The strategy: Invade Chicago and disrupt the Democratic National Convention. First thoughts probably go to 1968 and Vietnam War protesters, who did a pretty good job of making the first Mayor Richard Daley's life miserable that August. But the plan for this raid took place 104 years earlier and aimed to change the course of the Civil War. Confederate leaders ordered Col. Adam R. "Stovepipe" Johnson to recruit Southern sympathizers in Kentucky and Illinois, then liberate 12,000 Confederate prisoners at Camp Douglas, near present-day McCormick Place on Lake Michigan, along with 8,000 prisoners at the Rock Island Arsenal on the Mississippi River

"It might have worked," says Steve Thompson, a military historian with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. He has researched the raids staged by Col. Johnson and the Confederate 10th Ken-

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tucky Cavalry. "Richmond thought that Confederates marching so boldly through the Land of Lincoln would surely panic the Northern populace and disrupt the Democratic National Convention, possibly leading to a peace platform favoring the South."

The effort didn't succeed, Thompson says, because Southern sympathizers didn't produce the 10, 000 men and 15, 000 weapons they had promised. Instead, 2, 000 men were recruited. And most of them showed up without guns or food. Johnson never got farther north than a few miles this side of the Ohio River, where he led raids on Union supply boats.

He did get the attention of Illinoisans, though. Gov. Richard Yates issued pleas for new recruits. Illinoisans responded and Union troops chased Johnson back into the Confederacy. Stories like this prompted Thompson to work on the Civil War Heritage Trail. Illinois and Kentucky are jointly developing the trail, which marks 15 Illinois and 18 Kentucky sites where little-known Civil War action took place. It will wind 300 miles along state and federal highways from Henderson, Ky., to Cairo. The project will cost approximately $300, 000 and will be funded primarily by the National Park Service through its Battlefield Protection Program. But project coordinators requested about $72, 000 from Illinois and about $165, 000 from Kentucky through their respective departments of transportation.

Though no major Civil War battles were fought on Illinois soil, several of the sites in the southern counties are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. And Thompson sees the trail as serving two goals: Preserve a part of Illinois history and draw more tourists — and their dollars — to the state.

"Southern Illinois tourism is like a lit stick of dynamite," says Robert Winchester, deputy director in charge of Gov. George Ryan's new southern Illinois office. "It's just ready to explode."

Indeed, Hampton Tucker, a National Park Service preservation planner, says Civil War tourism is a huge market with thousands of dedicated followers. Yet most sites are disappearing under suburban sprawl. "With visitation comes awareness, then protection and preservation," he says.

Illinois' Civil War sites have the benefit of looking very much like they did in the 1860s. "I don't think there is any place in Illinois with more wilderness than those southern counties," says Thompson. And though this state's sites won't compete with a Gettysburg, Shiloh or Vicksburg, they will be included among the more than 400 sites in 24 states on the Civil War Discovery Trail created by the Civil War Trust, a private, nonprofit membership organization that works to preserve Civil War sites.

In fact, many of Illinois' sites are considered "landscape sites," says Thompson, which may appeal especially to Civil War reenactors. Mark Westhoff, who heads the Southwestern Illinois Convention and Tourism Bureau, is active in such reenactments. These are usually two-day events when historians and enthusiasts dress in authentic costumes, carry period weapons, live in troop camps and fight reconstructed battles. He organized one for St. Clair County that drew 50, 000 people.

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs' tourism department estimates the seven counties along the Ohio River route — "where Illinois began" — could see more than $5 million added to the region's economy from the heritage tourism project.

By 2000, heritage tourism is expected to bring in more than $85 million in new dollars and create 1, 120 new jobs. Tourism in general contributed more than $19.6 billion to the Illinois economy in 1997, directly accounting for more than 266, 000 jobs. And the state tourism department's research shows that nearly one-third of Illinois visitors participate in cultural heritage tourism activities.

The Illinois Civil War sites skirt the Ohio River and follow a federal scenic byway that winds out of Ohio and Indiana. From the east, Old Shawneetown in Gallatin County marks the site where groups of Southern sympathizers smuggled arms and horses to Confederate soldiers operating in Kentucky. Near New Shawneetown stands a house built in 1838 by Shawneetown newspaper publisher Henry Eddy, who entertained a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. For about 18 months beginning in the fall of 1861, it became a regimental hospital and stood above Camp Mather, an encampment of more than 1, 000 Illinois infantrymen and more than 600 cavalry. Later, other troops renamed it Camp Logan.

Other places to visit include Saline Bar and Battery Rock. A sandbar that formed in the summer months allowed Col. Johnson to cross into Illinois and capture five steamboats. Panicked officials sent more troops to the area, positioning the 87th Illinois Infantry at Battery Rock, a limestone bluff in Hardin County, where commercial steamers and U.S. Navy warships anchored. At the base, soldiers etched their names into the stone more than a century ago.

Union generals knew the key to winning the war was controlling the Mississippi River. Cairo, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, was a transportation hub secured by Union forces soon after the war started. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant used Fort Defiance to prepare his troops for the capture of Vicksburg.

Meanwhile, Mound City in Pulaski County was headquarters for the U.S. Navy Mississippi Squadron and the site of the largest Union inland naval depot. There also was a large Union hospital complex and a cemetery, which would become one of the country's first national cemeteries.

The trail is scheduled for a fall 2000 opening date.

"Many people in Illinois do not realize the war happened in their back yard," says Steve Thompson, who directs the Illinois heritage trail project. "That is why we are trying to emphasize what went on along the Ohio River." 

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