Saline County had 1,080 men serve the Union Army in the Civil War.  216 Saline County soldiers died fighting for the Union during the war.

Regimental Disaster: As the Civil War ended, the 56th Illinois Infantry lost 200 of its 205 men in a single incident when the steamer General Lyon caught fire and sank, in heavy seas, off the coast of Cape Hatteras, N.C. Over 500 people lost their lives in the disaster. The soldiers were going home. The 200 men from the 56th who lost their lives in the disaster were from Southern Illinois, including 15 men from Saline County in Company E.  Jasper Fitzgerald, Company K, from Saline County, was one of 5 men who survived. Fitzgerald returned to Saline County and is buried in a small cemetery next to North Battleford Road.