More Confederate soldiers died in Chicago's Camp Douglas than on any Civil War battlefield. Originally constructed in 1861 to train forty thousand Union soldiers from the northern third of Illinois, it was converted to a prison camp in 1862. Nearly thirty thousand Confederate prisoners were housed there until it was shut down in 1865. Today, the history of the camp ranges from unknown to deeply misunderstood. David Keller offers a modern perspective of Camp Douglas and a key piece of scholarship in reckoning with the legacy of other military prisons.
David Keller founded the Camp Douglas Restoration Foundation in 2010. He is a docent at the Chicago History Museum and popular speaker on Camp Douglas and the Civil War. The Camp Douglas Restoration Foundation has conducted four archaeological excavations on the site of Camp Douglas and has a major objective to develop and operate an on-site museum. David and his wife are longtime residents of Chicago.