[MUSIC] >> Welcome to Murphysboro, Illinois, home to the Jackson County Courthouse.

[MUSIC] The annual Apple Festival and the mysterious Big Muddy Monster.

But those are stories for another day.

[MUSIC] We've come here to visit a museum dedicated to the city's most famous native son, Civil War general and politician John A Logan.

It's our latest stop on Illinois backroads.

[MUSIC] I'm Mark Kiesling.

John A Logan was born on this property in 1826.

His parents settled here two years prior, buying this land in Jackson County and around 250 additional acres.

They donated 20 acres of that land in 1843 to create the city of Murfreesboro.

Part of this home on Edith Street, which houses the museum, was built by John A. Logan's younger brother, Tom, who sold it to Christopher Buller in the late 1800s.

Buller made several improvements to the home.

The museum moved here in 1989 under the guidance of the late Mike Jones, the museum's first director.

As we enter the building, we see a display of items donated by the National Women's Relief Corps of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Logan was a three time commander in chief of the Gar.

Betsy Brown is president of the museum board.

She gives us a tour of the exhibits while sharing Logan's story.

>> We know that Clara Barton was founder of the American Red cross, and Clara and Mary Logan, John's wife, were best of friends.

Okay.

In fact, Mary Logan was vice president of the American Red cross and stepped up in Clara's position when Clara had to step away.

The American Red cross is a part of the.

An offshoot of the Woman's Relief Corps that operated during the Civil War.

And these women were very.

They were nurses.

They did whatever needed to be done to help the soldiers.

And so.

And that's why they continue to safeguard all the artifacts.

[MUSIC] Oh, this is a very, very important drum.

And we're so happy to have it.

It is the only remaining drum that was played when Robert E Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9th, 1865.

[MUSIC] >> We also see a drawing by Thomas O'Dea, a former union prisoner at Andersonville.

It's his recollection of what that prison looked like.

>> 40,000 men died at Andersonville because of exposure, and the thought of the word deadline comes from this.

You can see up in the drawing there's like a trench.

And they said, if you cross that line, we will shoot you dead.

Hence deadline.

Wow.

And it has the very serious connotations.

I mean, sure, missing a deadline can have serious connotations in your life, but certainly usually not life and death.

>> The commander of that camp, Henry Wirz, was hanged in 1865 for war crimes.

Part of the rope used to hang.

Virts has found a resting place at the Logan Museum.

>> It looks like a cigar butt, and it is a piece of the rope that was used to hang Henry Virts because he was tried for war crimes and, uh.

And he was sentenced to hanging.

And indeed, just like people, when the Berlin Wall fell, they took pieces of it.

I have a piece of it at home.

They cut the rope.

And so we are very fortunate to have a piece of the rope.

>> And so the actual hanging rope.

>> The actual hanging rope.

Yeah.

>> Another drawing shows Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia.

It depicts how 99 Union soldiers escaped captivity by digging a tunnel.

We also see an American flag from the 30th Indiana Infantry.

>> And this was a battle flag.

And when we look at these darker areas here that look like it might be mold and it was tested and it's gunpowder.

So this flew in battle and was quite, quite the story, and it cost quite a bit of money to get it restored and, and framed.

And so now it will, it will survive.

>> A second flag is also on display here.

>> As you can see, the flag has a tear in it.

And this flag was on on Abraham Lincoln's box at the Ford's Theater.

And it is said that when Logan when John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln and he got to the top of the balcony and leapt to the stage, his spur caught on the flag, tore the flag, broke and made his fall awkward, causing him to break his leg.

Uh, and the reason why we believe this version of the story, because as you know, many people have stories.

Uh, the man who had this flag in the end was the manager of Ford's Theater, and he was on his deathbed, and he was wanting to make sure his family realized the importance of this flag.

And so he told them, because he had been so worried about keeping it a secret for fear he was a conspirator because this was essentially evidence, right?

He was hiding evidence and he thought, oh, this is maybe not such a good idea.

And he didn't want to be implicated.

And so there we have it.

>> Betsy is a former history teacher and an expert on John and Mary Logan.

She points out John's father was a doctor and politician also named John.

He and his wife, Elizabeth, were slave owners before moving to Illinois.

>> He came to Illinois with 30 slaves, um freed all but two or sold all but two when he entered into Illinois.

And this is important because the two who remain became indentured servants.

A woman and her son.

And her son's name was James Wilkinson Dunbar.

And he was just a few years older than John.

And the two of them just piled around.

>> Young John or Jack, as his family called him, followed in his father's political footsteps and in 1852 was elected to the Illinois General Assembly.

Despite his friendship with his family's indentured servant, one of Logan's first pieces of legislation was the Illinois Black Exclusion Bill of 1853.

Its aim was to stop free African Americans from settling in Illinois.

Historians consider it one of the harshest anti-Black laws ever imposed by a northern state.

It remained an Illinois law until 1865.

John married his wife, Mary, in 1855.

Three years later.

The lifelong Democrat won office as a U.S.

representative.

In a speech to Congress, he famously stated, you call it the dirty work of the Democratic Party to catch slaves for the southern people.

We are willing to perform that dirty work.

That speech earned him the nickname Dirty Work Logan.

He also vowed to never affiliate with the Republican Party as long as he had breath in his body.

When the Civil War began in 1861, John and Mary's family members were all strong southern sympathizers.

But Congressman Logan was indecisive, refusing to take either side.

That changed when he visited the Battle of Bull Run as a congressional observer.

>> He is in his civilian coat and hat, and he goes to watch.

Just like many people there brought their picnic baskets and and thought they were going to watch for entertainment, you know.

And then it really turned into a battle.

And then he got caught up.

He realized that saving the union was extremely important because before this, he had kind of vacillated.

He had ridden the fence and he had been accused of being, you know, that was a bad thing to be.

And he was being chickened by not taking a stance.

And so he decided to take a stand.

He sees a rifle on the ground, picks it up and enters into battle.

And he writes Mary later on to say, I want my daughter to be known as the daughter of a man who was brave and did the right thing.

It's time for us to erase the stain upon our family name.

Well.

>> Logan chose to back the union.

He became colonel of the 31st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment because of his political nickname.

Many referred to the unit as the Dirty First.

One of Logan's first assignments was to rally the men of Southern Illinois to join his unit.

He gave a passionate two hour speech in Marion on the town square today.

A memorial plaque marks that occasion.

>> They had over 40 men who had joined the Confederacy from Williamson County.

And Mary was so concerned about his safety, because this is a very emotional thing that's going on.

And so she he tells her, oh, just stay home.

I'll be all right.

Well, she secretly gets on the carriage and comes to make sure that he is okay, because she was afraid she wanted to be there if she had to, you know, take him away from a mob who might be after him.

But he was so he was such a good orator.

>> Following his speech, 158 men joined his regiment.

Logan's father was no longer living when the war began, but his mother was.

And John's decision to support the Union caused family strife.

>> Well, she was a stern woman.

Look at that face.

She did.

And, you know, when, uh, Logan decided to go with the union.

You know, she said, I don't want to ever see your face again.

Wow.

And she stuck with it even after the war.

She still was that way.

>> As did John's younger sister, Annie, who hated her brother for joining the Union Army.

>> So Mary and Annie are watching the troops go by as they're leaving to go to war.

Very heart wrenching moment.

And at the time, Annie shouts, I hope you die, John Logan.

And Mary is incensed.

She's standing right next to her.

This is her sister in law, Logan's sister.

And they begin a hair pulling, scratching, punching fight, which only came to an end when Mary takes a chair and breaks it over Annie's head.

And that was it.

And Annie was always a loose cannon.

>> It sounds like.

It felt like Mary could have a strong will of her own.

>> Yes.

Mary was.

Yes she was.

She was only 411, but she was something to reckon with.

>> Mary would defend her husband.

Time and time again during the war, coming to his aid and the aid of his soldiers.

On several occasions this display with Mary's photo and a quilt is a tribute to that.

>> In September of 1861, when Logan was with the 31st down in Cairo, getting ready for the Battle of Belmont, which was the, you know, the first battles of the Civil War here in this area.

Uh, she was with him, and there were a thousand men in a regiment.

And at that time, and all at once, 500 that's one half of the regiment came down with the measles.

We know how contagious the measles can be, And so he requisitioned a hotel for the men, and it was a fairly new.

The City Hotel in Cairo.

And the owner, you know, fled with all the contents of the hotel.

And so they were left with rooms with bare floors.

And so Mary said, well, this can't this can't go on.

And John agreed this, we have to do something.

And she said, give me 36 hours and I will come back with everything you need.

And she gets on the train, goes to Carbondale, and Marion goes to the families of the men who are sick and her friends and comes back with three train car loads worth of quilts and pillows and bandages and everything you could food, marmalade, whatever, to to for the men.

And she did that in 36 hours.

>> And she got it done.

>> She got it done.

She did.

>> Mary again rushes to her husband's side after he is shot three times during the Battle of Fort Donelson.

>> They put in the newspaper, which Mary reads back at home.

The list of those who were killed and his name is on there as having been killed at the Battle of Fort Donelson.

And what had happened was, when they were first going around checking for the dead, he didn't seem to be breathing.

You know, they didn't really spend a lot of time checking it out.

And so he was passed over and then people came by again.

A surgeon came by again and realized he was still breathing.

>> The Battle of Fort Donelson and the rest of Logan's military career is captured in this tapestry, which now hangs in the museum.

>> The painted tapestry made in 1892 and by a woman.

And it has traveled around and it was saved.

It was rolled up at the Jackson County Historical Society, and they were so nice to let us have it when we realized it was there.

And, um.

And Mary Logan wanted to buy it for $5,000 when it was made.

It hung in the rotunda in Washington, D.C., and now it hangs here.

It is really a timeline of what Logan did during the war.

>> After recovering from his war wounds, Logan rejoined the Illinois 31st at the siege of Corinth.

While in Mississippi, he witnessed an event that changed his life.

>> But then he sees families being torn apart in a slave auction.

And then he knows, oh, this is wrong.

This is so wrong.

He stood up for what was right and said, we can't do this.

And so he makes he becomes essentially an abolitionist, somebody, somebody he used to rail against because he had already started with his family.

If you take a look at it this way, he started with his family getting away from the southern sympathizers.

But then when it came to this, it just brought him full.

It brought him around and say, wait a minute, this is.

And he followed this for the rest of his life.

It was just not something in the heat of battle that he clung to.

It was something that stuck with him forever.

>> Logan also did something he swore he'd never do.

He joined the Republican Party, campaigned for Lincoln, and later endorsed his friend Ulysses S Grant for president.

Logan served for 13 years in the U.S.

Senate and had presidential aspirations of his own.

In 1884, he was on the Republican ticket as running mate to presidential hopeful James Blaine, but they lost in one of the closest elections in history.

More history exists outside the museum, showing what life was like during Logan's time here.

Pat's Prairie was created in honor of a former teacher and museum volunteer Pat Searcy, who died in 2017.

>> Pat's prairie is a pocket prairie, and there was a time across our country where you would come across these pockets of flowers and grasses native to that area.

Now, the plants that are in Pat's Prairie are all plants that would have been found in, you know, 1850s, thereabouts, within a 15 mile radius of the very spot we are standing on.

>> The prairie includes native plants like aromatic aster, willowleaf, sunflower and goldenrod.

>> You can make a real pretty dye out of goldenrod flowers.

You just snip off and get the flowers, and you put them in some water, and you gently simmer them for about an hour.

You don't want it to boil because then it'll turn kind of brown.

But.

And it produces a beautiful yellow dye.

>> Nice.

And you've used this dye before?

>> Yes.

Um, I make baskets.

Some of my baskets are in the museum gift shop and I one of the baskets does have reeds that are yellow and I did I try to, whenever possible when I'm making a basket, use, uh, native flowers and plants to dye my reeds.

I have we have a walnut tree on the property and I make walnut dye.

>> Beyond this patch of prairie flowers is another garden containing plants used in the kitchen or for medicinal purposes.

>> They're mostly herbs, you know.

And, uh, we had Saint John's wort.

We do have peppermint and rosemary thyme, typical things you would find in a kitchen.

And then we have these and this is broomcorn and we make brooms out of our broomcorn.

>> So the top of it here is what you use to make your broom.

>> So what we'll do is we'll cut it to about here, and then we hang it up to dry a little bit.

And then um, and sometimes we use these to make decorations and you want the seeds, otherwise you scrape the seeds off.

>> Okay.

>> Or you save the, you save it with the seeds and you create sprays for your door or as a decoration on a wreath, something like that.

>> Nice.

>> The museum property covers an entire city block and includes several structures like the Ward cob home.

It sits where Logan's childhood home once stood.

The foundation of the original Logan home can still be seen today.

Laura Varner is the museum's director and curator.

She shows us another home on the property, which belonged to a former slave from Mississippi.

>> He escaped slavery in 1863, right after the Emancipation Proclamation was was announced and he joined the Union Navy, served his time in the Union Navy and settled in this area, purchasing the property from the Logan family.

>> Samuel Dalton bought this home from Mary Logan in 1887.

Varner gives tours of the home to school children who are often amazed at the meager conditions.

>> Well, I bring in about 5 or 6 of them at a time and talk to them about what their homes are like and and how would they think about what would they think about living with their parents in two rooms?

And there were five people because Samuel Dalton and his wife lived here and at different times, they also lived here with, uh, his sister in law and brother in law and their sons.

And so this, this was a crowded home, but.

>> It was a crowded home, a cozy home.

>> Cozy home.

[MUSIC] >> Behind this small home is a memorial.

It honors the men of the 56th Illinois Infantry Regiment, lost in a disaster that occurred in March of 1865, just days before the official end of the war.

[MUSIC] >> The men of the 56th, which was a regiment that was from several southern Illinois counties.

Uh, 205, perhaps 206 men were getting ready to come home.

They had either completed their service time in in the Union Army, or they had been wounded.

And they were finally getting to come home.

If you can imagine the relief behind that.

[MUSIC] >> The soldiers, along with hundreds of other people, boarded the SS George Lyon.

But as this plaque explains, the ship was caught in a hurricane off the coast of North Carolina and caught fire.

More than 500 people died, including 200 men from the Illinois 56th.

Their names are now memorialized in this brick patio.

[MUSIC] >> This brick labyrinth was created, and in the center are the names of all of those men that died that day.

[MUSIC] So that they will not be forgotten.

Because that's what John Logan wanted to make sure happened.

That's why he created Memorial Day.

He had a connection with these men that fought and died to preserve freedom in our country.

And so we felt like it was very important to remember these men.

[MUSIC] >> Johnny Logan is remembered as a military leader, a civil rights advocate, and a politician.

But perhaps his most enduring legacy is the creation of Memorial Day.

And he was here at Woodlawn Cemetery in Carbondale for the state's very first Memorial Day celebration in April of 1866.

Nearly 200 veterans and thousands of civilians gathered at this cemetery to honor the fallen soldiers of the Civil War.

Two years later, as Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, Logan issued General Orders number 11, establishing Decoration Day as an annual celebration.

But the inspiration for the memorial holiday actually started years earlier.

>> He and Mary had gone to the south.

They were going to observe battlefields, etc.

this was after the war.

And so Mary was taken out and she saw these women, southern women, decorating the graves of their loved ones.

And she goes back and says to John, you know, we need to do something like this.

And, uh, and he agrees.

And, and one of his main tenants was, we never forget.

>> Thanks to Logan's order, our nation still remembers our fallen veterans every Memorial Day.

John a Logan never realized his dream of running for president.

He died of rheumatic fever in 1886, the day after Christmas.

He was 60.

Mary lived another 37 years.

She authored several books, including her autobiography, Before Dying in 1923.

For the museum staff and volunteers, Logan is remembered for his many accomplishments, but foremost for his willingness to change his views on slavery and human rights.

Our tour ends with a display featuring civil rights advocate Frederick Douglass, who became a strong supporter of the man who once legislated against men of color.

>> We have a great quote that says, but what of Logan?

I will tell you, if there's any statesman in this continent now in public life, to whose courage, justice and fidelity I would more fully and unreservedly trust the cause of the colored people of this country, or the cause of any other people.

I do not know him.

And so, uh, he was such a supporter.

And when he won the Senate race, he had thousands of African Americans show up at his door.

And Mary and John invited them in to their home, uh, to celebrate.

And he, uh, certainly was a champion of civil rights and also of education.

>> If you want to learn more about John a Logan, scan this QR code.

It will take you to the museum's website or follow the General John A Logan Museum on Facebook to stay up to date on its various events.

Until next time, I'm Mark Kiesling, hoping you'll enjoy exploring the Illinois backroads.

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