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Welcome to Illinois Stories.

I'm Mark McDonald in Springfield at Camp Butler.

One time, a military encampment during the civil war, then, a prisoner-of-war camp, but most recently, the final resting place of more than 20,000 veterans and their spouses.

Well, Michael Lewis, the best way to sort of try to get our arms around Camp Butler, is to start in the older section.

- Right.

- And we're standing on sort of what would have been a Knoll, and this was the original prisoner-of-war camp.

And the first place where there were burials, - Yes.

- Took place here.

- Where we're at right now is, I'm told was where parking, where the hospital was, and the hospital caught fire and was destroyed.

And a lot of the records.

from that area were destroyed big.

- Oh, that's a shame, isn't it?

- Yeah.

But originally, at the end of the war, or excuse me, during the war, president Lincoln designated that there would be 14 national cemeteries to bury the dead, and what he did, he allowed that each cemetery would be given 14 acres for burials.

Seven for Union Soldiers and seven for Confederate Soldiers.

And here we started out with the, of course the Union Soldiers and the conditions were really bad at the time.

And so we had a lot of deaths from sickness at the camps.

And now a wife's tale that of course the Confederates prisoners were detailed to bury all the dead.

They didn't want the Union soldiers sitting on the headstones with their comrades.

So the Confederate soldiers' markers have a point on them, and then the Union soldiers are round.

- Okay.

And there is a Confederate section of the cemetery which we're gonna see later on.

And so, if we take a look to your behind you, and we'll sort of scan over there toward the road, this is part of the old section, part of the Civil War section.

And then it fans out as it would behind you.

And interesting, the history of this camp is very interesting.

And we're gonna look into that a little later in the program.

But this gives us a chance to look at it the way that the markers look from the oldest part of the cemetery.

And then we're gonna visit some of the newer parts with you as well, to see how burials have changed, how the markers have changed.

There's a lot of maintenance that goes into a national cemetery like this.

- Yes.

- Including having to raise and plum, all these headstones on a regular basis.

- Yes, daily, - Daily.

Okay.

And we're gonna talk to a contractor who's involved in that.

And also, the grass is so beautiful, but it doesn't just happen.

- No.

- Does it?

- No.

We have an agronomist that helps us set up grass growing program.

Plus I have a gardener that's assigned to my crew that maintains the spraying and weeding of the grasses.

So it's a very involved process.

- [Mark] Yeah.

And then there's something that you call Turf Renovation, which is a major job, right?

And then we're gonna see how that happens too.

- Just so happens that right now, We're in the process of two projects going on.

one the raise and realignment of the headstones, and then we also have a project that we are going to go in, and renovate the grass or the turf, grass is called turf in the cemetery.

- [Mark] Yeah.

Yeah.Right.

- But what we're gonna do, is it sounds kind of strange, but we were gonna kill off all the grass, and then level out the turf on the ground, and then we plant it with sod grass.

So it'll look almost like a golf course.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And it is lovely, and of course people expect that don't, they?

They expect it for their veterans, and their loved ones, they expect perfection and you try to deliver.

- [Michael Lewis] Yes.

My job is to maintain this National Cemetery, as a National Shrine, or a nation to the heroes.

- [Mark] Michael, you mentioned the Confederate headstone, and the point at the top, that's how you know the difference?

- [Michael Lewis] Well, that's one of the examples, like I said, that was just a wife's tale.

We don't know that for sure.

(laughs heartily) But it kinda makes sense.

I've heard that before, - [Mark] Yeah.

I've heard that before.

- But some of the other stones that were used to mark the Confederate grays were, it was just like the union markers, they rounded at the top, but instead of the Union Shield, they had the Southern Cross of Honor, to identify the Confederate Soldiers' markers.

- What sort of situation would have happened that a Confederate soldier would be buried here?

- Most likely he was a prisoner-of-war.

He was captured and then brought here for the duration of the conflict, or until they they were negotiated trade.

- Mm-hmm.

Okay.

And this is a rather small section of the cemetery here?

- Yes.

During the camp's history, there were about 5,000, excuse me.

Yeah.

Initially 5,000 Confederate Prisoners-of-war they were kept here.

- Mm-hmm.

Well, Marcus Thomas, this is the kind of work that people may, or may not know, goes on in a veteran's cemetery all the time.

But the upkeep here, the maintenance here, is kind of surprising because these headstones don't just take care of themselves, do they?

- No.

We have to go through and look at the ones that are laying in and some that's been lowered from the weather.

And we got to go through and pull them out, put limestone in the bottom of them, raise them up, run lines, set a couple of key stones.

We run lines from one keystone to the other, and then we run our height lines so we can keep them in line.

Then we go through after we set them, and we straighten them out.

If they, one might be leaning a little forward, one might be leaning back.

- Mm-hmm.

- [Marcus] Then that's how we straightened the lines out.

- [Mark] Okay what are the guys doing right now?

- [Marcus] Right now, we got to, when we fill them, we dig them, and we filled the holes back up with limestone, we got to leave 4 inches from the top, so we can put the black dirt, so we can put down grass seed, so they can have the grass grow back.

- [Mark] Okay.

So actually, you're toward the end of the process here where you've already, you've found the level spot, right?

You've leveled these up, and now you're filling in around it with this fine dirt, and that'll be seated then?

So grass or roper and around it?

It's interesting.

You guys work for a company out of Dallas, Texas?

- [Marcus] Yes, we do.

- [Mark] So do you do some traveling, do you go to other cemeteries as well?

- Yeah, we travel around, So, after we get done with this, then we go into Kansas.

- [Mark] Is that right?

- Yeah.

- [Mark] Yeah, that's pretty- - So we go, we traveled from cemetery to cemetery.

- How often do you think, these will have to be leveled up?

Obviously you've got them done now, but what every few years or so?

- I'd say about every three to four years, you wanna come through and check them, to see if it needs to fill off level, to constantly to, you know what I'm saying?

Like I said, with the weather, you rain, you snow and the sun, - Freezing, storming, or that stuff.

- Yeah, makes the ground move.

So it might throw some of your stones out.

So like in three to four years, you come through and you'd have them, somebody just put a level on them, see if they're still in level.

But as far as them sinking, they shouldn't sink anymore.

- [Mark] Right.

Very Interesting.

Thanks for showing us, appreciated.

- [Marcus] No problem, (laughs) - Well, Michael, you're very fortunate.

You've got a cadre of veterans here, who perform honor guard services at the burials, here at the cemetery.

And these guys are all volunteers, aren't they?

- Right.

We have two regular groups, the Sacramento County Burial Detail.

They come out on a regular basis.

And then we also have the Macon County Burial Detail that come out.

And then the families request the active duty, The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines.

Now, Captain Butler's really fortunate in that we have the Army Burial detail, that's coursed in the building with it, with our Admin Personnel.

And they've done a fantastic job.

Anytime that a family requests honors, they are right there to provide the honors.

Sometimes these other groups have overextended and can't make it for a burial, they'll step in and give the honors for the veteran at a minute's notice.

- That's wonderful.

And now the family, for this particular service has not arrived yet.

So this is actually to our benefit because we wouldn't want to get in on anybody's private affairs, but it's nice that we can see how often this is, it's used frequently, in fact, on the hour some days, isn't it?

- Yes, it is.

We here, Camp Butler reschedule on the hour, now at some of the other larger national cemeteries, they schedule every half hour, but then they have double, or triple the size of the staff that we have here.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And they may have larger property too.

So, there can be more than one service going on at a time, but you wouldn't wanna do that here, because it loses the intimate feeling, and there was feeling of respect doesn't it?

- Right.

Yeah.

- We're standing in a section of the cemetery here, most of these veterans would have been World War II Veterans?

- Yes.

- And this area is full?

- Yes.

And I mentioned to you earlier, that at one time we had a process in the National Cemetery Administration where we put black lettering, on the stones to make it easier to read.

And over the years we found that it was just became too much of a process.

And it also took away from the history of the stone.

So as the stone ages, the lithium chrome will fade out, and it usually takes about five years, the chrome will fade out, and then we let the stone stay that way.

We won't try to block it again, or add another stone.

As we move through the cemetery, and you'll notice that in certain sections, there was a little bit more of the black lithium chrome letters.

But in the newer section, As we go forward in the older section, they're all white.

- And you're not doing that anymore, You're not putting the black lithium chrome in anymore?

- No.

- That was, it's interesting, there's an evolution to this, just like there is with every other form of with every other business, you also have have experimented or that the VA has experimented with getting rid of the vertical headstones and going with a flat one, but people didn't care for that.

- Right.

Exactly.

We tried what we call a flat marker, versus the upright marker, and the National Cemetery Administration, had become known for the white, upright marble markers, when they're straight, perfectly aligned.

And we tried flat markers, thinking that would be an easy way to maintain the cemetery.

And we found out that it's actually more work.

And then also the families did not like that type of marker.

And so in order to satisfy the needs of, or the want of the veteran and the family, we've gone back to the upright marker.

Now we will use it in sections of the country where the community does accept it.

They do like them.

Some places they like the flat marker, but most places want the white upright marker.

- I noticed that, and let's walk over to this tree over here.

I noticed that in most national cemeteries there are very few trees.

- Exactly.

- But every once in a while, you'll see here we're sort of in a little grove of them.

What gives?

- Oh, well, I'm sure you remember from the old westerns, the request that, "I wanna be buried "under the old Oak tree."

and in a shade of a tree.

And that was what we did.

And this is one of the original, National Cemeteries.

So they were using that policy of burying people under a shade tree, or even planting trees in the burial section.

But we've, again, through evolution, we've found that trees are not a friend in a cemetery.

And the roots get entwined, and it's just causes all kinds of problems.

So what we do now is that the trees will be planted on the edge of the burial section.

- Okay.

So you will continue to plant trees?

- Yes.

But it will never be in the section itself.

It will be around the section.

- Yeah.

And what have I, now we're looking at where we're standing under a tree right here, Now, what sort of...

Described to me how the roots would, the root system would disturb things here?

- Okay.

The roots are going to follow the path of least resistance and then push anything that's in their way, out of the way.

And so the stone will be pushed to one side.

In some cases, the tree will actually grow around, and envelop the headstone.

And in those cases, when the tree dies, we have to cut the tree down, We have to also take the headstone out.

And in that case, we don't move the remains.

We'll take the upright marker out, and place a flat marker in its place.

And we wait about three to five years, for the all the roots to die out.

And then we'll put in an upright marker.

- Are there any circumstances under which you would move the remains?

- Yes, we will move the remains at the family's request.

And in those cases, we have to get a signed, and notarized agreement, from all the surviving relatives that they agree that they want to have their loved one moved to another cemetery.

- Matt Gilmore, Michael Lewis was telling us how fortunate the area is to have a group of veterans like your group here, who comes out and performs the honor guard services.

And the volleys, the salute for the dead.

Who are these guys?

What sort of group is it?

- It's a bunch of veterans that belong to the detail, You have to have a DD 214, honorable discharge, and be a member of a veterans group, such as the VFW, or the DAV.

- What is the name of your group here?

Inter Veterans Burial Detail of Sangamon County.

- Yeah.

And you all are all veterans, and you're volunteers, aren't you?

- We're all volunteers, we don't get paid.

- [Mark] You don't dog on it.

(laughs heartily) - Right.

We have, we do it for free, but we accept donations.

- Yeah.

So the family, for instance, it's gonna bury their loved one, would a veteran's organization take their request and call you?

Is that how that works?

- The funeral homes will call us, tell us where in Sangamon County, or out here, any place in Sangamon County, we'll go.

- So you, if a veteran's being buried at somewhere other than Camp Butler you'll also provide those services somewhere else?

- As long as it's in Sangamon County-, - Yeah.

Isn't that wonderful?

We're looking over there at the shelter, where the service's about to take place.

You all, did you bring the flags as well?

- [Michael Gilmore] Yes.

Those are our flags.

- [Mark] And this is your, and you're the honor guard.

You're the one.

Well, you'll carry the flag, and you'll take care of it after the services' over there.

- [Michael Gilmore] Yes.

- [Mark] You brought seven guns with you?

- [Michael Gilmore] Right.

- [Mark] Okay.

How does that work?

- [Michael Gilmore] How does work what?

(laughs) - [Mark] What do you do with the seven guns?

- We have about a 10 minute program.

telling what in general, what a veteran does, or what this veteran did, not individual issues generic.

And then at the end, we had turned around and say, "Prepare and salute our fallen comrade."

The Sergeant of environment calls them to attention, gives three volleys, 21 guns.

- [Mark] I see.

- If we have 21 gun.

And that's it.

- [Mark] Yeah.

Seven guns shot three times.

There's your 21?

- Yes.

- [Mark] Okay.

All right.

it's wonderful work you guys do.

- I think it is all these guys are, you couldn't beat them.

They're here every time.

And they're just great bunch of guys.

- [Mark] Thank you.

- Okay.

Thank you.

- [Mark] Well, Michael, at the edge of the Confederate section, there's an obelisk and it's a it's a Memorial to the Confederate Veterans.

It says, In Memory of the Confederate Veterans who died at the Camp Butler, Confederate Prison Camp, may they never be forgotten.

And actually they never are forgotten, because every Memorial day they get their due, don't they?

- [Michael Lewis] Yes.

There's a group of Confederate reenactors that come out and a place, The Confederate state flag on each of the Confederates graves.

Also, we have boy Scouts that come out every year, and they place an American flag on our older graves also.

- [Mark] On all of the graves?

- [Michael Lewis] All of the graves.

- Really?

including the Confederate graves?

- Including the Confederate graves.

- Okay.

Well, those boy Scouts must be busy?

- Oh yeah.

We get about, around 300 of them.

They cover the ground like locusts and... (laughs) - They must place what?

20,000 some flags?

- Oh yes.

It's we have about 23,000 burials here, but there's actual graves we have around 21,000.

- Mm-hmm.

Wow!

- Mabel Workman, you've been working here at Camp Butler for almost 20 years?

- [Mabel] That's correct.

- So you've come across a few articles, items from papers, and stuff?

- Oh, yeah.

- It has a fascinating history, doesn't it?

- Yes it does.

- How did Camp Butler get started?

- Okay.

Camp Butler originally was established as a training camp, and the Civil War after the South of Fort Sumter, is when president Lincoln called upon the North, to provide soldiers to help put down the Southern Insurrection, as it was called.

Illinois did not have organized militia.

And so basically they all started out in each little town or community had their own what they called rendezvous, where the people could see their troops training for the war.

And president Lincoln sent to the governor state of Illinois, Governor Yates at the time, to send their fair share of troops to help fight the insurrection.

Well, the training camps weren't really considered adequate for the troops, so, President Lincoln sent out General Sherman to look for a suitable place for training.

They did have one in Springfield called Camp Yates.

It was in town, as story goes, that the troops were a little rambunctious, (laughs softly) - [Mark] What did they do in the main town?

- They said they were stealing chicken, and harassing the women, young men just having a good time.

So they thought it might be a good idea to have a camp within outside the city, and for areas to train.

So when General Sherman came, supposedly that, and these are stories I've heard that Governor Yates, was from Jacksonville, and he wasn't familiar with the Springfield area.

So he had Mr. Butler who was a secretary of state.

And I'm sorry, secretary treasurer and Mr. O.M.

Hatch to assist General Sherman, looking for an area suitable for training.

Why they came in this direction.

I never ave seen, but they looked for an area where they had easy access, water and areas for training.

- [Mark] And there was a railroad?

- Yes the rail road track is right there, - The one that we found here and it's not far from the river?

- No, in saying- - And also the flat land, they did also before this, have a small camp Butler by Clearlake, I'm not real sure.

I guess it just wasn't feasible for the area.

So the flat ground, they said it was good for the Calvary, and the water for drinking and bathing.

And so, and then the railroad to get the supplies.

So, so they- - They opened this as a training camp but it wasn't very long.

Was it that it actually got pressed into service for other reasons.

And we've got this really great old photograph and you might point out some of the things for us on here, because this is after it had become a prisoner-of-war camp - Right.

Because originally it did not have a fence around it.

- Mm-hmm.

Right.

And in 1862, when this photograph was taken, you can see that it was a functioning, prisoner-of-war camp.

- Yeah.

Because almost immediately when they decided to established Camp Butler, and it was named after Mr. Butler not... And there was a General Butler, and many people ask if it was named after him, but it was not.

And almost immediately they had troops arriving for training, and it was a busy place, and Illinois did not have an established militia, nor did they have any weapons in the arsenal.

So the troops started training with sticks, - [Mark] My goodness!

- And they weren't issued weapons until they left to go fight.

And for the Calvary, they were had to bring their own horses, they were true volunteers, So they were not paid originally.

- This is something that was brought to you by somebody, I guess, a descendant of one of the- - Well I'm not sure.

Some gentleman was doing research and he found the map and he brought it to us.

- This is a map made by a prisoner of war.

He drew this map and then when he was released from the prison after the war as soon was over, he went back to Texas.

- Mm-hmm.

- And somehow this map that he drew found its way to you it's in good condition.

And it's really interesting because it points out the barracks.

It points out where the wells were, It's really kind of a neat thing to have.

Isn't it?

Now we were talking about the soldiers in their daily, their daily... - Right.

- And you also came across what's called the Headquarters of Camp Butler order number, which lays out a soldier schedule throughout the day.

They got up at 5:30 in the morning.

First thing they did was to have break... Well, they actually, they did something for an hour, because they had breakfast at 6:30.

I guess they exercised, or shaved, or did something.

And then they drilled, and they drilled, and they drilled, all day long, until tops at 9:30.

Now I'm just gonna show that, because it's not a very good copy, but it's interesting.

Isn't it?

To get a glimpse into the daily life of these guys.

- The started early and went late, and they had a lot of work.

And what I think is kind of interesting, some of the troops came up and most of them came from Southern Illinois and Central Illinois.

And the first troops had to basically build the camp.

They got the supplies and everything from Springfield but they had to build the camp.

And I think it's kind of interested in, for me probably just because I'm a female, but they came up and they had to prepare their own food.

And of course, most of these young men never cooked in their life.

So they had issues with stomach problems.

(laughing heartily) - They either had it over cooked, or undercooked.

- They always did their own cooking?

(laughs heartily) - Right, so they were in charge of their cooking.

But the hospitals weren't established, until a little bit later because they did have illnesses.

- And you have some luminaries who are buried here.

One is John Catherwood and I'm gonna show a picture of him.

He was very, very young in this picture, but he served in the Philippines in 1911.

What can you tell us about him?

- Okay, he's our Medal of Honor recipient buried here.

And he was, we see the medal of honor during the Philippines' Insurrection in 1911 he was in the Navy.

His rank was called an ordinary seaman which evidently was the ranking they had at that time.

And he was on a Naval Schooner, rather than what I and everybody else considers these Navy ships now.

And he was on patrol, a scouting party, and they were attacked on that.

And he violently fought, and survived.

And when he came back, he was from Springfield.

He was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery.

And his wife decided that she would like to have him buried.

And we did have a ceremony out here with his reburial here at the Camp Butler.

- [Mark] So she thought this was the place for him.?

- It's the place, right?

- There's also a soldier named Otis Beverly Duncan, and he is buried here.

And he's also, was he from Springfield also?

- I believe so.

- And he was from around this part anyway?

- Yeah, he was with during world war II.

Also, he was the highest ranking African-American officer in World War II.

And he has his marker here at Camp Butler.

He was with the Illinois, I think the 8th Illinois, with the National Guard Unit.

He fought in France, He received many Wet Medals for his service - And not to be overlooked, the long time superintendent of this cemetery.

His name was a Major George William Ford, - Right.

Mr. Ford.

- And he was here for a long, long time, - Right, 30 years.

He was the director here at Camp Butler.

Again, he was the first African-American director here at the cemetery, and he and his wife also are buried here at Camp Butler.

And his descendants still live in the area, and they do periodically come by and visit.

There are some that live in California but they come by and see us.

And we enjoy visiting with them when they do that.

- [Mark] Mm-hmm that's Wonderful.

This building that we're in now, which is the office, used to be a residence.

It was the residence of the director, or the superintendent for years and years, also.

- Yeah they called it superintendent, now it's Director, now it's Cemetery Administrators.

So now you go through title changes, but yes, it was built in 1908.

So the National Register of Historic Places The directors, superintendents, lived here until 1990.

And we just had one room.

That was the office.

But with the modern day computers, faxes, and the number of interments.

When I started here in 1991, we did 250 burials.

Last year, fiscal year, we did over 600.

So we are- - That's the to world war II veterans coming of age.

- And they say about 15,000 a day.

Yes, we have been extremely busy the last few years.

- So well, thank you for helping us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you - With recent expansion of the property here.

Michael Lewis says they have adequate grounds to serve veterans and their families well into the next century.

He also says the public's invited to come out and enjoy the serenity and the history of Camp Butler, anytime with another Illinois Story at Camp Butler in Springfield.

I'm Mark MacDonald.

Thanks for watching.

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