NOTE: Standing at the bottom of the steep hill looking north the two tiers of graves you see are part of Block 12.
Block 21, just south of Block 12, has no tiers. There are only a few stones in the back row and none in the front.
There are NO stones for the Confederate soldiers except for the ones reburied in the G.A.R. section of Block 12.
|
During the Civil War, many trains passed through Decatur. It was on a direct line of the Illinois Central Railroad, which ran deep into the south. The line continued north to Chicago and ran near the prison camp that was located there, Camp Douglas. Many trains came north carrying Union troops bound for Decatur and beyond. Soldiers aboard these trains were often wounded, sick and dying. Occasionally, deceased soldiers were taken from the trains and buried in Greenwood Cemetery, which was very close to the train tracks. These men were buried in the cemetery and the citizens of Decatur marked their graves with honor. But that wasn't always the case.... On many occasions, trains came north bearing Confederate prisoners who were on their way to the camp near Chicago. These soldiers were not treated so honorably. Often, Confederates who died were unloaded from the train and buried in shallow, unmarked graves in forgotten locations. Most of these soldiers were unknown victims of gunshot and disease and many were past the point of revealing their identity. Those men are now silent corpses scattered about the confines of Greenwood Cemetery. in 1863, when a prison train holding southern prisoners pulled into Decatur, it was given the kind of reception that it was. The stories say the train was filled with more than 100 prisoners and that many of them had contracted yellow fever in the diseased swamps of the south.
 The Union officers in charge of the train had attempted to separate the Confederates who had died in transit from the other prisoners, but to no avail. Many of the other men were close to death from the infectious disease and it was hard to tell which men were alive and which were not. They called for wagons to come to a point near the cemetery --- but no one would answer the summons. Several soldiers were dispatched and a group of men and wagons were commandeered in the city. The bodies were removed from the train and taken to Greenwood Cemetery. They were unloaded here and their bodies were stacked in piles at the base of a hill in the southwest corner of the graveyard. This location was possibly the least desirable spot in the cemetery. The hill was so steep that many of the gravediggers had trouble keeping their balance. It was the last place that anyone would want to be buried in and for this reason; the enemies of the Union were placed there. The men from the city hastily dug shallow graves and tossed the bodies of the Confederates inside. It has been said that without a doctor present, no one could have known just how many of the soldiers had actually died from yellow fever or were accidentally buried alive. Many years later, spring rains and flooding would cause the side of the hill itself to collapse in a mudslide and further disturb the bodies of these men. Not only did the Confederate remains lie scattered about in the mud, but the disaster also took with it the bodies of Union men who had been laid to rest in the memorial section at the top of the hill. This further complicated matters, as now, no one had any idea how to identify the bodies. In the end, the remains were buried again and the hill was constructed into terraces to prevent another mudslide in the future. The bodies were placed in the Civil War Memorial section and the graves were marked with stones bearing the legend of "Unknown U.S. Soldier".
|
|
