"[2] When the Civil War broke out after the fall of Fort Sumter in April 1861, President Lincoln called for troops from the state militias to put down the rebellion.

[2] Subsequent regiments assembled at Fond du Lac, Racine, and other places,[5] 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.

[2] 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.

Each company typically came from one region - students and young businessmen from Madison, farm-boys from Delton, lumberjacks from Eau Claire, etc.

The recruits' mornings and afternoons were largely spent drilling - learning marching, muskets, cooking in the field, and discipline.

[7] 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 named Bruin came along to Camp Randall with Harlan Squires, a 16-year-old recruit from Delton.

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.

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 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.

[11] 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.

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

[15] 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.

[19] In 1971 Camp Randall Memorial Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as "the site most significantly associated with Wisconsin's participation in the Civil War.