Women, children, and explosives: Making ammunition at the state arsenal In the rush to war following the firing on Fort Sumter, Illinois Governor Richard Yates launched a crash program to arm the state’s newly enlisted troops, especially those sent to protect the strategic city of Cairo at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. While agents visited the East in hope of purchasing supplies of muskets and cannon, officials in Springfield created a factory…
For the Boys: Early soldier aid efforts The opening of war with the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861 found the northern states woefully unprepared for a military conflict. As the federal and state governments struggled to arm and equip the men who rallied to the flag, local governments and civilian groups worked quickly to aid their husbands, sons, and brothers who had enlisted in the service. These were the first steps in creating soldier-aid services…
An end and a beginning December 1861 closed a tumultuous year that saw secession of southern states following the election of a Republican president of the United States and bloodshed after the organization of the Confederate States of America. Perhaps more so than in most years, the close of 1861 was a time to reflect on the meaning of the past and to anticipate the future. Matters military A major change in the Illinois command…
General Benjamin M. Prentiss of Quincy, Illinois Dr. David Costigan When the Civil War erupted in April 1861, Benjamin M. Prentiss of Quincy (Adams County), a colonel in the Illinois militia, was given command of seven companies with which to defend Cairo, located at the critically important junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. In late April his men seized munitions aboard river steamers bound for the South, an indication of his aggressiveness. It was…
Rebels come North: POWs near Springfield On February 1862, the U.S. army commanded by Ulysses S. Grant captured Fort Donelson, Tennessee. The loss to the Confederates was great—control of a portion of western Tennessee, dozens of pieces of artillery, and over 16,000 soldiers. Federal officers moved quickly to transfer the captured men to the North, away from friendly territory and potential aid. For the first time a large number of non-resident secessionist sympathizers would…
Illinois boys in blue For 150 years the military service of boys has provided iconic images of Civil War memory. Stories in wartime newspapers and magazines celebrated young—and often unnamed—patriots who served their country. During the postwar period people could hear concerts of war songs by an adult “Drummer Boy of the Rappahannock.” Three of the four groups of statuary placed on the tomb of Abraham Lincoln (designed in 1868) include figures of very young men. The Civil War…
Governor Richard Yates visits the battlefront On April 10, 1862, Governor Richard Yates and a handful of other state officials left Springfield for Cairo. There they would meet dozens of volunteer surgeons and nurses and proceed to Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, to provide care for and evacuate hundreds of Illinoisans seriously wounded during the battle of Shiloh. The governor had arranged such an expedition following the fight at Fort Donelson, Tennessee, several weeks earlier, but the Pittsburg Landing…
“Every thing reminds me of Arthur”: Mourning a lost friend Lieutenant Arthur L. Bailhache of Springfield, adjutant of the 38th Illinois Infantry, died of disease at Pilot Knob, Missouri, on January 9, 1862. His body was sent to Springfield for burial. Bailhache’s death left a void in many lives, including that of Anna Ridgely. The daughter of Springfield banker Nicholas and Jane Huntington Ridgely, Anna kept a journal into which she poured her anxieties, as well as…
Looking for Excitement: The Story of Albert D. J. Cashier Women have served in every war this nation has fought since the Revolutionary War, when Deborah Sampson Gannett took up arms. Ironically, it is only in the 20th and 21st centuries that women have been excluded from the infantry. The number of women who disguised themselves as men to fight on the frontlines in the American Civil War was estimated at about 400. Mary Livermore,…
Cheatham Hill, Georgia: The Illinois Civil War Soldiers and their Monument Brett Bannor It is an easy 200-yard walk from the parking lot at the Cheatham Hill section of the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield to the Illinois Monument. Ironically, the stroll meanders through a placid oak-hickory forest that is so like the woodlands of Illinois that one could imagine the setting is in the Land of Lincoln instead of fifteen miles northwest of downtown Atlanta,…