It's been 145 years since Oscar Slagle assaulted a Confederate stockade on the Elk River in Tennessee with nine other soldiers of the 104th Illinois Infantry, overcoming the enemy and securing a key river crossing point.

It's been 111 years since Slagle, nicknamed "The Devil of Company D ... because of his daring and bravery," was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism at Elk River.

And, since 1913, Slagle's grave in Livingston County's Broughton Township Cemetery, northwest of his home near Kempton, has been marked by a plain white granite tombstone, also bearing the name of "Lucy, His Wife."

Unlike many gravestones of Civil War veterans, his doesn't include information about his military service. Only an aluminum American Legion flag holder in front of the stone signifies his service. On occasion, it has been missed when flags were put for Memorial Day, said his great-granddaughter, Doris Lowe, who has placed her own flag there. Doris and her husband, Bob, live about a mile east of the cemetery. She tends the family graves and others, and a grandson does the mowing.

Doris never knew her great-grandfather and didn't know of his heroism until 1985, when she received family records and memorabilia from a trunk kept by her mother, who died the year before.

Included were the Medal of Honor and letters notifying Oscar that President William McKinley and Congress awarded it to him for "most distinguished gallantry in action" for capturing the stockade and Elk River bridge "under heavy artillery and musketry fire."

Doris had seen brass military markers on other graves "and thought he should have one too."

Initial efforts through Internet inquiries to the Veterans Administration in Washington, D.C., brought a response that "as long as there is a monument on his grave, they wouldn't do anything," Doris said.

So, she went to the Livingston County War museum in Pontiac, where "three gentlemen were very interested in the letters and the medal and they sent me to the armory to see Reuben Moreno," the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs Livingston County service officer.

He navigated the bureaucracy and secured the free brass marker, beautifully embossed with the Medal of Honor and Slagle's name and service records.

"I don't think I did anything out of the ordinary," Moreno said this week. "As a Vietnam veteran myself, I was very proud to do it."

Doris and her sister, Donna Wagner of Kankakee, made a special trip to Pontiac to thank him, he said.

By Tuesday, the marker was mounted at the foot of Slagle's grave, placed on an 8-inch-tall granite base to prevent it being run over by mowers.

At 1:30 p.m. Saturday, solemn ceremonies will be conducted by the 104th Illinois Voluntary Infantry Civil War re-enactment group, which will be at nearby Saunemin for its summerfest Friday-Sunday.

As the emotional echo "Taps" sound into the afternoon to conclude the ceremonies, the last notes will come from the horn of Cpl. Oscar Slagle's great-great-great granddaughter, 17-year-old Taylor English of Kempton.

The Broughton Township Cemetery is on Livingston County Road 2400N, two miles east of Road 3300E (the Campus blacktop). When Oscar Slagle joined the militia at age 18, he lived in Ottawa with his grandparents. Six or seven of the heroes of Elk River are buried in Livingston County.