Rock Island Confederate Cemetery
Two days before Christmas in 1863, a train rustled into Rock Island and passed over a wooden bridge to the island and unloaded 468 Confederate soldiers captured in battles near Chattanooga , Tenn. Eventually over 12,000 prisoners were housed on Arsenal Island in Rock Island , IL.The camp wasn't operating long before a cemetery was needed. The winter of 1863 was exceptionally cold, something Southern soldiers weren't used to. Of those housed there about 2,000 died from smallpox, pneumonia, and other medical ailments.Before the first spring, the Confederate cemetery held more than 900 graves. Nearly 30 Union guards also died.
Conditions in the barracks were brutal. Shivering through harsh winter weather, sleeping three to a bunk in shifts and eating rations that were minimal at best, imprisoned soldiers found life could hinge on the mere possession of a wool blanket. The disease-ridden facility averaged nearly a hundred deaths a month during its two years of operation In following years, the camp gained an alleged reputation as a place of suffering, torture and death. Many referred to it as the " Andersonville of the North.'' The myth was fed by articles written by Confederate veterans and published in Confederate magazines.
The Past and Present of Rock Island County
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Illinois Ancestors