In memory of the Confederate veterans who died at the Camp Chase Prison Camp. May they never be forgotten, let no man asperse the memory of the sacred dead. They were men who died for a cause they believed was worth fighting for and made the ultimate sacrifice.

Welcome to the SCV Camp Chase site.

As the name indicates this site is maintained and written by SCV members. (Special thanks also to Pam Stanley). Although the War Between the States is long over sometimes it can still stir emotional opinions. We hope you will find new and fresh information about Camp Chase and its cemetery contained within this site. It is our goal to present the facts and let the reader determine his or her own conclusions. Somewhere in between the North and the South lays the truth of that terrible ordeal. (1861-1865)

The wrought iron fence was made and installed by the William Bayley Company of Springfield, Ohio and they were the successors of the Rogers Iron Company.

The contract was entered with the Company on December 10, 1909 by the Commissioner of Marking of Confederate Dead, War Department in care of William C. Oates. This would be the same William C. Oates who advanced his Alabama troops at Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. The government hired inspectors named Noble and Dole to verify the work had been done according to the contract. The following letter was sent to the War Department from Columbus, Ohio on June 8, 1910. “Sir We certify that we have inspected the work done by the William Bayley Company, of Springfield, Ohio, under contract dated December 10, 1909, for erecting wrought iron fence on top of wall enclosing Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery, near Columbus, Ohio, together with the remolding of one drive gate and extending two stone gate posts, and find that the work has been completed in accordance with the contract, and that they are entitled to be paid, as per the terms of the contract as follows: 1141.50 lineal feet of fence, @ .47 cents per foot, $536.51, Remolding one drive gate $35.00, Extending Stone gate posts $70.00, Total $641.51
Signed Noble & Dole, Inspectors”

A cemetery was established at Camp Chase on August 1, 1863.

Many of the Confederate military dead who had been buried in the Southeast city cemetery prior to the establishment of the Camp Chase Cemetery were re-interred back to the Camp Chase Cemetery in May of 1869 by Captain Irving of the United States Quartermasters Department. They were buried under wooden markers in a plot surrounded by a low fence that had been part of the Camp Chase buildings. When the War ended, most of Camp Chase itself was dismantled, the last Union troops were those of the Veteran Reserve Corps. Some of the cabins at Camp Chase were used as cheap shanties for a few years, but for the most part every indication that the military base had been there was gone--except for the graveyard, which was left to deteriorate. It wasn't until the 1890's that William H. Knauss, a private who had been injured on the battlefield at Fredericksburg, who had served in the 2nd New Jersey Regiment Infantry, and later served in the Veteran Reserve Corps, located the graveyard and determined to restore it. He held memorial services there, featuring speakers such as Governor Nash, and drew crowds of hundreds by 1898.

The early prisoners at Camp Chase were largely political in nature and the majority came from Western Virginia

When the Fort Donelson prisoners arrived at Camp Chase in early March of 1862 the Camp was still under the jurisdiction of the State of Ohio, however it was maintained by Federal troops. One of the reasons why Camp Chase would become a Federal Camp just weeks later was because of the massive amount of prisoners from places like Fort Donelson and Island #10. Many of the junior officers taken at Fort Donelson and incarcerated at Camp Chase would leave for Johnson's Island starting in the third week of April of 1862.

Stories About Camp Chase

• Confederates Going Home

• Texas Soldiers

• The following speech about three soldiers buried at Camp Chase was given in June 14, 2015 by Monty Chase during the Hilltop Historical Society's Camp Chase Memorial Service.

• Body Snatching

• Lt. James O. Norton Co. F/K 32nd TN Infantry, C.S.A.

• The Unknown Story of the Great Locomotive Chase

• Private Michael Spence

• Captain Benjamin L. Wilkes Clack's 3rd Tennessee Infantry

• Thomas Battle Turley who became a Tennessee U.S. Senator

• Henry Horton, Alabama Unassigned Conscripts

• W.H. Lastinger (grave #225) Company K 29th Georgia Regiment CSA - Back from the dead?

• Facts About Camp Chase

• Post Arkansas Confederate dead at the Camp Chase Cemetery

• Confederate Spy Plotted to Free Camp Chase Prisoners (Reported in Columbus Dispatch but inaccurate)

• Kidwell and United Confederate Veteran Camp 1181 in Columbus

• The soldier behind the legend of the "Lady in Grey:

• The Captain and His Sergeant

• (clone) Confederates Going Home

Links

• Hilltop Historical Society
Includes Talks & Tours of Camp Chase, Men & Women, the Mural, Prison & History

• Find-a-Grave: Camp Chase Cemetery

• Listing of Names: Alphabetical and by Rows

• Prisoners of War
Confederate civilians from WV

• History of Government Furnished Headstones and Markers
The question of permanently marking graves of Confederate deceased in national cemeteries and Confederate burial plots resulted in the Act of March 9, 1906 (P.L. 38, 59th Cong., Chap. 631), authorizing the furnishing of headstones for the graves of Confederates who died, primarily in Union prison camps and were buried in federal cemeteries.

• Grave Listings from Central Ohio Grave Search - Camp Chase

• Civil War Soldiers Buried AS Confederate May Actually Be Union