Illinois in the Civil War, by Victor Hicken, University of Illinois Press, 1991
"Bushrod R Johnson was a Confederate general, first captured at Fort
Donelson, but walked out of prison--escaped. Later, during the Battle of
Chickamauga, he was instrumental in breaking the Union line. After the
war, he had hard times. Years later, a couple of ex-Union generals were
traveling through Macoupin County and asked a farmer for directions. The
farmer was old Bushrod, trying to eke a living. He stayed in Macoupin
County and was buried in the Brighton Cemetery in Brighton IL. Through
the efforts of Mr Noble Wyatt, Bushrod's body was exhumed from the
Brighton Cemetery and moved down beside his wife in Nashville City
Cemetery, Nashville TN. A marker was laid at his resting place in Miles
Cemetery."
"The 7th Illinois Volunteer Infantry was instrumental in holding the
Union defensive position at Allatoona. Armed with new repeating rifles
and commanded by a sturdy little English born farmer from Carlinville,
Illinois, the 7th along with a few other regiments kept General
Sherman's army, now in Georgia, from being cut off by elements of Gen.
Hood's Confederate army. When the battle grew close, General John Corse
signaled from mountaintop posts to Gen. Sherman that he needed help.
Gen. Sherman replied with a message that journalists corrupted into
'Hold the fort, I am coming!' These lines soon became part of a popular
hymn of the Civil War period."
"John M. Palmer began his political career in Carlinville, Illinois.
As the Civil War approached, he switched his political allegiance to the
Republican Party and, at the commencement of the war, was awarded a
officer's commission. He rose to Major-General but, piqued at failing to
get a prized command, he resigned his commission. After the war he was
both a governor of Illinois and a senator from that state. His
correspondence is in Springfield and is almost impossible to read since
he wrote both laterally and vertically on each page. One of his pet
stories concerned a soldier coming home to Carlinville on leave, only to
find his wife in dalliance with another man. The soldier chased the
interloper out the back door and into the outhouse, whereupon the
veteran pushed the outhouse over onto its doorside. It was the talk of
Carlinville, Palmer wrote."
"... mention a Jack Burns. I got a telephone call from a fellow in
Gillespie by that name. Using my book on the Civil War, he and others had
dedicated a plaque or something to a gentleman from Gillespie who had won
the Medal of Honor in the Civil War."
