Civil War soldiers in unmarked graves get new headstones in Montgomery

Seventeen Civil War veterans in Montgomery’s Riverside Cemetery who were in unmarked graves recently have received new headstones, thanks to the efforts of a pair of Civil War veteran advocates and a village of Montgomery staffer.

Robert Rogers and David Bailey of Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War say the organization has put up 200 new markers for Civil War veterans in 17 cemeteries throughout the Chicago area.

Following the installation of headstones, there usually is a ceremony commemorating the veterans’ service in the war. Following a ceremony in Will County a couple of years ago, Debbie Buchanan, the village’s executive assistant and its staff liaison to the village’s historic preservation commission, contacted the pair to inquire about doing similar work in the Riverside Cemetery.

The cemetery is operated by Dieterle Memorial Home in Montgomery.

“We got together with her, found out a little bit more about the cemetery, did some research using public records on how many Civil War veterans might be buried here, and then we said we’d go ahead and take a look at who needed new headstones, who doesn’t,” Bailey said.

Buchanan said she was grateful for the work that the pair did for the Civil War dead buried in the cemetery.

These guys have been great to work with,” she said. “I say ‘work with,’ but they’ve done 99 percent of the work. They are very good at researching, they did research on each of the Civil War vets that’s buried at the cemetery to verify what unit they served with and get all the documentation they needed. We had several lists that didn’t agree with each other, so they’ve gone through it very thoroughly and verified all the information. To think that we have 54, 55 Civil War veterans in the cemetery there, 17 were in unmarked graves all these years. And so it’s just really cool to see them get headstones and have their final resting place marked in some way like that, and to have this ceremony to rededicate the graves and just honor them a little bit so their service isn’t forgotten.”

A ceremony for the Civil War veterans in Riverside Cemetery has been set for 1 p.m. Oct. 29 at the cemetery. More details will be forthcoming as the date nears, but Buchanan said Gene Michaels, a member of the historic preservation commission and a local historian, will speak at the ceremony and Bailey said a local Civil War re-enactment group will perform an artillery salute.

The pair partnered with local Boy Scouts, including a couple of Eagle Scout candidates, to help clean up the headstones, straighten others, and replace or install new headstones for those who either had broken headstones or were in unmarked graves.

“We found there were 17 veterans that either had no headstones at all or, there were a couple who had older stones but were either broken or unreadable, so we got replacements for those,” Bailey said.

Bailey explained that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs supplies the markers for free, and that they are historically accurate, which means that they look like vintage headstones but are brand new.

“The VA supplies them for free, but it takes some time to pull all the documentation together you need for the VA and for the VA to get their contractor to manufacture them and get them delivered,” he said. “A number of years ago, the VA started offering the historically accurate [headstones], which includes the recessed shield, which they only use for Civil War and Spanish American War veterans.”

The new headstones arrived this past spring, Rogers said, and the team got to work.

Rogers said the pair approached the Three Fires Council, and three Boy Scouts helped with the project.

“With most of these, we also straighten a lot of markers,” he said. “With this one, we used two Boy Scout Troops and three lads that were going for their Eagle badges.”

All told, the scouts straightened about eight or nine markers and cleaned about 35 or so Civil War markers in the cemetery, Rogers said.

“Each of the three groups worked a whole day with their family and the Scout troops cleaning, straightening and then setting up the markers,” he said. “Without them, it would be almost impossible to do this. We don’t have the manpower, especially a project this large.”

Bailey added, “The Scouts are appreciative that they have opportunities like this that are offered to them.”

Bailey said the Sons of Union Veterans is an organization where members can trace their ancestry back to those who served in the Union army during the Civil War.

“In 1866, there was an organization called the Grand Army of the Republic,” Bailey said. “That was one of the first broad-based veterans organizations in the country. They were very serious about making sure that their fellow veterans’ graves were marked, and when they died out of existence, our organization was created and became the legal successor to their organization.”

He added, “One of the founding tenets that we have is that, we want to go around and make sure that those who served in the military during the Civil War are not forgotten, and a large part of that is making sure that their graves are appropriately marked.”

Buchanan explained that Camp Hammond, a “mustering” camp for Union soldiers of the 36th Regiment, was located on the west side of the railroad tracks along what is now Ill. Route 31. Four soldiers from the 36th Regiment are buried in Riverside Cemetery, Buchanan said, along with other soldiers who were from other areas of Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, and throughout the country who settled in Montgomery after the war.

One of those who was in an unmarked grave and received a new headstone was Silas Gray, a private in the Union army who was the nephew of Montgomery founder Daniel Gray. Silas Gray served in Company I, 42nd Volunteer Infantry and Company E, 9th Illinois Cavalry. He died in February of 1910 at the age of 70, according to an online biography.

Gray will be one of those whose stories will be told during the village’s annual cemetery walk scheduled for the first Wednesday of October at 7 p.m. at Riverside Cemetery. Buchanan said she organized Montgomery’s cemetery walk after being a guide for many years at the Oswego cemetery walk.

During the walks, volunteers tell the tales of people from Montgomery who have long been buried in their local cemetery.

“It’s a fun event in both of the communities, to hear interesting stories to make the people come alive,” she said. “These aren’t names and dates on headstones. These are real people with life stories as intricate and interesting as yours or mine or anyone’s, and they’re reduced to just a name on a headstone. And I just love the opportunity to bring them to life and tell a little bit about them, and just remind people that everybody buried in a cemetery has a story to tell like that.”

She added, “One of the people in our cemetery walk will be this guy who’s been in an unmarked grave for all this time and finally got a headstone.”

The following Civil War veterans received new markers as part of the project, according to Bailey: Guy C. Clark (13th and 23rd Illinois Infantries), Caleb B. Fisher (143rd Pennsylvania Infantry), Daniel L. Foster (3rd Minnesota Infantry), Silas Gray (42nd Illinois Infantry and 9th Illinois Cavalry), Joseph M. Hilton (1st Maine Cavalry), Walter S. Hunt (13th Illinois Infantry), Charles Lilley (58th Illinois Infantry), Elisha Lilley (4th Illinois Cavalry), Chauncey Miller (75th Illinois Infantry), Henry Nickloy (7th Illinois Infantry), William Elias Reed (28th New York Infantry), Lewis Sylvester (105th Illinois Infantry), Arunah A. Velie (136th New York Infantry), George T. Ward (2nd Illinois Light Artillery), Silas Watson (60th United States Colored Infantry), Andrew Welch (147th Illinois Infantry), and Sylvester Wildrick (52nd and 141st Illinois Infantries).