It was a teenage trip to Gettysburg that hooked David Keller, a retired banker living in Chicago. But another pilgrimage to Franklin, Tennessee ten years ago inspired hi to take on a very special project.
Very little of that battlefield is preserved. The spot where a famous Confederate general was killed (Clebourne?) is today occupied by a Pizza Hut. It struck Keller that Chicago hadn't done much to preserve an important site where Camp Douglas once stood. It served first as a Union training camp for whites and later blacks and later was an infamous Confederate prison.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans camp that I belong to is named after the prison. There is also a massive Confederate monument at a nearby cemetery where 6,000 Confederate victims who died at the camp are buried.
The 60-acre camp, located in what is today the Bronzeville neighborhood. That portion of history has all but disappeared. Keller would like land to reconstruct two barracks to house museums to honor the Union troops and Confederates who were there.
He and some others have formed a foundation to raise money for it. http://www.campdouglas.org.
The War Lives ON. --Old B-Runner
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