February 23 Illinois History Minute
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Camp Butler, near Springfield, was the largest training facility for Union soldiers during the Civil War. And on this day, February 23rd, in 1862, it became a prisoner of war camp as well, with the arrival of two-thousand Confederate soldiers, captured at the Battle of Fort Donelson. But bad food, poor sanitation and disease took a deadly toll, and 700 prisoners died that summer. Today, a cemetery at the Camp Butler site contains the graves of soldiers from many wars, with a section reserved for Confederate soldiers.
On this day in 1967 Washington Week In Review premiered on the old National Educational Television service. WILL-TV picked up the show two years later, and still airs it today.