Plan to Show Confederate Flag Draws Heat
"We consider this an honorable flag. This is a soldier's flag," said Ron Casteel, national chief of staff for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, one of the memorial's planners. "There will be no substitute."
Camp Butler, just east of Springfield, was a training facility for Union troops during the Civil War and a prison camp for more than 3,500 captured Confederates. More than 800 of the prisoners died and were buried there, and the site is now a national cemetery.