(WXYZ) — For many years, Campau Park has been suspected as Camp Ward—the training site for the 102nd United States Colored Troops.
A archaeological scan was done over the park recently and now there may be some sufficient evidence that confirms that Campau Park is the original Camp Ward.
Abdou Atou told me he had never heard of Campau Park being a Civil War training site. He was at the park playing pickle ball with his friends.
“It’s honestly kind of crazy,” said Atou. “I didn’t see any signs or anything that showed that’s what happened there, it's just kind of crazy to think about.”
His response was pretty consistent with other people I spoke with. I asked passerby about their knowledge of the roots of Campau Park leading back to Michigan’s First Colored Regiment.
Jamon Jordan is the official historian for the city of Detroit. We met in the Civil War gardens at Elmwood Cemetery to talk about the soldiers of Camp Ward.
“Camp Ward is just less than a mile away from where we are right now,” says Jordan, while standing in the gardens. “That is where they trained before they went down south to fight. When they did the scan, they found five barracks of Camp Ward. All the people buried in this section served in the Civil War. Some of them, not all of them died in the Civil War. But sixteen of them were members of the 102nd Michigan Colored Troops."
The men, who Jordan says were apart of Michigan’s first colored regiment, called themselves “freedom fighters.” He says they believed if they joined the war, they would be able to find a way to escape from slavery.
“And one of them is Greenberry Hodge," he said.
I asked Jamon if he knew what the living conditions were like for Hodge and other members of Camp Ward—after the scan revealed the few housing units to accommodate military personnel.
He says it was non-comparable to the barracks that white soldiers trained in, but he’s hoping that the next steps in the scan, will reveal more.
“We already knew it was there,” he said. “But what we have not done is we haven’t seen what it looks like. It’s been covered over the development of a school ground, a park and then a newer school. The archaeological scan was to see what was under that ground. The next step is to uncover it and dig it up.”
