In one of Anita Marie’s recent stories, she talks about driving through creepy small towns in Illinois (USA). I know these towns and have called them home… And she’s right, they are spooky & have secrets they keep…just keep your buggy moving on, allright?
Anyway, it got me thinking about my current small town Illinois home, which is also billed at “the most haunted town in America.” And that reminded me of stories I’ve heard about Civil War tragedies downtown, at the Union prison, and across the Mississippi River, at “Smallpox Island.” How they blew up the island to create a lock & dam, & found 100s of skeletons buried there – which, being practical midwesterners, we used as fill dirt, why waste good grit? I went to Smallpox Island last summer – it’s a lovely picnic area, under shady cottonwood trees, next to the monument with names of dead prisoners carved on it.
There should be a story in there, don’t you think? (Run with it – or from it!)
But don’t take my word for it – here’s a historical account: (see asterisks about the bones):
Alton Prison was in Alton, Illinois, near the Mississippi River. The prison opened in 1833 and closed in 1860 when prisoners were moved to a new facility in Joliet. It was made into a military prison and the first prisoners arrived in February, 1862. It had 24 cells and was nearly 100 yds on each side and had 30 ft high walls, with occasional narrow, paneless windows.
The remnant of a cell block wall was restored in 1973 as a monument. An historical marker has been erected there by the State of Illinois, telling the grim story.
In 1974, archaeologists from Northwestern University uncovered five brick-paved cells on the site of the old prison on William Street. Built back-to-back against a central wall, each cell measured only about 4 feet by 7 feet 4 inches, tight quarters for even one man. It is believed that they held as many as three men each. From each cell, there was a 24-inch door opening through an outer wall two feet thick. Unless there was a wooden door, of which there was no evidence, the prisoners were exposed to the weather during confinement.
In 1975, the Alton Prison Site became one of the few historic sites in Illinois to be added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Hot, humid summers and cold Midwestern winters took a heavy toll on prisoners already weakened by poor nourishment and inadequate clothing. The prison was overcrowded much of the time and sanitary facilities were inadequate. Pneumonia and dysentery were common killers. Smallpox cases were very high and a quarantine hospital was located on an island across the Mississippi River from the prison. Up to 300 prisoners and soldiers died and are buried on the island, now under water. A cemetery in North Alton that belonged to the State of Illinois was used for most that died.
***The Federal government in 1936, uncovered hundreds of skeletons while building Alton, Illinois Lock and Dam No. 26. The entire island was destroyed and the dirt including the bones was used as fill in one of the enbankments on the Missouri side of the river. The entire Island is now under water. Lock and Dam No. 26 has since been destroyed, but the enbankment has been left undisturbed, out of what little respect these POWs have been shown by the U.S. government.***
The graves of the Confederate prisoners buried in the cemetery in North Alton were wholly neglected and all identity was lost. A 40 foot high granite column was completed in 1909. A tablet on the shaft reads “Erected by the United States to mark the burial place of 1,354 Confederate Soldiers who died here and at the Smallpox Hospital on the adjacent island while prisoners of war and whose graves cannot now be identified.” On the four sides of the base are large bronze plates on which are engraved the names, companies, and regiments of all the Confederates buried in the cemetery.
Confederate Prison Site… William St. at Broadway in Alton, Illinois.
Confederate Cemetery & Monument… Rozier St. (2 blocks west of State) Alton, Illinois
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pcheffy/woodwarrecord.html
