The Northernmost Confederate Cemetery in the United States: Madison, Wisconsin

The northernmost Confederate cemetery in the United States is not located in any state from the old Confederacy. It's also not located in one of the Civil War Border States (Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland). It's located in Madison, Wisconsin, a Union state where no fighting occurred and presumably an unlikely place for a cemetery of Confederate war dead.

In March of 1862, Union Naval forces attacked the Confederate garrison on an island in the Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri called Island Number 10. The river was a major transportation route into the south, and both the island and mainland shore around it were fortified to block the advance of Federal forces. The Confederate defenders held off the Union gunboats until they were surrounded and cut off from any possible route of retreat. The garrison surrendered to Union forces on April 7th.

Following the surrender, the Confederate prisoners were dispersed to various prisoner of war camps in the north. Over 1100 of these captured soldiers were sent north to Madison, Wisconsin.

Prisoners of War in Madison

Curious townspeople turned out at the train station in Madison to get glimpses of these enemy soldiers as they arrived on April 20th and 24th. Although the first group arrived in relatively good condition, many in the second group were so ill that they were taken off the train on stretchers. Island Number 10 was an important strategic location but it was a terrible place to defend. The First Alabama Infantry had suffered through its first week in March without tents and was exposed to cold rain and winds, without adequate food and little medicine. Men stood knee deep in water in the trenches. They suffered from pneumonia, mumps, measles, and chronic diarrhea. The prisoners marched '"or were carried'"to Camp Randall, where many of Wisconsin's soldiers trained before leaving for the war. The camp would now do temporary double duty as a prisoner of war camp, a task for which it was ill prepared.

The Nineteenth Wisconsin Infantry was assigned to guard the prisoners, an assignment made more difficult by the fact that there was no fence around the camp. This regiment was a new one, poorly armed, trained, and disciplined, and not up to the task. They were given the assignment because no other troops were available. Initially, the camp was badly run and the many ill prisoners received inadequate care. For their part, the guards complained of abusive language and violent threats from the prisoners. Things came to a head on May 16th when one 17 year old guard was threatened by an angry group of prisoners and shot one to death.

Lieutenant Colonel William Hoffman, the Union Army's Commissary General of Prisoners, personally visited the camp and found conditions appalling. Later in the war, prisoner of war camps would be infamous on both sides for their terrible conditions, but this was not the case here. Hoffman quickly assigned his own man to take charge and instill order and ensure proper conditions for the prisoners. Hoffman ordered clean clothes and bedding, proper supplies and medications, and a general improvement in sanitary conditions for the prisoners. He brought in extra surgeons, including a civilian contract surgeon for extra medical help. Despite these actions, many prisoners' conditions were beyond the limited treatment capabilities of 1860's medicine. Death by disease became a frequent occurrence, with as many as ten deaths per day recorded. It was acknowledged by the Confederates themselves that the high mortality was due to the conditions endured at Island Number 10, and not because of mistreatment.

Although the prisoners and guards did not get along, the same could not be said of relations with Madison's civilian population. Perhaps thinking of their own sons, friends, and neighbors off in distant places fighting the war, citizens of Madison brought food, clothing and other items to the prisoners and visited them freely until such visits were curtailed for security reasons. The prisoners stayed at Camp Randall for about three months before being sent elsewhere and exchanged, but during that time 140 of them died.

Establishment of the Cemetery

The dead were taken to Madison's Forest Hill Cemetery. They were buried side by side in a single section of the cemetery, and the graves were marked with wooden headboards. The area in the cemetery with these Confederate graves became known as Confederate Rest. Over time, weeds and tall grass began to overtake the plot, and the headboards deteriorated.

In 1868, a Louisiana born widow named Alice Waterman moved to Madison. Although she had lived most of her life in the north and had not known any of the soldiers interred at Confederate Rest, she took a great deal of interest in the cemetery. She removed the weeds, improved the landscaping, placed new headboards on the graves, and maintained the plot at her own expense. She caught the attention of Madisonians including Governors Lucius Fairchild and C.C. Washburn, both of whom were former Union Army generals, and received some assistance in her efforts from them. Washburn even led a group of former Union soldiers to the site on a Memorial Day when he was governor and placed flowers on the graves.

Today, the site of Camp Randall is better known as the location of the stadium where the University of Wisconsin's football team plays its home games (although a historic site acknowledging the location's Civil War past is there, too). Confederate Rest is maintained by the City of Madison, and receives the same care as the rest of Forest Hill Cemetery, a cemetery where many prominent Madisonians are buried. A plot of Union soldier's graves is located a few yards away from Confederate Rest. Every Memorial Day, commemorative ceremonies are held at both sites. United States flags are placed on the Union graves and the state flag of the soldier's home state'"Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee'"is placed on each Confederate grave. There is also one grave in Confederate Rest that is not that of a soldier. After her death in 1897, Alice Waterman was buried at her request in the same plot with the men she had never known, but whom she always referred to as "my boys".

Sources:

Gajewski, Mark. "Camp Randall Prison Camp" Historic Madison, Inc.
http://www.historicmadison.org/html/MadHist/Articles/CampRandallPC.asp

Historic Madison, Inc. "Forest Hill Cemetery: A Walking Tour. 1993

Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln's Brown Water Navy. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2007.

McMorries, Edward Young. History of the First Regiment Alabama Infantry C.S.A. Montgomery, Alabama: The Brown Printing Company, 1904.

Titus, William A. "A Wisconsin Burial Place of Confederate Prisoners of War" Wisconsin Magazine of History, Volume 36, Issue 3 (1952-1953).

United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington D.C.: 1880-1901.

Wisconsin Historical Society, "Former Confederate Soldiers Buried in '˜Confederate Rest' at Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison, Wisconsin"
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/teachers/lessons/civilwar/camp_randall/pdf/confederaterest.pdf