Travels with Auntie M: Illinois State Military Museum, Springfield

This interesting building, commonly referred to as "The Castle," was the Camp Lincoln Commissary Building. It has also served as a hospital, barracks, quartermaster storage, headquarters and a physical examination center (WWI). Comprised of rusticated limestone, it was built in 1903 by the Culver Stone Company. It is now open to the public as the Illinois State Military Museum.

Although this doesn't look at all like Lincoln, the signage next to it talks about Abraham Lincoln's Black Hawk War Service.

Next to the display below, there is a sign: "Spencer Rifle and Lincoln Target Board - On August 18, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln was approached at the White House by inventor Christopher Miner Spencer to test fire his new seven shot repeating rifle. President Lincoln agreed and fired seven rounds from a distance of forty yards into a pine board. Following the test fire, Lincoln offered Spencer the board as a souvenir and approved the rifle for the government use. The Navy was the first to purchase the Spencer Repeating Rifle. The board remained in the Spencer family until 1883 when it was donated to the State of Illinois to be placed in the care of the Adjutant General and displayed in the museum. The Spencer Rife on display is the same type fired by President Lincoln. This rife was carried during the Civil War by W.M.Rogers of Company C, 98th Illinois Mounted Infantry Regiment."

The sign inside the case: "Inscription on the Lincoln Target Board which reads: 7 consecutive shots made by the President of the United States with Spencer at the distance of forty yards. Washington DC August 18, 1863."

They have the cork & wood leg of General Santa Ana which was found in his abandoned carriage (April 18, 1847). He had stopped for lunch when he was surprised by the Illinois Infantry Regiment...as the story goes, the victors even got to eat his chicken dinner.