The Danville Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers

In March of 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill establishing the National Asylum (later renamed National Home) of Disabled Volunteer Soldiers into legislation, just three months before his assassination. Due to the severe impact of the Civil War, the idea of homes for disabled veterans had begun gaining favor in Congress. The war had a severe impact on the population of young men in the United States, with approximately two percent of the US population losing their lives and thousands of soldiers returning home injured.

A black and white portrait of an older man with a short white beard, wearing a suit jacket and bow-tie.
Joseph Gurney Cannon portrait by Hartsook Photo, 1915

After the bill establishing the National Home was signed into law, the federal government began selecting locations for branches.… Read More

#SmallTownSaturday – Princeton, Illinois

After a few short years of hiatus, #SmallTownSaturday is back!

This month, we are looking at the town of Princeton in Bureau County, Illinois. The county was established in 1837, with Princeton as the county seat.

Figure 1: Bird’s eye view of the city of Princeton, Bureau County, Illinois circa 1870s

Princeton was formed in the early 1830s as a transplant colony for the Hampshire Colony Congregational Church of Northampton, Massachusetts. It became a stop of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad in the 1850s and began expanding quickly. Abraham Lincoln himself stopped in Princeton in 1854. Lincoln gave a well-attended speech in Bryant Woods on the Fourth of July 1854.… Read More

Camp Butler in Springfield, Illinois

The Establishment of Camp Butler

On April 15, 1861, Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, sent a telegram to Illinois Governor Richard Yates reading: “Call made on you by to-nights mail, for six regiments of militia, for immediate service.” The Civil War had begun, and the State of Illinois was responsible for organizing men to fight in the Union army. At the time, there were no organized militias within Illinois, and the state’s government began planning military training camps. On August 2, 1861, the State of Illinois announced the construction of a Union army camp about six miles outside of Springfield named Camp Butler, after Illinois State Treasurer William Butler.… Read More

Illinois History Abroad: Manuscript Copies from the French National Archives and Repositories

In the initial decades after its founding in 1909, the Illinois Historical Survey (now part of the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections) focused on research and collecting documents to support the publication of a multi-volume state history as well as an edited series of documents. The Survey obtained copies of archival materials from both North America and Europe. The IHLC currently holds dozens of boxes and reels of microfilm of documents from these early collecting initiatives, including 16 cubic feet and 25 reels of microfilm from French Archives and Depositories (MS 023). The project to collect copies of documents from French archives and depositories involved significant effort and repeated readjustments, as it spanned two continents and the outbreak of two world wars.… Read More