Camp Butler National Cemetery

Walk the rows of a Civil War training camp turned national cemetery near Springfield, where Union soldiers and Confederate prisoners lie side by side.

5063 Camp Butler Road, Springfield, IL 62707 · Springfield, IL

About Camp Butler National Cemetery

General William T. Sherman picked this site six miles northeast of Springfield in 1861 for a Union training camp named for state treasurer William Butler, and over 200,000 Union troops passed through. In 1862 it also held about 2,000 Confederate prisoners from Fort Donelson, and roughly 700 died in a smallpox epidemic that summer. Their section, with 866 graves, sits beside Union burials, and veterans of later wars from the Spanish-American War to Vietnam rest here too. The cemetery covers about 53 acres and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

#national cemetery
#civil war
#military history
#memorial

What's around here?

The closest stops to Camp Butler National Cemetery, ordered by straight-line distance. A few more like it, plus some different kinds of fun so you can build a full day.

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Lincoln Tomb
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Lincoln Home National Historic Site
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