Amid construction of new Sultana Disaster Museum, executive director envisions exhibits that will capture chaos and heroism during the Mississippi River tragedy

A building addition provides an entrance to the main gallery (Sultana Disaster Museum)

Construction in Marion, Ark., of a larger museum commemorating the Sultana maritime disaster at the end of the Civil War is moving full speed ahead, though new exhibits won’t open until April 2026, a year later than first estimated.

Crews are building a more dynamic Sultana Disaster Museum than the current small location a few blocks away. It will be housed in the gymnasium of an old high school, with a couple additions. (A temporary gallery about music in the Arkansas Delta will open in October 2025).

Marion, close to where the side-wheeler Sultana exploded and caught fire in the Mississippi River, will honor soldiers who died in the disaster and residents who helped save others who were plunged into the river in late April 1865.

A Harper's Weekly depiction of the April 1865 disaster in the Mississippi River

About 1,200 passengers and crew perished. Hundreds of Federal soldiers, many recently freed from Confederate prisons, including Andersonville and Cahaba, were on their way home.

Earlier this year, the Sultana Historical Preservation Society brought on Jeff Kollath, former longtime executive director of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis, Tenn., as executive director.

Museum officials say the exhibits will build off the full story of the Sultana, with information about the importance of the river, Confederate POW camps, the bribery and corruption that led to the overcrowding of the boat, the explosion and fire, and the creation of the Sultana Survivors Association. The vessel’s boilers are considered to be the main cause of the catastrophe.

The Civil War Picket, which has followed the city’s efforts for more than a decade, recently reached out to Kollath (left) for an update. His e-mailed responses are below.

Q. Please summarize where the project is now. I know the leaky roof needed replacing, the foundation was added for the gym addition and work is ongoing.

A. At present, contractors are bricking the exterior walls of the new addition. They have completed the west side and have moved to the main entrance. Sheetrock has been installed in probably 80-85% of the old building. The crew is doing a wonderful job floating each piece and creating what will be a beautiful surface for paint, murals, large format graphics, etc. What was once a vast, open, and cold space has now tightened up significantly -- even drywall can add intimacy sometimes! The new roof installed on the old building and has nicely cured. 

Q. Are you now expecting completion in late 2025, or have an estimate?

A. Our building will open in late October 2025 with the lobby, gift shop, auditorium and temporary exhibition gallery available for the public to see. Admission will be free, but we will highly encourage donating to help the cause. The main exhibition gallery will open in late April 2026 to coincide with the 161st anniversary of the disaster.

Design for the front of larger museum in Marion (Courtesy Sultana Disaster Museum)

Q. Will the temporary exhibition gallery that opens in October be comprised mostly of what is in the current Sultana museum? 

A. No, the temporary gallery will not be exclusive to the Sultana nor the Civil War. We view this space as a way to highlight compelling regional, national and global arts, histories and cultures. Our location, just outside of Memphis, and our position as the only large arts, culture and humanities organization and space between Helena and Jonesboro provides us with an opportunity to create exhibitions that have wide appeal to a variety of audiences. Our first temporary show will be a collaboration between the Sultana Disaster Museum and Arkansas State University to highlight the impact and significance of music from the Arkansas Delta, from Al Green and Johnnie Taylor to Johnny Cash and Sonny Burgess. That exhibit will open in October 2025. 

Q. You have said the exhibits were to be bid separately and as of earlier this year they had not been designed. Can you please update me on all this? What part does Haizlip Studio (of Memphis) continue to have?

A. We are currently in the exhibition design process with Haizlip and will be selecting an exhibition fabricator within the next 30-45 days. Haizlip is both the architect and exhibition/graphic designer.

Interior of planned exhibit gallery at old gymnasium (Sultana Disaster Museum)

Q. I understand you like to tell stories in a compelling way.  At the Sultana museum, that would include looking at individual soldiers. What does that look like to you?

A. There are more than 2,000 individual stories to be told, and we're not going to be able to tell all of them. Chester Berry's compendium of stories, first published in the 1880s, is always going to be the go-to for that. However, we will always use the stories of individuals to foreground all the important aspects of our narrative, from the story of the Sultana as the "fastest boat on the Mississippi River," all the way through the kindness and care of the Memphis medical community, to what happened to many of the survivors in the decades following the disaster. History from 10,000 feet down is not compelling; history from the bottom up is, and always will be, the most interesting way to tell a story. 

Q. There has been discussion of the big attraction being a mock-up of the forward part of the Sultana, which will include the boilers. Is that still the case?

A. We will likely be budget-limited, but there will be some large-scale representation of the Sultana, the paddlewheel, lower deck, and, yes, the boiler area. (At left, photo of 1891 reunion banner, courtesy of SHPS)

Q. What do you think will be the coolest use of technology in the museum? What will be the top interactive feature?

A. Our biggest challenge is going to be how to highlight the true chaos of the moments following the boiler explosion: the mad dash looking for anything to float on, working together and working independently to survive, and dealing with the temperature and fury of a river above flood stage in the early spring. We have some cool ideas of how to do this so we're excited to see how they come to fruition. As I've been saying lately, we only get one chance to "blow up" the Sultana, so it needs to be impactful and memorable for our guests.

Q. Since you came on board, what has been your prime focus: Construction, future interpretation, marketing – all of that?

A. It has been a little bit of everything, with the focus turning almost exclusively to interpretation, design and writing the exhibitions. I'll be relying on the experts on our board to answer questions and guide us along the process. The construction process is moving along apace, and we're at the point where we need to locate cameras, wireless access points, A/V hookups, etc. That means we're getting down to "IT," which is a good sign. We want our space to be welcoming, clean and intentional, meaning we have answers for why things are the way they are. Thankfully, our contractor and architect are excellent at answering my questions. There are about 2,781 things to consider when building a museum from scratch, and we won't hit all of them, but we're doing a good job so far.

Q. Any recent acquisitions for the artifacts collection, or anticipated? 

A. Nothing of note. We are not actively collecting at the moment, but certainly have hopes that more survivors' families will entrust us with their materials after we open to the public in 2026. 

Q. How is the city of Marion financially and otherwise contributing to the project? What are the townspeople saying?

A. The Marion Advertising & Promotion Commission has been incredibly generous for the last couple of years, providing funding for marketing and operational support for the current museum. That funding is locked in through 2026 and will cover a fair amount in terms of operations even in the new space.

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After years of planning, the site is beginning to shape up. (Sultana Disaster Museum)

Finance update: The current anticipated cost for the endeavor is roughly $7.25 million (including fundraising expenses), said John Fogleman, president of the Sultana Historical Preservation Society. The exhibits are still being developed but they will cost $1.5 million to $2.5 million exclusive of design costs. “The cost also depends on our ability to raise an additional $1 million for exhibits,” Fogleman told the Picket.

Previous Sultana coverage:

• Executive director hired to lead expanded venue
• Documentary, events mark 150th anniversary

• Will victim's journal and Bible become part of collection?

• Descendants drop flowers in memory of the lost

• Model captures every detail of Sultana
• Disaster took lives of those who had endured so much

• Siblings recall learning of disaster

Rolling the dice: Discovery of piece of gaming object at Georgia's Camp Lawton an example of the 'shadow economy' at POW sites

Views of the remains of the die, which may have had numerous sides (Camp Lawton Project)

Somewhere at an archaeological site in Georgia are the remains of a sutler’s cabin, where captured Federal soldiers could buy a whole range of goods, temporarily lifting them from misery that took the lives of 800 comrades.

The Camp Lawton sutler’s cabin and the grounds around it offered more than food and clothing. It was part of the prison’s shadow economy for six weeks in autumn 1864. Soldiers -- either with U.S. greenbacks they still held, or equipment and personal items – could obtain alcohol from guards, tobacco and play games of chance.

Ryan McNutt, who leads the Camp Lawton project at Georgia Southern University, and a couple dozen students have spent the spring looking for evidence of the cabin. Thus far, there have been no definitive finds. Maps produced in the 19th century gave different positions for the structure.

Patrick Sword and Audrey McGill at dig site (Picket photos)

On one bright note, part of a carved die was found a few weeks ago during digging, evidence of apparent gambling in the trade-and-sell part of the stockade.

Patrick Sword, a graduate student from the Atlanta area, is studying the shadow economy at Lawton. I met him and other students in late March during a brief visit to the site on the fenced grounds of an old federal fishery adjoining Magnolia Springs State Park.

The stockade was laid out in a grid fashion (left, click to enlarge) and much of the commercial activity took part on Market Street, Sword said. He is hoping to find more evidence of the shadow economy, but the team in recent weeks has found mostly modern stuff, including trash dumped by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps, who helped construct the state park in the late 1930s.

McNutt says the die is made of lead, probably fashioned from a small caliber round, likely a pistol or a .54-caliber ball. He says the artifact is probably one-half or one-fourth of the original die.

“Six-sided die are the most common, but there are also 10-sided, 32-sided, and 20-sided. If it's from a six-sided die, it is a half, split down the center to leave a quasi-pyramid shape,” McNutt wrote in an email after my visit.

In its six weeks' existence, the 42-acre Confederate stockade held about 10,000 men before it was closed when Union forces approached. Over the past dozen years, teams from Georgia Southern have found evidence of the stockade wall, Rebel officers’ quarters, brick ovens and sleeping areas for the POWs. Thus far, they have been unable to find the hospital or burial area.

Camp Lawton was one of several prisons in south Georgia that briefly held Federal prisoners sent from the larger Andersonville camp. They were moved back and forth because Confederate officials feared they would be freed by Sherman’s March to the Sea.

McNutt and his students in their spring dig have found a lot of postwar material, but also have come across cut nails, buckles, a bullet and files from the Civil War period. On the day of my visit they were working near a stream that divided the camp, and served as a drinking source and latrine a bit downstream.

“We get good historic Civil War stuff and then a modern fishing weight,” the associate professor tells me.

McNutt (right, on site) believes much of the area they were working on is where Union prisoners who served as an internal police force operated.

Not many prisoner items have been found here, unlike in the hill above. “No one is allowed to camp right near the stream.”

The professor is interested in the relationship between guards and prisoners. They were known to have traded at here and other sites, and morale among the former was low at Camp Lawton, not surprising given the Confederacy’s decline. Guards sometimes foraged away from the property.

Prisoner of war camps are “excellent places to hide contraband, personal items you are not supposed to have," McNutt told me several years ago when he became project director. 

The National Park Service, which maintains the much larger site at Andersonville, has an online page detailing life and diversions for Federal prisoners held there. It, too, had a sutler’s cabin, but it had other shops selling items to the captives as well.

Food, of course, was always on their minds.

Sutler's cabin in rear at Andersonville in 1864 (Library of Congress)

Here is an NPS description of Andersonville:

“Many of the Andersonville prisoners who arrived in the stockade in April and May were well supplied with money. The Federal armies were reclothed and paid off in the spring of 1864 for the spring campaigns. Many of the new recruits and reenlisted veterans had bounty money with them when captured. Greenbacks could be pressed into the sole of a shoe, or placed inside a brass button. Money was concealed about the person in various ways. Some swallowed their rings and others put their money into bowls of large Dutch pipes with a little tobacco sprinkled on top. When searched, they would pretend to be busy lighting their pipes and thus escape suspicion.

“Gambling was carried on quite extensively; faro, dice, and $10.00 stakes were commonly played for. Trade was carried on with the guards on the outside of the wall by talking through the cracks and throwing articles over the fence. Another trade was carried on as well, as noted by prisoner John Northrup, Co. D, 7th Connecticut Infantry: "There is one commodity never had in any market. It is ahead of any Dutch brewery extract; it is meal beer made by letting corn meal sour in water. The vendor cries, 'here is your nice meal beer, right sour, well-seasoned with sassafras.'"

POWS trade new rations for something more palatable (NPS)

McNutt believes there may be beer and rum bottle remains at the Camp Lawton site.

Trade, bartering and gambling were common at virtually all Civil War prisoners, both North and South, though there appeared to be some restrictions later in the war.

At Point Lookout in Maryland, where Confederates were held, a prisoner made compelling illustrations of camp scenes. All depicted guards were African-American soldiers.

“The drawings highlight the concerns and experiences of prisoners of war; most scenes show prisoners playing cards, buying food, or engaging in barter with food vendors,” the historical society says in a description of its collection.

Exchanging buttons for pepper at Andersonville (Library of Congress)

Confederate officer Henry Clay Dickinson wrote about gambling he witnesses while a prisoner of war at Fort Delaware, Delaware, in 1864, according to a Civil War Monitor article on gambling.

“The gambling saloons were a curious feature in prison, and were not only numerous but well patronized. Captain Coffee, of Mississippi, was the prince of faro dealers, being always gentlemanly in his manners and always attracting the greatest crowd. He never played cards until he was captured, except for amusement, and I am told that a Yankee guard was his first victim. The bettor wagered either in Confederate or Yankee money. He always had a large and anxious looking crowd around his booth. Some quartermasters having been captured, the amount of Confederate money in prison was very large, and changed hands frequently.

“I heard that Coffee once sent to Dixie from Point Lookout ten thousand dollars. How much United States money he (Coffee) made I cannot say, though at one time, when the Yanks were about searching quarters and persons, he hid in the grass one hundred and eleven dollars in gold, a gold watch, and several hundred dollars in notes, which, of course, some Yank, who knew he was flush, had seen him hide and took care to not let him find it again.”

Rusted metal likely from the 20th century (Picket photo)

To pass the time, a skilled POW at Andersonville carved smoking pipes. You can see one of them at a Columbus, Ga., museum.

(Civil War Picket and courtesy of the Columbus Museum, Ga.)

We don’t know his name, or even whether he survived his ordeal. Yet a Federal POW’s handiwork lives on through three incredibly detailed smoking pipes he apparently carved while at Andersonville.

All are believed to have been fashioned from laurel root and have similar motifs, with a few variations. The name of the intended recipient rings a five-point star and two have an American shield. On the side are the words “Sumter prison” and “Andersonville, Ga.”

Cowan’s Auctions sold the three during a February 2017 sale involving the vast collection of the late E. Norman Flayderman, an author and antiques arms dealer. He bought the first pipe in the early 1950s and the last in 2001. Records indicate there may be a fourth pipe in the same style.

One pipe bears the name Henry Wirz, the infamous stockade commander at Andersonville (more on that later).

I didn’t know any of this when I recently sauntered into the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Ga. It had been a couple years since my last visit and I wanted to review the Civil War portion of a history of the Chattahoochee Valley.

(Courtesy of the Columbus Museum, Georgia)

I spied the pipe mounted in a small case on a wall with two other Andersonville-related items: An early 1880s albumen reprint of one of A.J. Riddle’s famous photographs of the stockade and prisoners taken in summer 1864, and a circa 1885 lithograph of former prisoner Thomas O’Dea’s drawing depicting the horrors of life in the Confederate prison.

Rebecca Bush, curator of history and exhibitions manager at the Columbus Museum, said the Andersonville exhibit opened in late 2017 after the roughly $4,000 purchase of the pipe. Columbus is about an hour’s drive from Andersonville National Historic Site.

“It is one of the best-known place names of the Civil War outside a battle. It felt like a missed opportunity for us not to engage with that story,” said Bush.

Cowan’s and the museum describe the pipe as folk art. Beyond the mystery of who created it, there’s another. Who is the J. Vandegrift of Philadelphia etched into the front of the pipe?

Here is a portion of Cowan’s description of the piece:

“There are two possible identifications for J. Vandegrift. The first, John P. Vandegrift, enlisted in the army as a private on March 4, 1864, and mustered into the 3rd Pennsylvania Artillery, Co. E. Under the command of Captain Hazzard, the company served with the Army of the James before Petersburg, being stationed at Bermuda Hundred, and was posted at Fort Converse, covering the pontoon bridge across the Appomattox. There is no record of Vandegrift's imprisonment, but many men in his regiment were captured and sent to Andersonville. Records state that he mustered out of the army at Fortress Monroe on November 9, 1865. The second could be John Miller Vandegrift, the father of Union soldier Thomas Hart Benton Vandegrift. John Miller Vandegrift was from Philadelphia, and Thomas was born in the city. Thomas Vandegrift was captured on June 10, 1864, and survived Andersonville. He was a corporal of Company C, 9th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry.” 

(Courtesy of the Columbus Museum, Georgia)

I found a webpage about Thomas Hart Benton Vandegrift that says he was born in Philadelphia in 1840 and enlisted in August 1862.

It includes this amusing story: “Tom’s company got down to Tennessee & one day they were going south when they saw a nice apple orchard in a yard. They stopped to pick apples but the woman who owned the farm said, “When you come back you won’t have time to pick apples”. Tom said she was right as they were on the run then. In 1864 they were on a southern road & when they came to a fork in the road they took the wrong one & were captured.”

Bush said she regularly checks with Cowan’s Auctions and other sites for items that might further the museum’s interpretation of places and events.

“Especially once we acquired the O’Dea lithograph (in 2015), I identified the last piece I wanted to interpret Andersonville was a piece of POW folk art … It is definitely quite striking and I think that’s something we liked about it.”

She said the pipe combines patriotism and has a souvenir feel, “which is weird to think of in these unusual circumstances.”

A display card near the item says: "Facing harsh conditions and relentless boredom, prisoners of war have often used their creativity and available materials to create artistic objects."

(Courtesy of the Columbus Museum, Georgia)

The exhibit doesn’t have space to describe the mysteries regarding the piece, including how the wood and silver bowl cover and mounts were acquired in the prison.

“Sometimes there are historical mysteries and unless other information pops up, this seems destined to remain a mystery,” Bush said.

Two other pipes were sold at the auction. One has the name Albert A. Walker.

Cowan’s note: “Albert A. Walker enlisted as a private on August 24, 1862, and mustered into the 16th Connecticut Infantry, Co. F. He fought at the battle of Antietam and Fredericksburg. Eventually, he was promoted to commanding sergeant of Co. F on May 9, 1863. He was listed as a POW on March 20, 1864, at Plymouth, NC, and was most likely sent to Andersonville, remaining there until he was paroled on November 30, 1864.”

The third pipe – with the Wirz name -- fetched the highest price: About $10,000.

Henry Wirz

The online catalog notes: “The pipe is accompanied by a typed tag that states, Presented by Captain Wirz, commanding Andersonville Prison, to E.W. Masterson, 4th OVC, Mr. Masterson being with the ____ sent to arrest Wirz.”

Masterson’s unit was stationed in Macon, Ga., at the time Wirz was in custody, “which leads us to the conclusion that Masterson may have been part of one of Wirz's guard details and acquired the pipe while on guard duty,” the auction company wrote.

Wirz was hanged in November 1865 after his convictions of conspiracy and murder of prisoners.

That conviction remains controversial to today.

Artifacts from site of Chicago's Camp Douglas a window into war, the Great Migration

Minie balls found during Camp Douglas dig (Courtesy of  Michael Gregory)

The 34 bankers boxes are filled with seemingly ordinary items from a Chicago neighborhood that has seen extraordinary change since its days as home to Camp Douglas, a Federal training center and prisoner of war camp during the Civil War.

Archaeologist Michael Gregory plans to further analyze a wide array of these artifacts at his Milwaukee home. There’s the 1908 license tag for a horse-drawn vehicle, a water dish for a bird cage, Canadian cheese tubs and a ceramic dust bin.

“It has been one of the most interesting collections I have ever worked on,” Gregory recently told the Picket.

Nestled in those containers are 200 artifacts related to Camp Douglas. About 4,000 Confederates died at the prison, most of whom are buried in a mass grave. Gregory, formerly associated with DePaul University, has worked with the Camp Douglas Restoration Foundation on a half dozen digs in a corner of the camp.

(Photo courtesy of Michael Gregory)

While those excavations 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 (below), and other Camp Douglas items.

Gregory and David Keller, head of the foundation, believe they have clearly identified the camp, though there are significant challenges for urban archaeology.

“The history of the site shows initial significant development between 1900 and 1915.  The property remained substantially unchanged until 1950, when urban renewal affected the area,” said Keller. “There remains about 40% of the property that is available for further study. Alleys and back yards have been identified and offer the best opportunities.”

The excavations, which started in October 2013, have taken place on a grassy lot near a school on Chicago’s South Side. It is in what was the prisoner barracks area in the 60-acre site. The digs have been about 3 feet deep.

U.S. button (Camp Douglas Restoration Found.)

Gregory said it’s difficult to know exactly where in the camp site they are working.

“Our problem right now is we find something that looks like a ditch between barracks, but we will find another feature that would be right in the walkway area,” he said.

One eventual aim is to find a portion of the western stockade wall. “The wall is (elusive) since we cannot find posts or other evidence,” said Keller. “They are likely affected by the development of the property.  However, the streets are largely unchanged.  This gives us a 30-foot area where the fence might have been located.”

Hook for a haversack (Michael Gregory)

Fetid conditions for the prisoners

The Union facility was constructed in an area called Douglas, named for Stephen A. Douglas, the famous Illinois politician.

Camp Douglas originally served as a training facility for Illinois soldiers being rushed to the front. Much of the site was converted to a prison camp. About 26,000 Confederates were housed at the camp during the war.

“Had the military been involved (the site) never would have been selected,” said Keller. “It was noted for its flooding, swampy conditions.”

Confederate POWs at Camp Douglas (Library of Congress)

The U.S. Sanitary Commission, during an inspection, found that the “amount of standing water, of unpoliced grounds, of foul sinks, of general disorder, of soil reeking with miasmic accretions, of rotten bones and emptying of camp kettles … was enough to drive a sanitarian mad.”

It earned well the sobriquet “Andersonville of the North.”

Officials estimate 1 in 7 Confederate prisoners died, although the exact number is not known. Keller said he believes between 5,000 and 6,000 perished.

Pipe bowl likely used at camp (Camp Douglas Restoration Found.)

Area became a 'Black Metropolis'

The prison’s 200 structures went down when the site was dismantled in December 1865. Camp Douglas largely faded into history.

What used to be a rural tract just outside city limits soon became part of Chicago’s rapid growth. A part of Douglas became known as Bronzeville. It attracted German Jews after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. It was home to the Swift family and the Marx Brothers.

But the biggest change was on the horizon.

Hundreds of thousands of African-Americans came to Chicago from the South during the Great Migration at the turn of the 20^th century. They wanted a new start after enduring Jim Crow laws.

1908 license tag for horse-drawn vehicle (Michael Gregory)

While they didn’t get away from segregation, they were able to establish an area where they have left a cultural, arts and economic imprint.

“At the Regal Theater on 47th Street, notable entertainers such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington performed frequently, and Nat “King” Cole got his start,” according to articles about the South Side on the website of TV station WTTW. “Other notable Bronzeville residents included boxer Jack Johnson, gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, the writer Gwendolyn Brooks, and many others.”

The area did run into hard times.

“Following World War II, decades of economic disinvestment and social change, Bronzeville's luster diminished. Businesses shut their doors and African-Americans moved further south due to the elimination of restricted housing covenants,” says a neighborhood council.

Animal bones found on site (Michael Gregory)

The recent decades have been kinder, though, according to an October 2014 article in the Chicago Tribune, crime has remained a problem.

“Today, Bronzeville is experiencing renewed energy and development, with an emphasis on the arts and a respect for the rich cultural legacy that Bronzeville has brought to Chicago as a whole,” writes WWTW. It is a center of African-American enterprise.

There’s been a recent move in Congress to create the Bronzeville/Black Metropolis National Heritage Area.

Digging in a land of asphalt

Gregory has worked on all but one excavation outside the John J. Pershing Magnet School for Humanities on Calumet Avenue. He has studied flood insurance and other maps to learn more about the neighborhood during and after the Civil War.

(Wikipedia/public domain)

The foundation is trying to obtain National Register for Historic Places status for the Camp Douglas site, a move it believes should add protection for what’s left. “A listing is a long shot, but important step in recognition of the camp,” said Keller. “The process should be completed early next year.”

While most of the area is under pavement or has been redeveloped, Gregory said it is important to note that “even if you had 140 years of development, it doesn’t mean archaeological resources have been destroyed.”

Ink well may be from camp (M. Gregory)

Teams were able to find a rectangular pit, but Gregory doesn’t know its purpose. A laundry facility is a possibility. He said he believes some smoking pipes pieces and bowls may well be associated with the Civil War. It’s known that one Confederate POW procured or made them for comrades.

Many camp subsurface features have been destroyed by development, along with an untold number of artifacts, since the war. Still, Gregory believes future excavations may find camp-related ditches and footings.

“We have had some residents in the area who said they would be happy for us to bring ground penetrating radar in their yard,” said the archaeologist. “It may provide little windows” into Camp Douglas’ story.