Grant to restore Ill. Confederate cemetery

ALTON -- A Confederate graveyard and memorial in the Mississippi River city of Alton will be getting a $250,000 upgrade, paid for by the federal economic stimulus measure Congress passed.

The Confederate Cemetery and Memorial contains the remains of more than 1,300 Confederate soldiers who died at the former Alton federal military prison and at the quarantine hospital on an island across the Mississippi. Prisoners afflicted with smallpox were housed at the hospital during the Civil War.

Many of the soldiers buried in Alton were from the western part of the Confederacy, including Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas and Missouri.

Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Missouri oversees the cemetery.