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(A story of slavery, survival, and salvation in the corrupted concentration camp of Chicago)



...America has been keeping a stupendous secret from its citizens about her past; therefore, the tragic tale I feel is my duty to proudly tell,

Welcome aboard and please strap in for this roller coaster story of a courageous solider who underwent and overcame living in the deepest layer of Hell...



Mr. Milton Asbury Ryan left his Mississippi home not weighing even one hundred pounds, but he certainly was tough for his size and happened to be an owner of an even stronger heart,

Climbing aboard Satan's rotting steamboat and stuffed into the lower decks with a thousand other captives as his dreams drastically began to depart.

He fought heroically at Fort Donelson, but was forced to wave an early white flag while his comrades were falling to their fatalities like dominos and remaining behind to freeze in the sinful snow,

Shackled in the serpent's sadistic ship with the thoughts of food, family, and freedom on his mind...and not the slightest idea of where he was or where he was about to go.

He'd rather be flirting with death on the battlefield again, for the Yankees' bullets and bayonets were not nearly as dangerous as the boats' diabolical decks,

Praying that he'll somehow manage to climb over that guarded fence and sing that sweet song of safety as he crosses a beautiful boundary into Ontario or Quebec.

Vomit filled the vessel as the prisoners were brought to their permanent port of call and on his bare skin he showcased an everlasting battle scar,

Marching through the spiteful streets of Chicago with the crowd calling him a "poor, ignorant devil"…curiously asking him where his cherry tinted tail and crimson colored horns are.



...When society hears the toxic term "concentration camp", it automatically thinks of the Nazis and World War II, but take a minute to reflect back on our own nation's past and deeply dwell,

Thousands of lost souls during the Civil War were starving and desperately searching for the smallest slice of salvation while trapped in eighty awful acres of Hell...



As soon as he walked though the grotesque gates, he made a pledge to himself that no matter what, he would make it out of this human zoo alive,

Refusing to be one of the six thousand innocent inmates that would leave this camp as a corpse; he decided to use his wisdom and wits to attempt to valiantly survive.

The commander denied poor Mr. Ryan of any vegetables or fruits, and he didn't have any blankets or even a teddy bear to cuddle with at night when the world became so wicked and cold,

His skinny body was shaking and trembling in fear as he realized that his tale of tragedy, turmoil, and triumph may never get to be jubilantly told.

He was thrown in the white oak guard house's dungeon for half of the day merely for attempting to retrieve a bucket of water for his friends,

Demising a plan to break through these wooden barracks was an ambition to achieve as soon as possible, for he declined the invitation to stay here until the wretched war ends.

The Southside of Chicago had become a crowded land of detrimental living conditions, starvation, scurvy, and miserable misery,

The silent sound of surrender spilled out of Milton's chapped lips as he cried himself to sleep on Stephen A. Douglas's polluted property.



...Armies of innocent individuals undeservingly forfeited their future and freedom and, to their cherished friends and loved ones, never even have a final precious chance to say "farewell",

A plethora of poisoned people during America's Black Plague were frightened and frantically rummaging around for the quickest road to redemption while locked in eighty atrocious acres of Hell...



Rapacious rumors floated around, such as that the camp had connections with an unscrupulous undertaker who sold some of the prematurely perished prisoners to medical schools for study or simply hurled them into Lake Michigan…only to wash back up on the frigid shore,

There were a countless number of faceless names on the tainted list of tragedies, but there always seemed to be room for an incalculable number of more.

Even regular citizens who merely felt sympathy for the soldiers were thrown into jail right beside them, and the "Chicago Conspiracy" was quickly and quietly laid to rest,

Some prisoners had the option to be emancipated after taking a loyalty of oath to their country and agreeing to fight for the union, but only greater dangers and uncertainty awaited them as they were shipped to fight some guiltless and naïve Native Americans out west.

If the deceased were lucky enough to receive such noble attention, they would be buried in an ugly unmarked pauper's grave,

Dancing with the Devil as one out of every five soldiers died within these bloodstained boarders and satanically became a depraved slave.

The confederates began to hang themselves from corroded flagpoles at the intersection of Cottage Grove Avenue and 35th Street,

But the brave and brilliant Mr. Ryan continued to look away from the artificial livid light, refusing to escape reality so easily and shamefully admit defeat.



...Tons of tragic troops taciturnly threw away the keys to their hotels and motels to unjustifiably jump into a jaded jail cell,

Brigades of bloodstained bodies during the missing pages and years out of the History books were hopelessly hunting for the highest hill of hope while caged in eighty appalling acres of Hell...



He was just one of the many inestimable nameless faces inhabiting this concentration camp of corruption, but he managed to escape from the barb wired barriers with seventy-four of his blood brothers and tunnel his way beneath the wretched walls and flamboyantly flee,

There were only four hundred and fifty guards matched up to the thousands of angry hostages...so their chances seemed to be pretty fine to take control over the camp and make the guards its new detainees.

Camp Douglas can certainly be viewed as the Andersonville of the North, but it seems that Andersonville's name burns in infamy while a solitary monument is all that's left to remind us of its northern counterpart,

Over time, Milton, as well as many of the other survivors, have forgiven their former enemies and hope that they could all someday meet on the succulent shores of sweet deliverance with mended and healed hearts.

After proudly serving the South, he finally reunited with his loving family back home and was greeted with open arms and tears of joy,

His father offered him a proud handshake and his mother got to once again hug and kiss her precious little boy.

He still recalls that noble night where he left those iron bars behind him and ignored the strident screams of shotguns…sprinting swiftly towards salvation with bullets in his back and a wounded knee,

Stripping out of his torn and tattered attire while bathing in that great ocean of a lake and running through the swarming streets of the windy city shouting oh so silently, "I am finally free".



...Masses of malignant men starved their marionettes to death, yet still brainwashed them to salivate to the sound of a vociferous bell,

This little trooper was lucky to survive America's Holocaust, but sadly he was only one out of over eighteen thousand prisoners of war residing in this living Hell...



Before he "answered his last roll" or "passed the River to join the Silent Host", he wished to spill out his satanic story of survival so the rest of America could know one of their country's best kept secrets of shame,

Milton Asbury Ryan managed to escape serious burns from the infinite acres of Hell, but nothing will ever extinguish his internal flame.