William Wright Forcum


Contributed by: Jim Forcum




WILLIAM WRIGHT FORCUM, Pvt., C.S.A., Co H, 4th Regiment of North Carolina Troops. 
Enlisted Jun 13, l861, Iredell Co, NC.  Wounded in Battle of Chancellorsville, VA May 3, 
l863.  Recorded as killed at Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, VA in the Bloody Angle 
on May 12, l864.  But he wasn't killed, and was a Prisoner of War at Camp Douglas in 
Chicago, Illinois (aka “80 Acres of Hell”).  During the war, over 18,000 prisoners were held 
at Camp Douglas. In January and February 1863 an average of 18 prisoners died every 
day, for a death rate of 10% a month, more than any other Civil War prison in any 1-month 
period. The Federal Sanitary Commission pointed out that at this rate, all the prisoners 
would be dead in 320 days. Thereafter he shows up again as Wright W. Forcum in Co. B, 
Mallett's Battalion (Camp Guard), at Camp Holmes near Raleigh, N.C..  Immediately after 
the war he moved to Montezuma, IA, where he raised a large family and died in 1902.



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