[2][3] It was located north of Pennsylvania's state capitol building on 80 acres of what had previously been land used by the Dauphin County Agricultural Fairgrounds.

[4] When news of the bombardment and subsequent surrender of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina reached Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to join the Army to quell the rebellion of the Southern states.

Across the North, eager recruits responded to calls from local governmental officials to join newly raised state regiments.

By the summer of 1862, newspapers were reporting that the number of federal troops at the camp had grown so large that it took twenty tons of cooked provisions to create the rations for each of the men who were being trained for battle.

In addition to Pennsylvania regiments, troops from Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, and the Regular Army used Camp Curtin.