The site of Camp Kearney for Dakota prisoners

The Union Army built Camp McClellan in August 1861. They needed space for recruits and the wounded. It sat on 300 acres across the Mississippi from the Rock Island Arsenal. Construction was rushed. Because of the haste, the quarters were poorly constructed and started to leak. A thousand recruits would have been at the camp at one time after it first opened.

By 1863, the camp took a dark turn. It became Camp Kearney. The government moved 277 Sioux men, 16 women, two children, and one Ho-Chunk member here. This followed the Dakota War of 1862. Lincoln commuted their death sentences. Davenport was far from Minnesota to avoid lynch mobs. While there was some initial hostility from local citizens, sentiments died down enough that labor parties were taken to work in the nearby farm fields.

Prisoners ate beef, corn, and bread they did not like. A wall went up in 1863. It kept the Native Americans away from the recruits. Many died in the camp. Their remains stayed in unmarked graves nearby. The skulls sat in a museum for decades. The Dakota tribe got them back in 2005.

The camp struggled after the war ended. The headquarters burned down in 1865. The hospital closed by October of that same year. Today, the site serves as a memorial.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons