Camp Randall was a United States Army base in Madison, Wisconsin, the largest mustering point for Wisconsin Volunteer troops entering the American Civil War. At this camp fresh WISCONSIN volunteers, over 80,000 of the 90,000 mustered in Wisconsin, went into the field, by orders of Governor Randall.
Camp Randall Wisconsin Volunteer recruits would learn to drill, learn battle tactics, how to fire rifles, display the regimental battle colors, fire battle cannons, drill as foot soldiers and cavalry to fight anticipated enemy formations. Before long, these men would be heading off to join their various WI Regiments of the Men in Blue Federal Union Army on battlefields, transiting mostly via Federal States and Lands, to the Confederate South.
During Camp Randall mustering in formalities, medical check ups were conducted at the Military Hospital inside Camp Randall grounds by Madison Royal Doctor Surgeons Will and Joe Hobbins, and others. This Union Military Hospital would prove to be the State's and Capitol Madison's first formal, operating Hospital, a basis for starting and the founding of the UW School of Medicine, and first Madison Hospitals only decades later.
Camp Randall would double as a Prison Camp for a few months. This came with the surrender and taking in Confederate prisoners captured at the Mississippi Island 10 battle. 1200 CS men were captured, ferried up the Mississippi to the Wisconsin River and east, put on trains from Sauk City to Madison and to the Camp Randall Prison Camp. 138 CS men died of pneumonia either on their way over or in Camp, due to exposure to heavy rains.
Dr Surg Joe Hobbins was Camp Randall Prison Camp Dr. Surgeon. These CS Soldiers were respectfully laid to rest respectfully at Forest Hill National Cemetery. The CS prisoners would soon be sent southeast to Camp Douglas in Chicago.
Camp Randall then returned to its mustering camp status, and later WI's Principal mustering out camp.
After the Civil War, Camp Randall was the site of annual Civil War Veteran family pilgrimage, to celebrate Memorial Day as per General Logans Orders. Through the ages, Camp Randall has been and became the Symbol and Icon for all Wisconsin Veterans and Troops serving our Armed American Forces. SACRED GROUNDS.
Camp Randall grounds are considered SACRED GROUNDS because Union soldiers died on the grounds in the Military Hospital, in addition to the CS Soldiers. Camp Randall Soldiers of both side were buried only a mile away, walking past iconic Randall School only a quarter of a mile away, and another quarter mile to historic Forest Hill National Cemetery. prisoner-of-war camp for captured Confederate soldiers.[2]
Today the camp's land is split between UW athletic buildings including Camp Randall Stadium, the College of Engineering, and Camp Randall Memorial Park with its historic Civil War cannons, massive stone Camp Randall Civil War Victory Arch and Memorial Park memorializing the over 12,000 Wisconsin Men who gave their lives to eradicate US slavery of all races and stop out the Confederate States, whose state economies utilized forced mass slave labor.
Camp Randall is on the National Registry of Historic Places, and on the Wisconsin Historical Sites Registry: [2] In 1971 the Camp Randall Memorial Park section was protected and placed on the National Register of Historic Places,[3] considered "the single most important site in Wisconsin relating to the state's participation in the Civil War."[2]
Training/Mustering camp
When the Civil War broke out after the fall of Fort Sumter in April 1861, President Lincoln called for troops from the state militias to put down the rebellion. He initially asked Wisconsin for one regiment of 780 men for three months. Wisconsin Governor Alexander Randall, a strong abolitionist, promptly pledged that first regiment to the Union cause, and more to come.[4] The first regiment of volunteers organized at Camp Scott in Milwaukee. The second regiment organized in Madison,[5] and Camp Randall was rapidly established for them, with recruits already there by May 1.[2] Subsequent regiments assembled at Fond du Lac, Racine, and other places,[5] but the majority ended up mustering at Camp Randall - 70,000 of the 91,000 who served from Wisconsin over the course of the war.[2]
Just a few years before the war, in 1858 and 1860, the camp's flat open area on what was then the west side of Madison had hosted the Wisconsin State Fair.[6] With the outbreak of war, the Wisconsin Agricultural Society provided its fairground to be used as a training camp. Some of the new recruits bunked in what had been the State Fair's cattle sheds, while others lived in tents. The fair's machinery exhibit building was converted to a mess hall that could feed 3,000 men at a time. And the fair's Floral Hall held the hospital and officers' quarters.[5] Some fair sheds housed cavalry animals, and other buildings were constructed.[2] 45 barracks buildings were each 80 by 20 feet, with bunks three high, each housing up to 100 men.[7] An eight foot fence surrounded the 10-acre camp, with two manned gates.[5] One of those gates was where the Memorial Arch stands now.[2]
The typical recruits' day at Camp Randall began at 5am with a cannon shot that woke thousands. The men had volunteered from around the state, arriving in companies of 100. Each company typically came from one region - students and young businessmen from Madison, farm-boys from Delton, lumberjacks from Eau Claire, etc. Ten companies formed each regiment of a thousand recruits. The camp could handle several regiments at once. The recruits' mornings and afternoons were largely spent drilling - learning marching, muskets, cooking in the field, and discipline. Most of the recruits were young unmarried fellows, seventeen to twenty-one years old, with no military experience. In some cases older veterans of the Mexican War or European wars ran the drills for the green recruits. Once the recruits had uniforms, a dress parade was common in the evening, sometimes admired by visitors from town.[5] Later in the candle-lit barracks men played cards, told stories, sang, read newspapers, and read letters from home.[7]
A company from Eau Claire bought a young bald eagle on their way to Camp Randall, and he became Old Abe, the famous mascot of the 8th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. Less well-known, a pet black bear named Bruin came along to Camp Randall with Harlan Squires, a 16-year-old recruit from Delton. Bruin became a mascot and pet of the 12th Regiment. They built him a shelter at Camp Randall and a 12-foot post to climb while they trained.[8]
But not all was noble, orderly, and whimsical. Soldiers wrote home complaining of fleas in their straw bedding, of cold guard duty in January, and of getting sick from being fed spoiled beef. Some caused a ruckus in town while out on pass. Some spent their idle time drinking and gambling. Some even spent time locked in the guardhouse.[5]
Training for a regiment lasted "from a few weeks to two months or more." When training finished and the early regiments left for duty, they were celebrated with speeches from notables, brass bands, church bells, and large crowds. As the war dragged on, the send-off celebrations for later regiments continued, but became less elaborate.[9]
The units that mustered at Camp Randall fought in important battles of the war, including the First Battle of Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness campaign, and many gave their lives.[10] Fresh replacement troops to fill in for soldiers lost or discharged were also trained at Camp Randall. As surviving Wisconsin soldiers completed their tours, which were now three years, most of the troops that trained at Camp Randall returned there for mustering out.[2]
Prison camp
Guard house under protective roof
In April 1862, Union forces captured thousands of Confederate soldiers at Island No. 10 on the Mississippi River in southern Missouri. About 1200 of them were sent to Camp Randall - mostly from the 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment, along with some from Tennessee, Arkansas, and other places. Some had been injured or sick to begin with, and all suffered an eight-day ride on an overcrowded boat up the Mississippi. A rough barracks was set up for the prisoners and the 19th Regiment was sent over from Racine to guard them.[11]
Conditions in camp were generally decent for a Civil War POW stockade, but not good. The army scrimped on rations, prisoners fought each other, there was antagonism between prisoners and guards, the hospital was overloaded so that sick prisoners lay on the floor, and prisoners died at an alarming rate. The camp didn't have a good fence, so some healthy prisoners just walked out.[11] Because of the poor infrastructure and spotty discipline, it took half of the 19th Regiment to guard the thousand prisoners - Union soldiers who were needed elsewhere.[12] So on May 30, all the healthy-enough POWs were shipped by train to Camp Douglas in Chicago. Some sick POWs remained, gradually transferring out or dying over the next few months. By the end, 138 of 1200 prisoners had died over the course of a few months.[11] The prisoners who died at Camp Randall were buried in a mass grave at Forest Hill Cemetery, commemorated at Confederate Rest.[13]
The Camp Randall Arch, topped by a statue of the eagle Old Abe
Since the war
After the war the army camp was deactivated and its open area was used intermittently for the Barnum circus[14] and the Dane County Fair, until that fair moved to a different site. There was talk of splitting the parcel into city lots to sell, but the Civil War veterans who had trained there objected.[2] The site was purchased by the state of Wisconsin in 1893 and deeded to the University of Wisconsin. Football play began there in 1895.[14]
Of the original 53½ acres, a segment was set aside as Camp Randall Park in 1911.[15] The Memorial Arch was added in 1912, fifty years after the war, located where one of the camp's gates stood, where soldiers would have entered and left. It was designed by Lew F. Porter, with a statue on the left of a young Civil War recruit, and a statue on the right of an aging Civil War veteran in 1912.[2][16] The arch is topped with a statue of the mascot eagle Old Abe.[17]
Another portion was used for Camp Randall Stadium, begun in 1916 as an outdoor football stadium for the university and expanded many times since.[18] The UW Field House was added on the original property in 1930.[19]
In 1971 Camp Randall Memorial Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as "the site most significantly associated with Wisconsin's participation in the Civil War."[2] The plaque under Memorial Arch reads:
Erected by the STATE OF WISCONSIN to mark the entrance through which passed seventy thousand of her soldier sons and five hundred thousand relatives and friends during the war from 1861 to 1865 "Lest we forget" MDCCCCXII
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↑ Current, Richard N. (1976). The History of Wisconsin, Vol II: The Civil War Era. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin. p.296. ISBN0-87020-122-0.
1 2 Peterson, Tim (31 October 2020). "What Role Did Camp Randall Play in the Civil War?". Whysconsin. Wisconsin Public Radio. Retrieved 2022-03-18. According to Daniel Einstein, historic and cultural resources manager for the UW.
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