The historical site near St. Louis in Alton, Illinois will be repaired with a $250,000 grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The money will be used to repair a large limestone monument and clean around the cemetery.

Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in South St. Louis County, Mo., oversees the cemetery as part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Cemetery Association.

The cemetery is the final resting place of 1,354 Confederate soldiers who died at the Union’s Alton Federal Military Prison, and at the smallpox quarantine hospital on an island across the Mississippi River.

Read the Alton Telegraph article here:

http://www.thetelegraph.com/news/cemetery_24944___article.html/confederate_alton.html