Senator, Stephen Arnold Douglas, Democrat from Illinois, Died in Chicago on June 3, 1861.

Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861) was known as “the Little Giant” because his political stature far exceeded his height of five-foot-four. Douglas had been a prominent national figure since his first election to the U.S. Senate in 1847. 

When Henry Clay’s omnibus compromise of 1850 seemed on the verge of collapse, Senator Douglas took the bill apart and built separate coalitions around each of its key provisions, ensuring passage of the compromise that kept the Union together for another decade. 

But then, in 1854, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, Douglas undid his accomplishment with a serious miscalculation. Douglas sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act to seek Southern support for a railroad running from Chicago to the West Coast. That act repealed the Missouri Compromise and left the issue of slavery in the western territories up to the settlers themselves. Douglas called this “popular sovereignty.” All it did was spark a civil war on the frontier. Outraged Northern reaction against the bill led to the creation of the Republican Party.

In 1858 Douglas ran for reelection to the Senate against Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln. Although Douglas defeated Lincoln, national publicity from their famous debates propelled Lincoln to the Republican presidential nomination in 1860. Douglas won the Democratic presidential nomination that year, but Southern Democrats broke from the party to nominate Vice President John Cabell Breckinridge (1821-1875). With the Democratic Party split, Douglas lost the presidency to his old rival, Abraham.

During the presidential campaign, Douglas conducted a national speaking tour that left him physically and mentally exhausted. Rather than rest, he threw himself into his efforts to find one more compromise to keep the South from seceding. 

After the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, starting the Civil War on April 12, 1861, Douglas realized that the time for compromise was over. He declared, “There can be no neutrals in this war; only patriots and traitors.”

Lincoln decided to proclaim a state of rebellion and called for 75,000 troops to suppress it. Douglas reviewed and endorsed the proclamation before it was issued. He suggested only one change: Lincoln should call for 200,000 troops. “You do not know the dishonest purposes of those men as well as I do,” he told the president. 

Standing squarely behind President Lincoln and the Union, Douglas told the Illinois Legislature, then controlled by his political opponents: “You all know that I am a very good partisan fighter in partisan times. And I trust you will find me equally a good patriot when the country is in danger.”

Traveling back to Illinois, he stopped to make speeches throughout the Midwest, rallying Northern Democrats to stand behind Lincoln and the Union. When he addressed the Illinois state legislature, which was then filled with his political opponents, he told them: “You all know that I am a very good partisan fighter in partisan times. And I trust you will find me equally a good patriot when the country is in danger.” They gave him a cheering, standing ovation.

Senator Douglas addressed his last public audience on May 1 in Chicago. 

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Douglas had erected a modest cottage on his lakeshore property at 636 East 35th Street in Chicago. He rented it to a tenant. 

Douglas and his wife, Rose Adèle Cutts Douglas, took their usual rooms at the Tremont House III (1850-1871), at the southeast corner of Lake and Dearborn Streets, and prepared for a much-needed rest. The Tremont House III served as the Douglas‘ Chicago home for several years. Worn out from his efforts, his health quickly declined. He did not leave the hotel before dying a month later. Douglas died from typhoid fever at the Tremont on June 3, 1861, at the age of 48. 

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Many online sources claim Douglas died at his "estate" at 636 East 35th Street in Chicago. Today, the peoperty is now the Stephen A. Douglas Tomb and Monument Park.

Additional Reading: President Lincoln's Philosophies were Democratic; When and Why did the Parties Switch Platforms?

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

What Did President Lincoln Believe About Slavery, the Civil War, and Democracy?

When Abraham Lincoln became president in 1861, the United States faced the severe challenges of slavery and a possible civil war. Many doubted that American democracy would survive. What did Lincoln believe about these complex, thought-provoking challenges?

Abraham Lincoln, 1860.

Abraham Lincoln barely had a year of formal schooling (A,B,C School), but he educated himself by reading books. He read histories, biographies, the Bible, Shakespeare, English legal classics, and literally any book he got his hand on. He primarily studied collections of speeches by masterful orators like Henry Clay.

Like Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers, Lincoln believed in the power of human reason to advance society. Although he attended some religious services and referenced the Bible in his speeches, Lincoln never joined a church.

Lincoln left behind many of his frontier roots and embraced science, technology, and progress. He was enthusiastic about Charles Darwin's new theory of human evolution. So far, Abraham Lincoln is the only U.S. President to hold a patent on an invention (a device to lift boats off sandbars). Nevertheless, he accepted the prevailing theory that inherent differences separated the races.

Lincoln's political hero was Henry Clay. Clay was a Kentucky enslaver and member of Congress who ran for president three times but never won. As the leader of the Whig Party, Clay, was most famous as "The Great Compromiser," referring to Clay's role in forging the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850. These compromises produced an uneasy balance between the Northern and Southern states that put off the war between these sections over slavery.

Even before he entered politics, Lincoln wholeheartedly supported Clay's "American System," which included building a national transportation system and placing high tariffs on imports to protect young industries. Lincoln also agreed with Clay that slavery, if confined to the Southern states, would eventually disappear as the national economy changed.

Lincoln's Early Views on Slavery

Lincoln believed that American democracy meant equal rights and equality of opportunity. However, he drew a line between fundamental natural rights such as freedom from slavery and political and civil rights like voting. He believed it was up to the states to decide who should exercise these rights. Before the Civil War, Northern and Southern states commonly barred women and free black persons from voting, serving on juries, and enjoying other such rights.

Lincoln strongly believed slavery was "a great evil." He did not join with the small minority of Northern abolitionists who wanted to outlaw slavery immediately. Lincoln preferred to emancipate the slaves gradually by compensating their owners with federal funds.

Lincoln also supported the idea of providing government aid to the freed slaves, enabling them to establish colonies abroad. Lincoln thought they would finally enjoy equal political and civil rights in their black nations.

In 1832, when Lincoln began his political career in Illinois, he joined Henry Clay's Whig Party. Although Illinois voters elected Lincoln to the state legislature and a term in the U.S. House of Representatives, he made little impression.

Lincoln decided not to run for re-election to Congress after his term ended in 1848. He then started a prosperous law firm in Springfield, Illinois. In 1854, however, the explosive issue of expanding slavery into the Western territories drew him back into politics and ultimately to the presidency.

Lincoln's "House Divided" Speech

Henry Clay's Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery in any future territories carved out of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase. In 1854, U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, an Illinois Democrat, led Congress in passing a law that would open the possibility of expanding slavery into this area.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act left it up to the Kansas and Nebraska territories' voters to decide the legal status of slavery. Douglas called this "popular sovereignty." This law enraged many Northerners because it repealed a vital provision of the Missouri Compromise and opened the way for organizing future slave states in the West. The Kansas-Nebraska Act also led to the formation of the Republican Party.

Those who joined the new political party included abolitionists and a much larger number of "Free-Soilers" who wanted to prevent the expansion of slavery into the Western territories. Many Whigs, including Abraham Lincoln, switched to the Republican Party.

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Sometime between the late 1860s and 1936, the Democratic party of small government became the party of big government, and the Republican party of big government became rhetorically committed to curbing federal power.  [read more]

In 1855, Illinois Republicans nominated Lincoln for a seat in the U.S. Senate. State legislatures elected senators, and Lincoln lost the contest in the Illinois state legislature. Nevertheless, he was back in 1858 to challenge one of the most influential political leaders in the nation, Stephen A. Douglas.

On June 16, 1858, Lincoln spoke before the Illinois Republican Party Convention to accept the nomination for U.S. senator. Lincoln focused his speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the recent Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. In that case, most justices had further undermined the Missouri Compromise by ruling that a slave taken by his master into a free territory or state remained enslaved.

In his acceptance speech, Lincoln summarized his position on the expansion of slavery by quoting the words of Jesus: "A house divided against itself cannot stand" (Matthew 12:25). "I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free," Lincoln declared.

Lincoln argued that slavery in the United States would eventually have to end everywhere or become legal everywhere in order for the nation to survive:

Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new—North as well as South.

Lincoln then attacked his opponent, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, the chief author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Lincoln charged, "he cares not whether slavery is voted down or voted up" in Kansas and Nebraska. Douglas' "care not" policy, Lincoln asserted, merely invited slave owners to "fill up the territories with slaves."

Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

Lincoln went on to debate Douglas on the "popular sovereignty" controversy. Although Lincoln lost his second attempt to win a Senate seat, his "House Divided" speech and debates with Douglas made Lincoln a national political figure.

In February 1860, Lincoln stunned a gathering of Eastern Republicans considering several presidential candidates. The strange-looking "rail splitter" from the West delivered a carefully researched speech that demolished the arguments of the Southerners who claimed the expansion of slavery was constitutional. A few months later, the Republicans made Lincoln their presidential nominee.

Lincoln won the bitter presidential election of 1860 against three opponents, including Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln swept the electoral votes of the Northern states but only won 39 percent of the popular vote. Even before his inauguration, some Southern states seceded from the Union.

Lincoln had two purposes in his First Inaugural Address on March 4, 1861. First, in a final attempt to avoid war, he tried to reassure Southerners that he had no desire to interfere with slavery where it already existed. He even quoted a provision of the Constitution requiring that anyone who committed a crime and fled to another state "shall be delivered up." He pointed out that this provision applied to slaves who ran away to free states.

Lincoln's second purpose was to contend that no state had a constitutional right to secede. He warned that the Constitution required him to ensure "the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States."

Lincoln cautioned Southerners to think carefully about secession, which he said would only lead to anarchy or dictatorship. "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not mine, is the momentous issue of civil war," he declared. A little over a month later, Confederate cannons fired on Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Furthermore, the Civil War began.

The Emancipation Proclamation

Some Union commanders and Congress tried a few times to free slaves in the early years of the Civil War, but Lincoln overrode these efforts. He still held out for gradual compensated emancipation followed by the creation of colonies of the formerly enslaved in Africa or other areas outside the United States.

Lincoln met with black leaders for the first time in August 1862 and lectured them about his colonization plan. They were not enthusiastic. It never occurred to Lincoln (or to most other white Americans at the time) that black people had much stronger ties of history, language, and religion with the United States than with Africa.

In the end, military necessity drove Lincoln's emancipation of the slaves. A few days after the Union victory at Antietam on September 17, 1862, Lincoln issued an ultimatum to the Confederacy. He threatened that he would declare all slaves in the areas of rebellion "forever free" unless the Confederacy surrendered within 100 days.

When Lincoln's deadline passed, he remarked, "The promise must now be kept." On January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation "as a fit and necessary war measure" for suppressing the rebellion. Using his powers as commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, Lincoln proclaimed that all slaves within the rebellious states and areas "are, and henceforward shall be free."

In his proclamation, Lincoln also called on the freed slaves to "abstain from violence" and "labor faithfully for reasonable wages." Finally, he shocked the South by welcoming ex-slaves "into the armed service of the United States" (free African Americans were already serving). Lincoln said to those present, "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, that I do in signing this paper."

Lincoln realized that slavery could not return after the war and agreed that his "war measure" would have to be made permanent for the entire country by a constitutional amendment. Therefore, he quickly supported action in Congress that led to the 13th Amendment.

Thus, Lincoln changed both the goals of the war and his mind about slavery in the United States. The 13th Amendment called for the abolition of slavery immediately in all states and territories without compensation to slave owners.

The question about the future of the freed slaves still bothered Lincoln. In August 1863, he met for the first time with Frederick Douglass, the famous black abolitionist. Douglass pressed Lincoln to end the Union policy of paying black soldiers only half the rate of white soldiers. Douglass insisted on equal rights for all Americans, white and black, men and women.

The Gettysburg Address

Following the horrific battle at Gettysburg in July 1863, the committee in charge of organizing the dedication of the battlefield cemetery invited Lincoln to make "a few appropriate remarks." Lincoln put considerable thought into writing his speech before he arrived at Gettysburg for the ceremonies on November 19, 1863.

Edward Everett, a former president of Harvard, U.S. senator, and governor of Massachusetts, delivered the main oration that took two hours. Lincoln spoke for two minutes. "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Lincoln began by dating the origin of American democracy, something unique to the world, with the Declaration of Independence.

He observed that "a great civil war" tested whether the United States or any democracy "can long endure." After honoring those who fought and died at Gettysburg, Lincoln said it was for the living to finish "the great task before us." This was nothing less than making sure democracy itself would survive on American soil:

". . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

In 1864, Lincoln faced re-election. Some proposed that Lincoln suspend the presidential election while the war still raged. Lincoln dismissed this idea:

We cannot have free governments without elections. If the rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a national election, it might reasonably claim to have already conquered and ruined us.

In the Election of 1864, the Democrats pushed for an armistice with the Confederacy to stop the unrelenting bloodshed. Lincoln, however, stood firm for ending the war only on his terms: the reunification of the nation without slavery. The voters agreed with Lincoln.

As the Union military victory neared in the spring of 1865, many called for vengeance against the South. There was great anticipation about what Lincoln would say about this at his Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865. Among the 30,000 people who gathered before the steps of the Capitol to hear Lincoln speak were many black Union soldiers.

It may have been Lincoln's most religious speech. "Woe unto the world because of offenses" that God "wills to remove," he said. Lincoln believed that 250 years of slavery was one of these offenses for which both the North and South were responsible. He declared that this "terrible war" was the cost of removing it. God may require the war to continue, and Lincoln warned, "until every drop of blood drawn by the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword."

Lincoln ended with a plea to heal the nation: "With malice toward none; with charity for all." He called for all Americans to "bind up the nation's wounds" and "do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

About a month later, on April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered. A few days later, John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln. When Lincoln died the next day, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton remarked, "Now he belongs to the ages."

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Constitutional Rights Foundation, Contributor.

President Lincoln signed Proclamation 102; a call for help in protecting Washington, D.C., on June 15, 1863.

Throughout June 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was on the move. He had pulled his army from its position along the Rappahannock River around Fredericksburg, Virginia, and set out on the road to Pennsylvania. Lee and the Confederate leadership decided to try a second invasion of the North to take pressure off Virginia and to seize the initiative against the Army of the Potomac. The first invasion was on September 17, 1862, but failed when the Federals fought Lee’s army to a standstill at the ‘Battle of Antietam’ aka ‘The battle of Sharpsburg’ in Maryland.

Lee later divided his army and sent the regiments toward the Shenandoah Valley, using the Blue Ridge Mountains as a screen. After the Confederates took Winchester, Virginia, on June 14, they were situated on the Potomac River, seemingly in a position to move on Washington, D.C. Lincoln did not know it, but Lee had no intention of attacking Washington. Lincoln knew that the Rebel army was moving en masse and that Union troops could not be sure about the Confederates’ location.

On June 15, Lincoln made an emergency call for 100,000 troops from the state militias of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, and West Virginia. Although the troops were not needed, and the call could not be fulfilled in such a short time, it indicated how little the Union authorities knew of Lee’s movements and how vulnerable they thought the Federal capital was.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Whereas the armed insurrectionary combinations now existing in several of the States are threatening to make inroads into the States of Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, requiring immediately an additional military force for the service of the United States:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof and of the militia of the several States when called into actual service, do hereby call into the service of the United States 100,000 militia from the States following, namely: From the State of Maryland, 10,000; from the State of Pennsylvania, 50,000; from the State of Ohio, 30,000; from the State of West Virginia, 10,000—to be mustered into the service of the United States forthwith and to serve for the period of six months from the date of such muster into said service, unless sooner discharged; to be mustered in as infantry, artillery, and cavalry, in proportions which will be made known through the War Department, which Department will also designate the several places of rendezvous. These militias are to be organized according to the rules and regulations of the volunteer service and such orders as may hereafter be issued. The States aforesaid will be respectively credited under the enrollment act for the militia services rendered under this proclamation.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 15th day of June, A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States.

By the President:

Lincoln's Connection to Camp Kane, Civil War Training Camp, St. Charles, Illinois.

John Franklin Farnsworth was a resident of St. Charles. He was an attorney, founder of the Republican Party, congressman, as well as a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. In 1858, he advised Lincoln during the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, and in 1860 nominated Lincoln for president during the Republican Party Convention. Farnsworth was also called to the bedside of the dying President at the Petersen House after Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre in 1865. 

John Franklin Farnsworth

Without Farnsworth's influence, Camp Kane would not have been so successful. Farnsworth had no problems in fulfilling the 1,200-man quota. Approximately one in six men from St. Charles served in the regiments. Recruits also came from as far as Indiana, Iowa, and Michigan.

After the Civil War began, Farnsworth requested permission from his friend, President Lincoln, to commission a volunteer cavalry regiment and train them in St. Charles, Illinois, on property Farnsworth owned. The commission was approved on August 11, 1861. Abraham named the new regiment "Farnsworth's Big Abolitionist Regiment." Farnsworth was promoted to Colonel.

Camp Kane officially opened for training on September 18, 1861, with 1,164 men who mustered in. It was the only Civil War Training Camp in Kane County that became home to the 8th Illinois Cavalry and later the 17th Illinois Cavalry. 

In February 1864, extensive barracks were built on the Lovell property, in the north part of the city, which received the designation of Camp Kane, and in February 1864, these were temporarily occupied by the Fifty-second Regiment, then at home for a short time. The regiment received large accessions from the place on a redeparture for the front in March of the same year, and in the June following the One Hundred and Fortieth Illinois Volunteers, marched from Camp Kane. Elgin contributed two companies to the regiment. Besides these mentioned, Elgin contributed many soldiers to other organizations, and from the day, in the early spring of 1861, that the first company left it, until the happy midsummer, four years after, that the war's last veteran marched proudly home, Elgin was never derelict to the calls of the struggling, but at last victorious republic.

Colonel Farnsworth was close friends and political allies with Joseph Medill, Chicago Tribune Editor, and co-owner. Medill was also an abolitionist and used the Tribune for the cause. Once approval was granted to form the 8th Illinois Cavalry, Medill promoted recruiting in the Tribune. Even William Medill, Joseph's brother volunteered. 

Despite its size, St. Charles gave one of the largest quotas of troops in all of Kane County. St. Charles residents such as General Farnsworth, Captain Elliott, Major Van Patten, Major John Waite, Captain Beach, Captain McGuire, Colonel Gillett, Major (Judge) Barry, Lieutenant Durant, and Dr. Crawford all aided in the war effort. These names are among the most important in the history of St. Charles..

Following the war, men of the 8th Cavalry continued to serve their country. In April 1865, they took part in the search for Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, and also guarded the President's body.

Located on the east bank of the Fox River, Camp Kane, Civil War Training Camp, St. Charles, Illinois.

The 8th Illinois Cavalry's honors included battles such as Mechanicsville, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and most notably Gettysburg, where it was the 8th Illinois Cavalry's Lt. Marcellus Jones who fired the first shot of the famous battle. Confederate Colonel John S. Mosby "The Grey Ghost" called the 8th Illinois Cavalry "The best cavalry regiment in the Army of the Potomac." On a more sorrowful note, the 8th Illinois Cavalry also had the disheartening yet distinguished honor of being the honor guards for  Lincoln's funeral train.  

A Reenactment Photograph.

General Farnsworth and Colonel John Beveridge commissioned the 17th Illinois Cavalry in early 1863. Most of their service was in Missouri. They trained at Camp Kane in the early months of 1863 and Camp Kane remained an active training camp until early 1864.

Visit Camp Kane at Langum Park at 999 South 7th Street, St Charles, Illinois.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Research Raises Civil War Death Toll.

For 145 years, the numbers stood as gospel: 618,222 men died in the Civil War, 360,222 from the North, and 258,000 from the South — by far the most significant toll of any war in American history.

Lithograph of the Battle of Gettysburg.

But new research shows that the numbers were far too low.

By combing newly digitized census data from the 19th century, J. David Hacker, a demographic historian from Binghamton University in New York, has recalculated the death toll and increased it by more than 20% — to 750,000.

The new figure is already winning acceptance from scholars. Civil War History, the journal that published Dr. Hacker’s paper, called it “among the most consequential pieces ever to appear” in its pages. And a pre-eminent authority on the era, Eric Foner, a historian at Columbia University, said:

“It even further elevates the significance of the Civil War and makes a dramatic statement about how the war is a central moment in American history. It helps you understand, particularly in the South with a much smaller population, what a devastating experience this was.”

The old figure dates back a century and a half, the work of two Union Army veterans who were passionate amateur historians: William F. Fox and Thomas Leonard Livermore.

Fox, who had fought at Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, knew well the horrors of the Civil War. He did his research the hard way, reading every muster list, battlefield report, and pension record he could find.

In his 1889 treatise “Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865,” Fox presented an immense mass of information. Besides the aggregate death count, researchers would learn that the Fifth New Hampshire lost more soldiers (295 killed) than any other Union regiment; that Gettysburg and Waterloo were almost equivalent battles, with each of the four combatant armies suffering about 23,000 casualties, and that the Union Army had 166 regiments of black troops; and that the average Union soldier was 5 feet 8¼ inches tall and weighed 143½ pounds.

However, Fox’s estimate of Confederate battlefield deaths was much rougher: a “round number” of 94,000, a figure compiled from after-action reports. In 1900, Livermore set out to make a more complete count. In his book, “Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America, 1861-65,” he reasoned that if the Confederates had lost proportionally the same number of soldiers to disease as the Union had, the actual number of Confederate dead should rise to 258,000.

And that was that. The Fox-Livermore numbers continued to be cited well into the 21st century, even though few historians were satisfied with them. Among many others, James M. McPherson used them without citing the source in “Battle Cry of Freedom,” his Pulitzer-winning 1988 history of the war.

Enter Dr. Hacker, a specialist in 19th-century demographics, who was accustomed to using the two-census method to calculate mortality. That method compares the number of 20-to-30-year-olds in one census with the number of 30-to-40-year-olds in the next census, 10 years later. The difference between the two figures is the number of people who died in that age group.

Pretty simple — but, Dr. Hacker soon realized, too simple for counting Civil War dead. Published census data from the era did not differentiate between native-born Americans and immigrants; about 500,000 foreign-born soldiers served in the Union Army alone.

“If you have a lot of immigrants age 20 moving in during one decade, it looks like negative mortality 10 years later,” Dr. Hacker said. While the Census Bureau in 1860 asked people their birthplace, the information never made it into the printed report.

As for Livermore’s assumption that deaths from disease could be correlated with battlefield deaths, Dr. Hacker found that wanting too. The Union had better medical care, food, and shelter, especially in the war’s final years, suggesting that Southern losses to disease were probably much higher. Also, research has shown that soldiers from rural areas were more susceptible to disease and died at a higher rate than city dwellers. The Confederate Army had a higher percentage of farm boys.

Dr. Hacker said he realized in 2010 that a rigorous recalculation could finally be made if he used newly available detailed census data presented on the Internet by the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota.

The center’s Integrated Public Use Microdata Series had put representative samples of in-depth, sortable information for individuals counted in 19th-century censuses. This meant that by sorting by place of birth, Dr. Hacker could count only the native-born.

Another hurdle was what Dr. Hacker called the “dreadful” 1870 census, a poorly handled undercount taken when the ashes of the war were still warm. But he reasoned a way around that problem.

Because the census takers would quite likely have missed as many women as men, he decided to look at the ratio of male to female deaths in 1870. Next, he examined mortality figures from the decades on either side of the war — the 1850s and 1870s — so that he could get an idea of the “normal” ratio of male to female deaths for a given decade. When he compared those ratios to that of 1860-70, he reasoned, he would see a dramatic spike in male mortality. And he did. Subtracting normal attrition from the male side of the equation left him with a rough estimate of war dead.

It was a better estimate than Fox and Livermore had produced, but Dr. Hacker made it clear that his was not the final answer. He had made several assumptions, each of which stole accuracy from the final result. Among them: that there were no war-related deaths of white women; that the expected regular mortality rate in the 1860s would be the average of the rates in the 1850s and 1870s; that foreign soldiers died at the same rate as native-born soldiers; and that the War Department figure of 36,000 black war dead had to be accepted as accurate because black women suffered so terribly both during and after the war that they could not be used as a control for male mortality.

The study had two significant shortcomings. Dr. Hacker could make no estimate of civilian deaths, an enduring question among historians, “because the overall number is too small relative to the overall number of soldiers killed.” And he could not tell how many of the battlefield dead belonged to each side.

“You could assume that everyone born in the Deep South fought for the Confederacy and everyone born in the North fought for the Union,” he said. “But the border states were a nightmare, and my confidence in the results broke down quickly.”

With all the uncertainties, Dr. Hacker said, the data suggested that 650,000 to 850,000 men died due to the war; he chose the midpoint as his estimate.

He emphasized that his methodology was far from perfect. “Part of me thinks it is just a curiosity,” he said of the new estimate.

“But wars have profound economic, demographic, and social costs,” he went on. “We see at least 37,000 more widows here and 90,000 more orphans. That’s a profound social impact, and it’s our duty, as historians, to get it right.”

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale. Ph.D.

Contributor, Guy Gugliotta 

Boston Corbett (1832-1894) was nicknamed "Lincoln's Avenger." An amazing story.

A single event, happenstance or circumstance can define who you are and how you'll be remembered, good, bad, or vile.

Thomas H. "Boston "Corbett

Thomas H. "Boston "Corbett shall forever be known as the Union soldier who avenged President Abraham Lincoln's death by killing John Wilkes Booth, but his fascinating story hardly ends there.

Born in England in 1832, Corbett migrated to New England with his family before the Civil War. Tragically, he lost his wife and daughter in childbirth. Depressed, Corbett started drinking. Later, he stumbled into a revival meeting and got sober. Corbett changed his given name to "Boston," the city where he was baptized.

Corbett was forced to surrender twice during the civil war. The second time he was sent to Andersonville (aka Camp Sumter) Confederate prison camp in Georgia. He attempted to escape at least once. After five brutal months at Camp Sumter, Corbett was released in an exchange in November 1864. He was admitted to the Army hospital in Annapolis, Maryland, where he was treated for scurvy, malnutrition, and exposure.

Corbett rejoined the 16th New York Cavalry near the end of the war. On his return to his company, he was promoted to sergeant. Only two out of fourteen men from his unit survived captivity. 

Of the approximately 45,000 Union prisoners held at Camp Sumter during the civil war, nearly 13,000 died (29%). The chief causes of death were scurvy, malnutrition, diarrhea, and dysentery.

Corbett volunteered to go after John Wilkes Booth following Lincoln's assassination in 1865.

The Pursuit of John Wilkes Booth

On April 24, 1865, Corbett's regiment was sent to apprehend John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, whom Booth fatally shot on April 14, 1865. On April 26, the regiment surrounded Booth and one of his accomplices, David Herold, in a tobacco barn on the Virginia farm of Richard Garrett. 

Herold surrendered, but Booth refused and cried out, "I will not be taken alive!". The barn was set on fire to force him into the open, but Booth remained inside. Corbett was positioned near a large crack in the barn wall.

Shooting Booth

In an 1878 interview, Corbett claimed that he saw Booth aim his carbine, prompting him to shoot Booth with his Colt revolver despite Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton's orders that Booth is captured alive. The bullet struck Booth in the back of the head behind his left ear, passed through his neck, and exited somewhere in the barn. A low scream of pain like that produced by a sudden throttling came from the assassin, and he pitched headlong to the floor. Corbett and the other soldiers would note a sense of poetic, or cosmic, justice in that Lincoln and Booth were each shot around the same area of the head. And the damage to Booth was no less severe than that to Lincoln: the bullet had pierced three vertebrae and partially severed his spinal cord, paralyzing him. Their conditions were different as well. As Mary Clemmer Ames summed it up, "The balls entered the skull of each at nearly the same spot, but the minor difference made an immeasurable difference in the sufferings of the two. Lincoln was unconscious of all pain, while his assassin suffered as exquisite agony as if he had been broken on a wheel."

The Death of Booth

Booth asked for water in a weak voice, and Lt. Colonel Everton Conger and Colonel Lafayette C. Baker gave it to him. A soldier poured water into his mouth, which he immediately spat out, unable to swallow. The bullet wound prevented him from swallowing any of the liquid. Booth asked them to roll him over and turn him facedown, and Conger thought it was a bad idea. Then at least turn me on my side, the assassin pleaded. They did, but Conger saw that the move did not relieve Booth's suffering. Baker noticed it, too: "He seemed to suffer extreme pain whenever he was moved...and would repeat several times, "Kill me." 

At sunrise, Booth remained in agonizing pain. His pulse weakened as his breathing became more labored and irregular. In agony, unable to move his limbs, he asked a soldier to lift his hands before his face and whispered as he gazed at them, "Useless . . .  Useless." These were his last words. A few minutes later, Booth began gasping for air as his throat continued to swell, then there was a shiver and a gurgle, and his body shuddered before Booth died from asphyxia. He died two hours after Corbett shot him.

Mr. Boston Corbett

Colorized

Conger initially thought Booth had shot himself. After realizing Booth had been shot by someone else, Conger and Lt. Doherty asked which officer had shot Booth. Corbett stepped forward and admitted he was the shooter. When asked why he had violated orders, Corbett replied, "Providence directed me."

Court-martial

He was immediately arrested and accompanied by Lt. Doherty to the War Department in Washington, D.C., to be court-martialed. When questioned by Secretary Edwin Stanton about Booth's capture and shooting, both Doherty and Corbett himself agreed that Corbett had, in fact, disobeyed orders not to shoot. However, Corbett maintained that he believed Booth had intended to shoot his way out of the barn and that he acted in self-defense. He told Stanton, "...Booth would have killed me if I had not shot first. I think I did right." Corbett maintained that he didn't intend to kill Booth but merely wanted to inflict a disabling wound, but either his aim slipped or Booth moved when Corbett pulled the trigger. Stanton paused and then stated, "The rebel is dead. The patriot lives; he has spared the country expense, continued excitement, and trouble. Discharge the patriot." Upon leaving the War Department, Corbett was greeted by a cheering crowd. As he made his way to Mathew Brady's studio to have his official portrait taken, the crowd followed him asking for autographs and requesting that he tell them about shooting Booth. Corbett told the crowd:

I aimed at his body. I did not want to kill him . . . I think he stooped to pick up something just as I fired. That may probably account for his receiving the ball in the head. When the assassin lay at my feet, a wounded man, and I saw the bullet had taken effect about an inch back of the ear, and I remembered that Mr. Lincoln was wounded about the same part of the head, I said: "What a God we have... God avenged Abraham Lincoln."

Contradictions

Eyewitnesses to Booth's shooting contradicted Corbett's version of events and expressed doubts that Corbett was responsible for shooting Booth. Officers near Corbett at the time claimed that they never saw him fire his gun (Corbett's gun was never inspected and was eventually lost). They contended that Corbett came forward only after Lt. Colonel Conger asked who had shot Booth. Richard Garrett, the farm owner on which Booth was found, and his 12-year-old son Robert contradicted Corbett's testimony that he acted in self-defense, and both maintained that Booth had never reached for his gun.

While there was some criticism of Corbett's actions, he was primarily considered a hero by the public and the press. One newspaper editor declared that Corbett would "live as one of the World's great avengers." For his part in Booth's capture, Corbett received a portion of the $100,000 ($1.7 million today) reward money, amounting to $1,653.84 ($28,300 today). His annual salary as a U.S. sergeant was $204 ($3,500 today). Corbett received offers to purchase the gun he used to shoot Booth, and he refused, stating, "That is not mine—it belongs to the Government, and I would not sell it for any price." Corbett also declined an offer for one of Booth's pistols as he did not want a reminder of shooting Booth.

After shooting Booth in a Virginia tobacco barn, Corbett became somewhat famous, but he was plagued by paranoia and irrational anger. A Milliner [1] before the war used mercury to cure felt hats, slowly making him "mad as a hatter," from what we know today as mercury poisoning.

As a result, Corbett was committed to the Topeka Asylum for the Insane in 1887. 

Sometime in 1887, Corbett stole a horse tethered to a post and escaped. He told a friend he met at Camp Sumter that he was going to Mexico. 

Boston Corbett simply disappeared and was never seen or heard from again.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Contributor: Ford's Theatre National Historic Site.

Contributor: Lincoln Lore

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[1] A Milliner is a person who is involved in the design, manufacture, sale, or repair of hats. A Haberdasher (British term) is a dealer in Notions (the equivalent English term), ribbons, buttons, snaps, thread, needles, and similar sewing goods. 

Music for Abraham Lincoln - Listen to 18 Campaign Songs, Civil War Tunes, Laments for a President.

CLICK TO PLAY

01. Washington and Lincoln

02. Honest Old Abe

03. The Rail Splitter's Polka

04. Abraham's Tea party

05. 'Tis the Last Rose of Summer

06. Dixie / The Battle Cry of Freedom

07. President's Hymn

08. Abraham the Great and General Granty His Mate

09. Lincoln and Liberty

10. Oh! Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?

11. Vote for Abraham

12. Funeral March to the Memory of Abraham Lincoln

13. Farewell Father, Friend, and Guardian

14. Rest, Noble Chieftain

15. Lincoln Quadrille: Polka Mazurka

16. Do Not Leave ma, Mother Darling

17. Lincoln Quadrille:  Waltz

18. Washington and Lincoln (Reprise)

The Gettysburg Address to the tune of "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz.

Abraham Lincoln Owned Two Parcels of Land in Iowa.

Abraham Lincoln owned two parcels of land in the state of Iowa but never visited either one. He received these tracts from the U.S. government for service as an Illinois volunteer in the Black Hawk War of 1832. It was not until the 1850s that Congress authorized land bounties to the war veterans. Lincoln received 40 acres following the act of September 28, 1850, and 120 acres after the act of March 3, 1855.

Lincoln could accept land from any U.S. land office, but instead of choosing sites in his home state of Illinois, he selected Iowa farmland as advised by Clifton H. Moore, an Illinois legal colleague who owned property in Tama and Crawford Counties. Moore acted as Lincoln's representative and paid his real estate taxes. Lincoln owned the land until his death in 1865 when it went to his widow and two surviving sons. There is no record that the land produced an income for the Lincolns. The land passed out of the family many years ago but is actively farmed today, producing traditional row crops such as corn and soybeans.

Tama County Land

The first parcel Lincoln received was 40 acres in Howard Township in Tama County. The warrant was issued to him on April 16, 1852. Two years later, Moore entered the land through John P. Davis of Dubuque, and the patent was dated June 1, 1855. After President Lincoln died, the interest in the property was divided evenly among his heirs.

In 1867 Clifton Moore wrote to Lincoln's son Robert, saying he had seen the land and its value was $10 per acre. On April 6, 1874, Mary Todd Lincoln deeded her interest in it to her son Robert for $100. Later that year, Robert and his wife sold the land to Adam Brecht for $500 ($12,000 today). The land was not recorded until June 15, 1916.

To visit the site, take Route 63 to 260th Street, about five miles north of Toledo, the county seat. Turn west on 260th Street and go about three miles to H Avenue and turn north. You will see a marker on the east side of the road. The legal description is the "N.W. 1/4 of the S.W. 1/4 Sec.20 T.84 R. 15 west" in Tama County.

Crawford County Land

Lincoln's second parcel was 120 acres in Goodrich Township, Crawford County. It is seven miles north of Denison and one mile east of Schleswig, identified by a marker erected in 1923 by the Denison Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Warrant #68645 was issued on April 22, 1856, and Lincoln located the land while living in Springfield, Illinois, on December 27, 1859.

The patent for the Crawford County tract was issued to Lincoln on September 10, 1860, during his first presidential campaign, and sent to the Registrar of the Land Office at Springfield on October 30, one week before the election. The property eventually passed to Lincoln's only surviving son Robert, who sold the property to Henry Edwards for $1,300 ($38,800 today) on March 22, 1892.

By Abraham Lincoln Online

Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Camp Pine, a WWII German POW Camp in the Cook County forest preserves near Des Plaines, Illinois.

Camp Pine Woods is located south of Lake Avenue — east of the Des Plaines River — north of Central Road — west of Milwaukee Avenue in the Cook County forest preserves near Des Plaines, Illinois.
CLICK MAP FOR FULL SIZE

Camp Pine Forest Preserve was formerly a Nazi POW camp for German soldiers. During WWII (September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945), the Americans realized that, because of the expenses of shipping food and supplies to overseas prisoners of war, it would actually be cheaper to bring prisoners to the States. Also, camps were overcrowded in Europe, and our ally Great Britain asked for our help. Lastly, POWs could help fill the labor shortage in vital industries such as farming.

WWII POW CAMPS IN ILLINOIS

The U.S. Army’s Fort Sheridan was utilized as an administrative headquarters for a system of 37 POW camps throughout Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. Four of the Illinois camps were located in the Cook County; Camp Pine; Camp Skokie Valley; Arlington Fields, and Camp Thornton. 

Fort Sheridan in Highwood, Lake County.

Camp Ellis, by Bernadotte, Fulton County.

Camp Galesburg, Knox County.

Camp Grant in Rockford, Winnebago County.

Camp Hampshire, Kane County.

Camp Hoopeston, Vermilion County.

Camp Washington, Washington County. 

Camp Pine was opened in what had been barracks constructed during the Great Depression to house the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program. 

The German men lived in five crude barrack-styled buildings on the high ground along the Des Plaines River. Each building was heated by a single wood-burning stove. There were 8 outdoor privies to accommodate the 280 or so prisoners and guards there. Prisoners carried out public works projects near Dam № 2. 

The majority of German POWs were captured by U.S. forces in the North Africa and Italian campaigns. 

The North African campaign of WWII took place in North Africa from June 1940 to May 1943. 

The Italian campaign of WWII, also called the Liberation of Italy, consisted of Allied and Axis operations in and around Italy, from July 1943 to May 1945.

Prisoners were originally housed at Fort Sheridan in Highwood, Illinois, and their labor was used to turn the old WPA barracks into what would become Camp Pine. The camp was opened for German POWs in May 1945.

Aerial photograph of Camp Pine, 1938.

In conjunction with the Cook County Farm Labor Association, the US Government put the POWs to work at local farms and some businesses. A few even worked in Pesche's gardens in Des Plaines. The prisoners worked for 8¢ an hour ($1.50/hr today) and were paid in cash or canteen coupons.

The locals took well to having the POWs so close to home. The Germans took notice and often would wave at Des Plaines residents as they drove trucks of produce through town. One Des Plaines couple was so kind to the Germans that it almost landed them in trouble with the FBI. During the days of Camp Pine, the Daily Herald reported that FBI agents monitoring the camp had a run-in with two Des Plaines citizens who were driving three prisoners back to Camp Pine at 2 am. After the FBI found out that the couple had simply taken the Germans home for "a good supper," the feds decided no harm was done.

Security was lax enough that occasionally a German prisoner managed to escape. As one of the stories goes one prisoner who disappeared was found working in a Chicago bookstore, which he later purchased. According to another story, an escapee who had no interest in returning to Germany, where his hometown was held by the Soviets, made his way to California and became a tennis pro. Many of the prisoners liked living in this country so much that they returned at war’s end to become permanent residents.

Nationally, the U.S. government grossly underestimated how many German prisoners it would have to place in camps here. The number was thought to be 50,000 to 75,000 but ended up being 420,000 by the time the war was over.

By the time the camp closed in March of 1946, only around 30 POWs remaining of the nearly 200 that had been housed there. Many of the former prisoners returned home to Germany, but some were so enamored that they decided to stay in America. 

After the POWs were released from Camp Pine, it enjoyed a brief period as a Boy Scout and Girl Scout camps, who probably enjoyed their stays much more than their German predecessors. Not much is left of Camp Pine today except rubble and some rusty plumbing. 

The moss-covered foundation of one of Camp Pine barracks.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

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Open Prisoner of War Camp Near Des Plaines.

A branch German prisoner of war camp has been opened north of Des Plaines. Formerly used by the Civilian Consercation Corps. (CCC), it has been named Camp Pine and will house 75 prisoners who will work on truck farms in the Des Plaines vicinity.

                                                                           —Chicago Tribune, Sunday, May 6, 1945

175 German Prisoners III of Food Poisoning.

Army spokesmen disclosed last night that 175 German prisoners of war housed at Camp Pine, near Des Plaines, were stricken with food poisoning after the evening meal. Officers suspected potato salad and whiteiish as the possible cause. Maj. R. L. Hiatt, executive officer at Fort Sheridan hospital, said none of the prisoners was critically ill, altho many would be hospitalized for several days.

                                                                    —Chicago Tribune, Monday, August 13, 1945

Three German War Prisoners Escape Camp.

Three German prisoners of war escaped last night from Camp Pine, north of the village of Des Plaines. The prisoners were identified as Conrad Blum, 46; Irwin Koerkel, 20; and Waldemar Bogl, 30. Blum and Bogl are fair and blue eyed. Koerkel has dark hair and hazel eyes. Blum is 5 feet 6 inches tall; Bogl 5 feet 8 inches; and Koerkel 5 feet 9. All wore clothing  bearing the letters "PW" on the back.

                                                                    —Chicago Tribune, Saturday March 30, 1946

By 1949, Camp Pine hosted the first Fall Festival of Girl Scouts. The outing put on by eight suburban Girl Scout councils that maintain cabins at the site.

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GERMAN FONDLY REVISITS POW SITE IN DES PLAINES, ILLINOIS.

The old German soldier buried his face in the carnations and summoned memories of his days as a prisoner of war at a Des Plaines greenhouse.

He calls his days as an American captive "the good life."

The experiences of Rudolf Velte and thousands of others who served in Hitler's army during World War II and ended up as POWs in the U.S. created a peculiar if little-known, historical footnote to the war. And a half-century later, the story continues to play out in the odd pilgrimages that Velte and others have made to the scenes of their imprisonment.

The comfortable incarcerations were a strategy by the U.S. military to encourage Hitler's regime to treat its 90,000 American POWs humanely, according to historians. Yet the tactic failed miserably, leaving the alternative notion that the program was an appalling and misguided benevolence toward the army of the Third Reich, even as liberating troops were exposing the horrors of Auschwitz and Dachau.

For Velte, at least, the episode was a surprising salvation from the tumult of a war that swept him up as a 20-year-old and ultimately landed him in Africa, unaware, he says, of what was happening to Jews in his native land.

Today, he remains effusively grateful for the American kindness, seemingly disinclined to view the historical ironies of his sojourn in the Chicago suburbs.

Unlike Allied POWs or Japanese-Americans held in California internment camps, Velte remembers his imprisonment fondly. He worked for pay picking carnations and ate until his belly was full. He played soccer and socialized with American guards and local families. Thousands of German soldiers in hundreds of camps nationwide had similar experiences, historians say.

In fact, Hitler's soldiers lived so well in these camps that thousands migrated back after the war and became U.S. citizens.

In 1945, Velte was one of 215 captured Germans assigned to Camp Pine, a tiny fortress nestled in the woods along the east bank of the Des Plaines River, a half-mile south of Euclid Avenue.

Now a 77-year-old retired baker from Niederweimar, Germany, Velte recently made his first trip to the United States since WW II, stopping in Des Plaines to walk the grounds at his old POW camp and, at the Pesche greenhouse, to meet the family of an American he considered a wartime friend.

"After 51 years, to be back, it's almost too much," Velte said as his wife of 48 years, Elisabeth, snapped photos in the greenhouse. "This has been a beautiful day for me."

Arnold Krammer, a Texas A&M history professor who interviewed 250 POWs for his book "Nazi Prisoners of War in America," said Velte's experience is far from unusual.

"Most of the German prisoners told me this was the greatest time in their lives. They were treated wonderfully, and they were out of the fighting," Krammer said.

"It may be galling for us to think about this now . . . but we have the misfortune of knowing how it all turned out. At the time, our greatest hatred was saved for the Japanese. And these prisoners were not the ones who were sealing the gas chambers. It was done by Germans, but it wasn't done by these Germans."

At the time, the U.S. military didn't widely advertise that it was holding some 425,000 German soldiers in 511 camps throughout the U.S.—a move driven by the shortage of American labor and the logistics of shipping food to Europe to feed a half-million POWs.

"I think the camps pretty much escaped the public eye," said Tom Kocher, who spent 12 years as the military museum curator at the now-closed Fort Sheridan in Highwood, Illinois, which served as a Midwest clearinghouse for 15,000 prisoners and 46 branch camps.

But even those Americans who worked with the POWs or watched them roll into town had a tough time summoning hatred for the young men in tattered Nazi uniforms.

"It was just too far removed from the horrors of war," Kocher said. "That's why the prisoners were viewed as victims of circumstance... kids caught fighting in a brown shirt with a swastika on their arm."

Added Krammer: "The American public was really kind of awestruck by the Germans. They seemed so much like us."

In this part of the Midwest, the branch camps were scattered throughout Wisconsin, Michigan, and the Illinois communities of Arlington Heights, Glenview, Thornton, and Des Plaines—locations that brought the German POWs closer to the towns that needed agricultural workers.

When news reports suggested that Nazi prisoners were coddled here—especially after the concentration camp atrocities were publicized in early 1945—the American military painted a harsher picture.

"If anyone thinks these prisoners are given a soft life, they should come on an inspection tour of these base camps," a Fort Sheridan officer wrote in a statement to the Des Plaines Journal printed April 12, 1945. "No special privileges or cuddling (sic) is being shown to these men . . . they dislike us and our country as much as we do them."

Like other prisoners, Velte spent nine months working on area farms. Though none of the work was back-breaking, he landed a particularly plum assignment: picking and delivering carnations for a friendly Des Plaines florist named Fred Pesche, a Luxembourg native who chatted with his prisoners in German and fed them hot lunches of bratwurst, black bread, and an occasional beer.

Velte said he doesn't believe his captors were soft, although he knows he might have encountered a different welcome had Americans seen their country devastated by Nazi bombs and invaded by the German forces.

"We had a lot of respect for the Americans, especially after the (D-Day) invasion," Velte, a stout man with young eyes and richly lined face, said through a translator. "We knew the war was going to end, and we would win our freedom."

Velte's war story started in 1939 when he was drafted at age 20 into the air force regiment of Hermann Goering. Velte said he fought because his country told him he must, not because he believed in the ideals of the Nazi Party or its leader, Adolf Hitler.

"Most of the soldiers were not pro-fanatic Nazis," Velte said. "We were forced into it. What actually went on (in the concentration camps), we didn't know. We had no idea."

He spent two years in Germany, then was sent to Africa in late 1942 to support the retreat of the Afrika Korps. On May 11, 1943, he was captured in Tunisia by the French army.

Velte almost died during this time from chronic diarrhea and malnutrition, he said and dropped to 93 pounds. Desperate, he escaped the French camp with a fellow prisoner.

He surrendered to English troops and was treated in their hospital. The Americans took control of the POWs in October 1943, and Velte was put on a military cargo ship to Virginia.

From there, he spent time at POW camps in Nebraska, Michigan, and Rockford. At one camp, Velte remembers watching films of Nazi concentration camp atrocities. His reaction then was a common one among the POWs: He did not believe it.

Velte was one of the first to arrive at Camp Pine, just a week after it opened in May 1945. And while nothing now remains from the camp except a rusty flagpole, Velte had no trouble recognizing the site during his visit 51 years later. With his American cousin, Art Bodenbender of Moline, Velte pointed to the spot where he once played cards with American guards.

Velte stayed at Camp Pine until February 1946, when he was sent home to Germany. He married, fathered four children, and spent his life running his own bakery.

Frank Pesche was 18 when he first met Velte and the other prisoners who worked for his dad. The camp was a novelty in the tiny farming community, and Frank and his young friends used to sneak into the camp some nights just to see if they could trip the searchlights.

"Most people in town didn't even know they were here," said Pesche, whose family business is one of the few former POW farm employers still intact after all these years.

Velte laughs when asked if he ever considered escaping.

"No. Why? We had a good life," he said. "We had almost total freedom."

Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, June 5, 1996

By Tracy Dell'Angela, Tribune Staff Writer