even for just two days’ work, doesn’t seem much, but it is helping the foundation in its effort to publicize the camp’s story and bring possible protection to the 60 acres by having it listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The latter is a lengthy process and has rigorous requirements. The Chicago City Council passed a resolution endorsing approval of that designation.

Camp Douglas originally served as a Union training facility for about 40,000 soldiers – including African-Americans -- being rushed to the front. Much of the site was converted to a prison camp for 26,000 Confederates. About 4,000 Rebels died at the prison.

Andrew Leith, who is assisting the foundation and works for the Chicago Cultural Alliance, said the significance of Camp Douglas is on par with Andersonville National Historic Site, home to Camp Sumter, a Confederate POW camp, in central Georgia.

“Right in our back yard we have one of the most notorious prisoner-of-war camps from the Civil War,” Leith told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Confederate POWs at Camp Douglas (Library of Congress)

The prison’s 200 structures went down when the site was dismantled in December 1865. Camp Douglas largely faded into history. The rural tract soon became part of Chicago's rapid growth that drew hundreds of thousands of African-Americans during the Great Migration more than a century ago.

While the ongoing excavations  – most on the school grounds -- have largely found items produced after the Civil War, experts and volunteers have recovered Minie balls, a Union cap pin, smoking pipes, a haversack J-hook, grommets, a spread-eagle button, an 1859 penny and other Camp Douglas items.

Gregory, who formerly was an assistant professor at DePaul University, said the foundation met two goals in the recent excavation: It found materials (the bullet) from the camp and determined that the soil was “intact,” or undisturbed by significant development.

He said the discovery of dark, circular stains in the pit may be evidence of fish beds in what was once a marshy area. “We have seen these stains in other units at Pershing School, and when seen there, they certainly defined undisturbed deposits.”

Sketch of the camp (National Archives)

The team believes the home site was little disturbed beyond construction of a basement. “No one has come in there or taken a bulldozer, grader or shovels and really mucked up the lower deposit,” said Gregory. “We are seeing a fairly intact level of the camp.”

The home is just to the east of what’s believed to have been the location of Confederate barracks at Camp Douglas. While Gregory and other haves found a trench and other ground features that may be indicative of construction on a small part of the Civil War camp, they don’t know exactly where in the presumed barracks area they are digging.

Thus far, the archaeological effort in Chicago’s South Side has not found any posts that define the stockade wall. “That would be our dream,” said Gregory.

The barracks in the POW area rested on brick piers, experts believe. Gregory theorizes the buildings were carted off months after the war ended and the piers knocked down. “If we could find a pier than we can begin to understand where we are excavating.”

Previous find (Courtesy CDRF)

The Camp Douglas Restoration Foundation (CDRF) wants to show state and federal officials that enough of the site – even underground – remains to consider it worthy of recognition and a protective designation. Gregory said he has done Google overlays over old fire insurance maps, and the result shows many sites have not been disturbed in recent years.

“I suspect between 35 to 50 percent of the camp area has a moderate to high potential to reveal intact camp deposits,” he said.

Archaeology is an exacting science, and field work and analysis take time.

“It’s not as ‘Indiana Jones’ as a lot of us would like to portray it to be,” Leith told the Chicago paper. “It’s tedious and methodological.”

(M. Gregory)

The foundation hopes to return to the home next spring, and perhaps dig in grassy rights of way – areas that are not covered by concrete. Getting access to an area to excavate is challenging.

Gregory said the homeowner was pleased with the archaeological project, including cleanup that put top soil back in place.

“I think they were happy history is there and they are letting us get to it.”