Random discovery
It never ceases to amaze me that as much as I know about history, there is so much more that I don't know. Even when it comes to American history. I was doing some genealogical research the other day, and I had come across a relative, a brother of one of my ancestors on my father's side of the family who died in Illinois in 1864. I thought that was very odd, that one of my South Carolina relatives (a few times removed) had died in Illinois during the height of the Civil War. So I did a bit more digging and found that he had died at Camp Douglas. I'd never heard of the place, so I did a search on google (whatever did we do in the days before the internet?). Turns out it was originally a Union training camp and later became a Confederate POW camp best known for its inhumane conditions. I had no idea.