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Gateway to history

BY BECKY MALKOVICH
THE SOUTHERN

Through the gates lie the sacred grounds, telling tales of a country's call to arms, battles fought, wars past, heroes hailed and generations gone by. Enveloped by the low-lying land between the rivers, Mound City National Cemetery is timeless.

The location of the cemetery at the intersection of Illinois 37 and U.S. 51 is no accident but a clear indication of the region's importance in the Civil War.

The cemetery is situated about one mile south of Mound City, where not only was one of the largest military hospitals in the nation located during the Civil War but also the shipyards where three of seven ironclads, including the Cairo, Mound City and Cincinnati, were constructed.

Mound City Naval Station was established in 1862 and the city of Cairo, south of the cemetery, was the headquarters of Ulysses S. Grant from September 1861 to February 1862.

But perhaps no greater and lasting testament to the sacrifices made in the name of freedom is found than in the row after row of marble headstones in the cemetery established by President Abraham Lincoln as one of 12 original national cemeteries in 1864.

The history here is rich, offering a glimpse not just into a region's past but that of its country.

The grounds hold the dead from the battles and wars that defined a nation, from Civil War battles such as those in Cairo, Columbus and Paducah and Belmont, Mo., to wars such as the Mexican-American, Spanish-American, World Wars I and II, Korean and Vietnam, as well as the remains of military veterans, their spouses and dependent children.

Some 8,300 people are buried in the cemetery, including 2,440 unknown soldiers, according to Randy Watkins of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

"Veterans from every war from the Civil War forward are buried here," he said. "The national cemeteries were established to provide a final resting place for those who gave their lives or sacrificed for their country."

The Caretaker's Lodge provides an historical center for the cemetery.

Once targeted for demolition, the building was saved by a group of locals who formed the Mound City National Cemetery Preservation Commission, whose efforts both restored the lodge and secured a place for it on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

Clay Bierbaum serves on the commission and said the cemetery is a powerful place.

"It's awesome to me," he said. "I can't describe the feeling. A lot of people don't realize the history that is here."

Thanks to the commission, an additional 3.64 acres was recently added to the cemetery, assuring space for burials for another 75 years if continued at the same rate of approximately 75 per year.

The cemetery gets about 900 visitors per year and is often the destination for school trips, Bierbaum said.

The commission presents an annual Memorial Day commemoration on the Saturday before the holiday that includes re-enactors, a presentation of colors, lowering of the flag, laying of the wreath and a rifle and cannon salute.

From the Southern Illinoisan...

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Wartime integrated Mound City

By Adam Testa
The Southern

MOUND CITY - This small Pulaski County town lived generations ahead of its time during the American Civil War.

Known at the time for its naval yards and military hospital, the city and its medical center earned an "embarrassing" reputation for being a place where blacks worked with whites; Catholics with Protestants; men with women and nuns with prostitutes, according to Steve Crain of Girardeau Adventures, who has researched the role of Southern Illinois in the war.

"What we really had, especially in the lower ranks, was a total integration," he said, delivering the keynote address at an annual Memorial Day ceremony Saturday at Mound City National Cemetery. "They were revolutionary, and they told about the type of society we'd live in years later, hundreds of years later."

While the newspapers and media of the time told countless stories about the thousands of men and women serving in the military and aiding efforts in Mound City and Cairo, they ignored this integration because of its unpopular public opinion at the time.

Instead, reports focused on the large amount of new activity and innovations happening in the region, including the use of battlefield triage centers, the role of nurses in medicine and the implementation of ambulances and ships transporting the injured back to the hospital.

Crain said parallels exist today, despite modernizations of equipment. Media reports still don't include full details of grim situations and often leave the American public unknowing of the worst conditions, he said.