The Lincoln Shields Recreation Area is a US Army Corp of Engineers park along the Mississippi River in Missouri just across the river from Alton, Illinois.
It is a nice park with a pavilion with picnic tables and a barbecue grill, restrooms, a boat launch, a biking and hiking trail, and a Civil War monument.
There also is a picnic area with many picnic tables with grills scattered around the park. Being right on the shore of the Mississippi River attracts many fishermen and there are permanent benches all along the river.
Back in the 1800s part of this area was an island in the river called Sunflower Island, but it is now in Missouri. The park gets its name from Abraham Lincoln and James Shields.
In 1842, Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer in Alton, Illinois, and James Shields was the Illinois auditor. Lincoln wrote a series of letters to the editor of a newspaper satirically criticizing James Shields’ methods of tax collecting.
Shields was insulted and challenged Lincoln to a duel. The duel was to take place on Sunflower Island since dueling was illegal in Illinois.
The custom of the day was for the person who was challenged to pick the weapons of choice for the duel. Lincoln chose large cavalry broadswords.
When Shields saw the tall Lincoln’s long arms swinging the broadsword, he wisely backed out of the duel. This became known as “The duel that never happened.”
Years later during the Civil War, James Shields served as a general in the Union Army and President Abraham Lincoln spoke highly about his service.
But Sunflower Island is also known for something else that is horrible.
The first Illinois State Penitentiary was built in Alton in 1833. The unsanitary conditions of this prison over the years were, to say the least, deplorable.
A new Illinois state prison was built in Joliet and this one was closed in 1860.
But during the Civil War, there was a need for more military prisons since the two in St. Louis could not hold all of the Confederate prisoners of war.
So, the old prison in Alton was reopened as a military prison in February 1862. It held captured Confederate soldiers, bushwackers and guerrillas, citizens imprisoned for treasonable acts, and court-marshaled Union soldiers.
During the next three years, at least 11,764 Confederate soldiers were held at Alton Federal Military Prison. As the war went on there was overcrowding and inadequate sanitary conditions in the prison.
The conditions in the prison overall were substandard and the mortality rate was high. Hot humid summers and cold damp winters, along with inadequate food and clothing, contributed to the high death rate.
It is reported 1,534 Confederate soldiers died at the prison and an additional number of civilians and Union soldiers were victims of disease and illness. Pneumonia and dysentery were common killers.
But the most feared were contagious diseases such as smallpox and rubella. The first case of smallpox was reported in November 1862.
It spread rapidly despite efforts to contain it. When the smallpox infection became alarmingly high, officials opened a quarantine hospital in August 1863 on Sunflower Island which was safe distance from the civilian population of Alton.
Over 260 prisoners and 16 civilians died of smallpox and were buried on the island in graves that are now underwater and located just upstream of Lincoln Shields Recreation Area.
Sunflower Island became known as Smallpox Island.
The Civil War monument in Lincoln Shields Recreation Area is a monument to the men from the prison who died on Smallpox Island.
The monument is dedicated to these Southern patriots’ sacrifice and memory and includes the names of the soldiers who died, what state they were from, and the date they died.
The Alton Federal Military Prison closed on July 7, 1865, and was torn down over the next twenty years. Only a small remnant of the cell block remains.
To visit Lincoln Shields Recreation Area, take U.S. Highway 67 north from Highway 94 in West Alton, Missouri. It is on the left side of the highway right before the bridge over the Mississippi River.
To get to see the remaining ruins of the prison, cross over the bridge to Alton and stay on Highway 67 until you come to West Broadway and turn left.
Go two blocks and turn right on Williams Street.
(Dennis Bresnahan can be reached at (314) 868-7297Â or dennisbresnahan@yahoo.com.)
