David Messer, Federick Messer's Nephew Died at Chicago's Camp Douglas

George Washington Messer, Federick's brother died in 1862 at the age of 64 or 65.  No service in the Confederate Army is mentioned.

He did have a son in the Confederate Army, though, David Messer born in 1828 and died in 1864, in Chicago, Illinois.

He enlisted as a private in Company C of the 62nd North Carolina Infantry  in Waynesville, North Carolina, on July 14, 1862.  He was captured at Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, on September 9, 1863, and sent to Louisville, Kentucky, and later confined at Camp Douglas in Chicago.

On August 11, 1864, he died of dysentery and is buried at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago in grave #1264 (Confederate Mound).

My Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp, Camp Douglas, has had a ceremony at the Confederate Mound every year except this one.

--Old Secesh

Community Organizers Want Confederate Monument Removed From Chicago's Oak Woods Cemetery

From the April 7, 2019, Chicago Sun-Times  by Rachel Hinton.

Two black groups want the monument removed because such black notables as Ida B. Wells, Jesse Owens and Chicago's first black mayor, Harold Washington are buried in the cemetery.  About a dozen protested.  They would like to have a monument to Ida B. Wells.  (At one time there was a monument to this remarkable woman in the form of the Ida B. Wells Housing Project.)

The monument stands atop what is called the Confederate Mound at the cemetery and is the site of the graves of over 4,000 Confederate soldiers who died at Camp Douglas prison during the Civil War.  It was a Union prison noted for its harsh conditions.

The cemetery is located at 1035 E. 67th Street in Chicago's Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood.

The Confederate Mound monument is administered by the Federal Veterans Administration and overseen by the Abraham Lincoln National cemetery in Elwood, Illinois (near Joliet).

Matthew Evans, the camp commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) Camp Douglas Camp #516, says there is little they can do because the site is owned by the Veterans Administration.

Personally, I would like to have monuments to the three people mentioned in the first paragraph as long as they are privately funded.  They were all remarkable people whose memories should never be forgotten.

--Old Secesh

Camp Douglas Prison -- Andersonville of the North-- Part 2

Continued from Friday, May 8th.

There is only one monument to those Confederates who died at Camp Douglas in Chicago and, it is an impressive one, but not at the camp's site.  It is at Chicago's famous Oak Woods Cemetery at 1035 E. 67th Street in what is called "The Confederate Mound" where at l;east 6,000 are buried (4,200 known, the rest unknown).  They are buried in a mass grave on one acre of land.

The monument was dedicated on Memorial Day, May 30, 1895 and reads:  "To the memory of the six thousand Southern soldiers here buried... who died in Camp Douglas prison ... 1862-65."  This is the largest mass burial in the entire Western Hemisphere.

Every April, the Camp Douglas Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, based in the Chicagoland area, holds a memorial service for the dead at the mound.

The dead interred in the mound had previously been buried in paupers graves in Chicago's City Cemetery but were moved in 1867 to make way for the creation of Lincoln Park.  Who knows how many bodies are still buried there?

--Old Secesh