Eighty Acres of Hell reveals that the Union was more than capable of matching the Confederates atrocity-for-atrocity. While 12,000 prisoners entered Camp Douglas, only 6,000 left. The rest were victims of calculated cruelty, torture and neglect. Southern soldiers were not the only targets of this treatment--many prominent Chicago citizens were incarcerated under the banner of martial law, unjustly convicted of imagined offenses by ruthless military tribunals. From the establishment of the camp to
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