NATIONAL CEMETERY AT MOUND CITY, ILL., TO ACQUIRE 3.6 ACRES

MOUND CITY, Ill. -- One of the nation's oldest national cemeteries is expanding.

The Mound City National Cemetery Preservation Commission has signed a purchase agreement for an additional 3.6 acres adjacent to Mound City National Cemetery.

"The cemetery was near capacity," said James M. Larry Sr., a member of the cemetery commission. "This will add another 2,000 burial spaces for veterans and their spouses."

"We needed more space for the future," said Larry. "There's a lot of history to the cemetery, and we don't want to see it closed."

The cemetery is at the junction of routes 51 and 37 near Mound City. It is the burial place for more than 7,500 people.

The cemetery, which was established in 1862, would have reached capacity between 2010 and 2020. The new land will increase its size to 15.64 acres.

Clayton Bierbaum, chairman of the cemetery commission board, said the cost of the property and clearing of land will total about $24,000. A campaign has been organized to raise funds.

The commission would like to present the new property to the federal government on Memorial Day next year, said Bierbaum.

The cemetery was established as a burial place for those who died at Civil War military hospitals in Mound City and nearby Cairo in 1861. It was placed on the National Historic Register in October 1997.

The first patients at the Mound City hospital were men wounded in the Battle of Belmont, Mo., in November 1861. Combat at Shiloh and Fort Donelson in Tennessee in 1862 sent more wounded to Mound City, and the burial rate began to soar.

Although burials already had taken place, it wasn't until 1862 that President Abraham Lincoln authorized the establishment of national cemeteries for soldiers "who shall die in the service of our country." A dozen cemeteries were established, and the Mound City National Cemetery was among the first.

In addition to burials from the Mound City hospital, remains were brought from Cairo, Belmont, Paducah and Columbus in Kentucky, accounting for the 2,895 burial listings for Jan. 1, 1862.

Burials in the cemetery range from 25 to 50 a year. Any honorably discharged veteran, spouse and veteran's children under 21 are eligible for burial in a national cemetery.

Veterans Affairs had planned to close the cemetery and refer burials to national cemeteries at Jefferson Barracks or Springfield, Mo.

"We didn't want to have to send our veterans somewhere else for burial," said Larry.