In the heart of Sycamore, dozens of U.S. veterans lie buried under DeKalb County soil.

To preserve their legacies, every year in the early fall, the DeKalb County History Center joins forces with the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War to share the stories of U.S. veterans buried in Elmwood Cemetery, 901 S. Cross St., Sycamore.

John Boies, of the Elmwood Cemetery corporation, said the cemetery was formed in 1865, through an act of the Illinois legislature. Today, hundreds of DeKalb County residents are buried there, including 144 Civil War veterans.

Dennis Maher, Commander of Gen. E. F. Dutton Camp No. 49, Sycamore – a post of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War – said Civil War veterans are responsible for starting the American tradition of supporting veterans because they came home without help.

“There was no VFW [Veterans of Foreign Wars] at the time, there was no American Legion. When these veterans came home with maybe one arm, one leg, physical challenges, challenges of emotion, there was no veterans organization,” Maher said. “There was family, there was the local church, there was the neighbors. So they formed the very first veterans organizations.”

The Holcomb family, known as a pioneering family of Sycamore, personally felt the impacts of the Civil War and the efforts by the novel veteran organization that was created after the violence had stopped.

Civil War veterans and brothers Linus Holcomb, Orator Holcomb and Reuben Holcomb, are memorialized alongside their family in Elmwood Cemetery.

Sgt. Reuben Holcomb was a part of the 105th Illinois, which saw some of the most intense operations of the war.

“They were involved in the siege of Atlanta. ... Sherman’s march to the sea, and the North Carolina campaign,” Maher said. “They saw a great deal of military action, and he [Reuben] survived the war.”

Sgt. Linus Holcomb joined Reuben Holcomb in Company A of the 105th Illinois after becoming a widower and the father of a newborn child, Maher said. He did not survive the war, however. Maher said Linus Holcomb is buried in a North Carolina cemetery.

Orator Holcomb served in a different unit entirely – the 132nd Illinois Infantry. Maher said that the Regiment was called a 100-day unit because they were sent for 100 days to man garrison duties, allowing soldiers with combat experience to be brought to the front lines.

When Orator and Reuben Holcomb came home, there was no support system in place to help them deal with the consequences of devastating violence. That changed when the Grand Army of the Republic was created by Major Benjamin F. Stephenson and Chaplain William J. Rutledge.

Harlan Hawkins, a Cortland resident and vice commander of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War Sycamore Camp, said the Sycamore branch of the Grand Army of the Republic was created years later. Orator and Reuben Holcomb were members. Together, members of that post supported one another in life and after death by supporting their families and honoring their comrades at funerals.

Their efforts laid the groundwork for Memorial Day becoming a national holiday. But the reasons they were drafted and asked to bear arms on American soil have been muddied since the Reconstruction era.

Hawkins said members of the Grand Army of the Republic likely didn’t think they’d served in a civil war, however. He pointed to historic records that show that the veterans thought of the American conflict as “the war of the rebellion,” Hawkins said.

As the U.S. prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, Hawkins said he’s taking time to understand that the country broke over the issue of slavery.

“It was a very worthy cause, not just to restore the union but more importantly to remove that awful policy of slavery,” Hawkins said. “It was the north that did that, it was the Grand Army that did that.”