Civil War Historic Sites in Illinois

44 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Civil War Historic Sites in Illinois Bryon Andreasen A braham Lincoln casts a long shadow over all things historical in Illinois. “Land of Lincoln” is imprinted on Illinois license plates and plastered on Illinois billboards. Lincoln’s prominence in historical tourism is reflected in the Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition’s success in obtaining congressional designation of an Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area that spreads across forty-two Illinois counties. The “Civil War Traveler” internet site confirms Lincoln’s preeminence; eight of the fifteen Illinois Civil War sites highlighted are largely Lincoln themed. Even calendar chronology conspires in Lincoln’s favor. The Lincoln centennial, sesquicentennial, and bicentennial (1909, 1959, and 2009) taxed the energy, interest, and resources of the community members and officials most inclined to support and lead Civil War anniversaries (1911-15, 1961-65, and 2011-15) that always follow in the wake of a Lincoln anniversary. Lincoln is indeed the colossus astride Illinois’s historical landscape. Nevertheless, the Civil War lurks in the state’s Lincoln story. For instance, the war looms in the background at the seven historic sites where Lincoln and the Democratic incumbent, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, famously debated during their 1858 U.S. Senate campaign. All seven Lincoln-Douglas Debate Communities—Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton— refurbished their debate sites with new interpretive storyboards and other improvements for the 2008 sesquicentennial commemoration. In addition to these wayside exhibits, visitors encounter at each site dramatic statuary or bronze basreliefs commissioned especially for that locale. Knox College’s Old Main in Galesburg is the only debate-site building that still survives. Visitors can sit in the “Lincoln chair” and look out the window that he and Douglas climbed through to mount the outdoor platform in front of Old Main. Two sites— those at Charleston and Quincy—have excellent Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER BRYON ANDREASEN WINTER 2011 45 small museums dedicated to the debates. All seven sites afford visitors the opportunity to stroll across historic grounds where the acrimonious senate campaign foreshadowed the issues of the war. Some sites explicitly carry the story up to the beginning of the war triggered by the 1860 presidential election. Another consequence of the 1860 election—Lincoln’s leaving home for Washington, D.C., and the war that awaited him—is memorialized at Springfield’s Great Western Railroad Depot where the town’s most prominent resident delivered his farewell address acknowledging the kindness of the hometown folks to whom he “owe[d] everything.”1 Here, the Civil War intrudes into the story of the inaugural train trip. A storyboard describes the danger surrounding the president-elect as he wound his way to Washington, D.C., in the wake of southern secession, and his strategy to build public support along the route in preparation for taking a hard line with secessionists. A continuously running video program on the depot’s second floor plays during the summer months from Memorial to Labor Day. National Public Radio personality Scott Simon narrates this telling of the dramatic story of Lincoln’s inaugural train ride to Washington. The Civil War surfaces in other Lincoln-themed places such as the Old State Capitol State Historic Site in Springfield, where the interpretative storyline chronicling the decades-long rivalry between Lincoln and Douglas culminates in the latter’s “Rally Round the Flag” speech. After the fall of Fort Sumter, Douglas spoke from the same podium in the Hall of Representatives from which Lincoln had delivered his famous “House Divided” speech, calling on his fellow The Lincoln-Douglas Debate Museum at Charleston, Illinois. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM CIVIL WAR HISTORIC SITES IN ILLINOIS 46 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Democrats to set aside partisan differences and support the Republican president in sustaining and defending the Union. Wartime Governor Richard Yates directed Illinois’s response to and participation in the war from his office in the Old State Capitol, assisted in the first days of the war by a former army officer and West Point graduate, Ulysses S. Grant. Visitors learn of those hectic days when northerners scrambled to meet the secession threat from the South...