During the Civil War on March 28, 1864, anti-war Democrats clashed with Union soldiers on leave in Charleston, Illinois, on the Coles County courthouse square. This event, which would come to be known as the Charleston Riot, left nine dead and twelve wounded, making it one of the deadliest soldier-civilian encounters in the North during the Civil War.
In the 1860s Charleston was a small town of approximately 3,000 people in Coles County. The town was made up primarily of farmers and landowners, many of whom had either migrated to Coles County from the South, largely from Kentucky, or were descendants of those migrants.… Read More