Camp Randall was a

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

base in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

, the largest staging point for Wisconsin troops entering the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

. At this camp fresh volunteers received quick training before heading off to join the

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union of the collective states. It proved essential to th ...

. Also located on the grounds were a hospital and briefly a

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. ...

for captured

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

soldiers. Today the camp's land is split between UW athletic buildings including

Camp Randall Stadium Camp Randall Stadium is an outdoor stadium in Madison, Wisconsin, located on the campus of the University of Wisconsin. It has been the home of the Wisconsin Badgers football team in rudimentary form since 1895, and as a fully functioning stadiu ...

, the College of Engineering, and Camp Randall Memorial Park with its historic and memorial displays. In 1971 the Memorial Park section was placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

, considered "the single most important site in Wisconsin relating to the state's participation in the Civil War." With .

Training/Mustering camp

When the Civil War broke out after the

fall of Fort Sumter The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia. It ended with the surrender by the United States Army, beginning the American Civil War. Foll ...

in April of 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 Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

, promptly pledged that first regiment to the Union cause, and more to come. The first regiment of volunteers organized at Camp Scott in Milwaukee. The second regiment organized in Madison, and Camp Randall was rapidly established for them, with recruits already there by May 1. Subsequent regiments assembled at Fond du Lac, Racine, and other places,Current, pp 337-341. 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. CampRandall-1864

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 The Wisconsin State Fair is an annual event held at the Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. The modern fair takes place in August (occasionally beginning late July) and lasts 11 days. History The first W ...

. 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. Some fair sheds housed cavalry animals, and other buildings were constructed. 45 barracks buildings were each 80 by 20 feet, with bunks three high, each housing up to 100 men. An eight foot fence surrounded the 10-acre camp, with two manned gates. One of those gates was where the Memorial Arch stands now. Camp Randall flagpole

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 A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually dis ...

, 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. Later in the candle-lit barracks men played cards, told stories, sang, read newspapers, and read letters from home. 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 Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

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. 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. 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. The units that mustered at Camp Randall fought in important battles of the war, including the

First Battle of Bull Run The First Battle of Bull Run (the name used by Union forces), also known as the Battle of First Manassas

Antietam The Battle of Antietam (), or Battle of Sharpsburg particularly in the Southern United States, was a battle of the American Civil War fought on September 17, 1862, between Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Union G ...

, Gettysburg, and the

Wilderness campaign The Overland Campaign, also known as Grant's Overland Campaign and the Wilderness Campaign, was a series of battles fought in Virginia during May and June 1864, in the American Civil War. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, general-in-chief of all Unio ...

, and many gave their lives. 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.

Prison camp

In April of 1862, Union forces captured thousands of Confederate soldiers at

Island No. 10 Island Number Ten was an island in the Mississippi River near Tiptonville, Tennessee and the site of a major eponymous battle in the American Civil War. In the mid-19th century the United States Government began to adopt a uniform numbering plan ...

on the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

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. 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. 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. 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. The prisoners who died at Camp Randall were buried in a mass grave at Forest Hill Cemetery, commemorated at Confederate Rest. Camp Randall arch

Since the war

After the war the army camp was deactivated and its open area was used intermittently for the Barnum circus According to Daniel Einstein, historic and cultural resources manager for the UW. 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. The site was purchased by the state of Wisconsin in 1893 and deeded to the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

. Football play began there in 1895. Camp Randall marker

Of the original 53½ acres, a segment was set aside as Camp Randall Park in 1911. 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. The arch is topped with a statue of the mascot eagle Old Abe. Another portion was used for

, begun in 1916 as an outdoor football stadium for the university and expanded many times since. The UW Field House was added on the original property in 1930. In 1971 Camp Randall Memorial Park was listed on the

as "the site most significantly associated with Wisconsin's participation in the Civil War." 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

References

External links

Historic images of Camp Randall

- images and history
History of the Camp Randall Arch

Confederate Prisoners at Camp Randall as Seen in Newspaper Articles

Wisconsin Historical Society The Wisconsin Historical Society (officially the State Historical Society of Wisconsin) is simultaneously a state agency and a private membership organization whose purpose is to maintain, promote and spread knowledge relating to the history of N ...

Camp Randall to welcome home its Civil War soldiers
''

Wisconsin State Journal The ''Wisconsin State Journal'' is a daily newspaper published in Madison, Wisconsin by Lee Enterprises. The newspaper, the second largest in Wisconsin, is primarily distributed in a 19 county region in south-central Wisconsin. As of September ...

'' *
100 years later, Camp Randall Civil War memorial stands tall
, '' Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'' *
Confederate captives in Madison: Camp Randall’s history as Civil War prisoner-of-war camp
, ''

The Badger Herald ''The Badger Herald'' is a newspaper serving the University of Wisconsin–Madison community, founded in 1969. The paper is published Monday through Friday during the academic year and once during the summer. Available at newsstands across campus ...

'' {{National Register of Historic Places Military facilities on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin 1865 establishments in Wisconsin American Civil War army posts American Civil War prison camps Closed installations of the United States Army Wisconsin in the American Civil War Parks in Wisconsin Protected areas of Dane County, Wisconsin Tourist attractions in Madison, Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Madison, Wisconsin Military installations established in 1865 Military installations closed in 1893 1893 disestablishments in Wisconsin

Training/Mustering camp

Prison camp

Since the war

References

Further reading

External links