Rebs “dug-in” in Madison, WI
“Dug-in” is a bit of a tease, but there are actually 140 rebel soldiers buried in the “Confederate Rest” section of Forrest Hill Cemetery in Madison, Wisconsin. It is the northern-most Confederate cemetery in the United States.
Union forces captured 1156 Confederate enlisted men when they seized Island Number 10 on the Mississippi River in March of 1862, and all of them were sent to Camp Randall in Madison, Wisconsin. Camp Randall was a State fairgrounds converted into a military training facility – and it was not set up to incarcerate prisoners. Many of the prisoners were in poor health before arriving, and exposure to the northern winter weather made matters worse. 140 of the troops died while detained, and all were buried at Forrest Hill. Their graves were lovingly taken care of by a southern-raised local named Alice Waterman. Alice never knew any of the men in the graves she tended, but she was interred alongside of them after her death in 1897.
Click here for more detailed information about the Rebels in Confederate Rest.
