Byron, IL Memorial

ewmail15

Retired User
Joined
Sep 14, 2017
On my trip back from the Rock Island Arsenal Museum, I took slower routes home. Came upon a sign in Byron for a Civil War Memorial. Took two left turns off the main road, and right there in the middle of the road was the memorial.
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Great Looking Monument and I do LOVE those guns. Thanks for the great photos.
 
Good there was a sign, nice! Rats, can't read inscriptions. Anyone know which regiments were mustered there?

It is smack in the middle of a road- community seems to have wanted to ensure men were remembered. There's one in Lincoln, Maine a lot like it, right in the center of traffic, roads meet and split around it. Wouldn't you love seeing the photo of all the vets at their dedications?
 
It happens to be the oldest surviving Civil War Memorial in Illinois, the town celebrating it's monument's 150th (1866-2016) a couple years ago. A lot of 92nd Illinois infantry names are on there, (that regiment aka "the abolition regiment" because of it's activities in Tennessee -- a natural consequence of Byron's general anti-slavery attitude at the time. There were three "Underground Railroad Stations" in Byron, one today a National Park Service "Network To Freedom' site). The 92nd made themselves into mounted infantry while on campaign, arming themselves with Spencer repeaters.

Also on that monument the only woman, a U.S. Army nurse, and one USCT who settled in the town immediately post war. The names of 1812 war and Spanish-American war veterans were also added over time. Originally the spire was topped with a stone eagle, but after being hit by lightning and other weather a couple times, the last time (1918) it wasn't replaced. The two cannon, one which saw combat service in the CW and the other a contemporary to it, were added just before the turn of the century, courtesy the Sons of Union Veterans.

Though today surrounded by older residential housing, the location of the monument was originally at the crossroad entrance to the city park, the entire city block to the NE. The center of the town moved West, leaving the monument "stranded" as the center of a roundabout several blocks from the city center.
 
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On the road on the west side of the Rock between Byron and Oregon is a little turnout with this marker about the Banditti-Regulator War.

...and if you know where that marker is today call the IDOT (or somebody in Byron or Oregon, IL), they'd like it back.
 

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