It shall be the duty of the county commissioners in each of the counties of this state to designate the township trustee or some other suitable person in each township, whose duty it shall be to cause to be decently interred the body of any honorably discharged Union soldier, sailor or marine who served in the Union army or navy in the war of 1861-’65, known as the “civil war,” or the body of the wife or widow of any such soldier, sailor, marine, who may hereafter die without leaving sufficient means to defray his or her funeral expenses. Such burial shall not be made in any cemetery or burial ground or that portion of any burial ground used exclusively for the pauper dead. The expenses of any such burial shall in no case be more than one hundred dollars ($100). If the deceased has relatives or friends who desire to conduct the burial they shall be permitted to do so, but if they are unable to pay the expenses thereof, such expense shall be paid by the county in which the deceased soldier, sailor, marine, his wife, or widow, may die, as hereinbefore provided.