Illinois agriculture during the war In the first paragraph of each of his annual messages to Congress (today known as the State of the Union address), Abraham Lincoln noted with thanks that the nation had been blessed with health and “abundant harvests.” During the Civil War years, as today, Illinois played a major role in American agriculture. Before the war The years before the 1861 firing on Fort Sumter saw unusually bountiful crops in Illinois. Agricultural statistics…
Hezekiah Ford Douglas: Black abolitionist and soldier During the spring of 1863 U.S. Army private Hezekiah Ford Douglas made a great transition, winning promotion as officer in a newly-organizing black regiment. It was but the latest achievement in a young life devoted to antislavery activity. Early life and career H. Ford Douglas, as he referred to himself, was born in Virginia in 1831 to a slave named Mary. His father, William Douglas, was a…
Sanitary fairs in Illinois The North-Western Soldiers’ Fair, first of the so-called sanitary fairs, welcomed Chicagoans in October 1863. Two-and-a-half years into the war the army suffered a chronic need of special foods, clothing, and medical supplies in great amounts. Mrs. A. H. Hoge and Mary Livermore conceived the idea of a great fair to fill the treasury of the Northwest Sanitary Commission. They and their associates were successful beyond all expectation, taking in about…
“One Day for the Gallant Dead” On November 19, 1863, thousands gathered in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to dedicate the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. Illinois played what was, in a sense, an outsized role in the creation of what became one of the most famous cemeteries in America. A cemetery is planned On August 1, 1863, David Wills, acting for Pennsylvania governor Andrew G. Curtin, wrote to governors of states represented in the fighting at Gettysburg (including Richard…
Help for the home front In December 1863 residents in Springfield and Jacksonville, among other Illinois towns, collected and distributed stocks of food, clothing and, perhaps most important, firewood to needy families of men in the military service. Early aid for soldiers’ families In the early rush of patriotism after the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861 officials in many Illinois counties appropriated funds to assist “deserving” soldiers’ families, whose main breadwinners served…
Sarah Gregg, Hospital Matron In January 1864 Sarah Gregg, a milliner from Ottawa (La Salle County), arrived at Camp Butler near Springfield to begin service as hospital matron. Over the next year and a half Gregg cared for sick and wounded soldiers and their visiting relatives, and worked with local civilians to provide comforts for wounded warriors. The diary she kept during that service provides a window into an important corner of life in the wartime…
Veteran volunteers In mid-1863 the Federal government began work to stave off a crisis that could hobble the war effort. Beginning in May 1864 the three-year enlistments of many military units—dozens of them from Illinois—would expire, releasing hundreds of thousands of men from the army at the very height of the campaign season. The problem and a solution Officers of the War Department noted in June 1863—as Grant ground away against Vicksburg, Mississippi, and…
The Charleston riot On March 28, 1864, shots rang out in the courthouse yard in Charleston, Illinois. A sharp, short struggle between local residents disgusted with the Lincoln administration and its conduct of the war and furloughed troops of the 54th Illinois Infantry ended in the death of six soldiers and three civilians and left a dozen wounded—some of the deadliest civil violence in the wartime North. Tensions build in Coles County While the level of violence…
Soldiers’ homes in Illinois In April 1864 construction began in Springfield on what would be called a “soldiers’ home.” One of four such major facilities in Illinois, the home provided individual soldiers in transit between their home and the front line with a short-term place of rest, refreshment, and care. Meeting a need As the war ground on into 1862 civilians—especially those living near significant military posts and major rail junctions—noticed that large numbers…
Ethnic Illinoisans during the war Illinois in 2014 has a large ethnic population. The U.S. Census estimated that in 2010 almost 14% of the state’s population had been born in another country. That was even more the case when the Civil War began in 1861. Of just over 1.7 million people living in the Prairie State in 1860 over 324,000-about 19%-were foreign born. More Chicagoans had been born in other lands than in the U.S.…