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 the terrible toll it ultimately took, Eighty Acres of Hell is a troubling look at a long-ignored chapter of the Civil War.

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