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Illinois Cemetery Project Touches on Civil War History


Restoration work at a northern Illinois cemetery is shedding light on the area's links to the Civil War.

Rockton Township has been cleaning and restoring headstones for the past three years in the oldest part of the cemetery, which dates to the 1800s.

The work is now focusing on the grave markers of Civil War veterans.

The most prominent of them is Elon Farnsworth, a 25-year-old Union brigadier general who became something of a celebrity after his death during the final day of the battle of Gettysburg.

Farnsworth was ordered to charge against a Confederate stronghold of little strategic importance. Though he protested it was suicide, historians say Farnsworth put on a remarkable display of courage and horsemanship during the failed attack.

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