Camp Chase was a military staging and training camp established in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, an ...

in May 1861 after the start of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

. It also included a large Union-operated prison camp for Confederate prisoners during the

. The camp was closed and dismantled after the war and the site has been redeveloped for residential and commercial use, except for the Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery, which contains 2,260 graves of Confederates who died in captivity both in Camp Chase and in

Camp Dennison Camp Dennison was a military recruiting, training, and medical post for the United States Army during the American Civil War. It was located near Cincinnati, Ohio, not far from the Ohio River. The camp was named for Cincinnati native William De ...

near

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

. Camp Chase was located in what is now the Hilltop neighborhood of

. Camp Chase is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

History

Camp Chase was an

training and prison camp established in May 1861, on land leased by the U.S. Government. It replaced the much smaller Camp Jackson which was established by Ohio Governor William Dennison Jr as a place for Ohio's union volunteers to meet. It originally operated from a city park. The main entrance was on the National Road west of Downtown Columbus, Ohio. Boundaries of the camp were present-day Broad Street (north), Hague Avenue (east), Sullivant Avenue (south), and near Westgate Avenue (west). Named for former Ohio Governor,

Salmon P. Chase Salmon Portland Chase (January 13, 1808May 7, 1873) was an American politician and jurist who served as the sixth chief justice of the United States. He also served as the 23rd governor of Ohio, represented Ohio in the United States Senate, a ...

, who was Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury; it was a training camp for Ohio volunteer army soldiers, a parole camp, a muster outpost, and later a prisoner-of-war camp. The nearby Camp Thomas served as a similar base for the Regular Army. As many as 150,000 Union soldiers and 25,000 Confederate prisoners passed through its gates from 1861 to 1865. By February 1865, over 9,400 men were held at the prison. More than 2,200 Confederates are buried in the Camp Chase Cemetery.

Western Virginia Western Virginia is a geographic region in Virginia comprising the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia. Generally, areas in Virginia located west of, or (in many cases) within, the piedmont region are considered part of western Virginia. Th ...

and

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

civilians suspected of actively supporting

secession Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics l ...

, including former three-term United States Congressman

Richard Henry Stanton Richard Henry Stanton (September 9, 1812 – March 20, 1891, born Bob Stanton) was a politician, lawyer, editor and judge from Kentucky. Born in Alexandria, DC, he completed preparatory studies, attended Alexandria Academy, studied law an ...

were held at the facility. The prison camp also held Confederates captured during Morgan's Raid in 1863, including Col.

Basil W. Duke Basil Wilson Duke (May 28, 1838 – September 16, 1916) was a Confederate general officer during the American Civil War. His most noted service in the war was as second-in-command for his brother-in-law John Hunt Morgan; Duke later wrote ...

. The camp was closed in 1865, and by September 1867, dismantled buildings, usable items, and 450 patients from Tripler Military Hospital (also in

Columbus Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to: * Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer * Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio Columbus may also refer to: Places ...

) were transferred to the new National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Dayton, Ohio (Now Dayton VA.) Building materials taken from dismantled buildings were sent to help build the Dayton facility which opened in 1867 and became the largest veterans home in the nation. In 1895, former Union soldier William H. Knauss organized the first memorial service at the cemetery. In 1906 he published a history of the camp. The Confederate Soldier Memorial was dedicated in 1902. From 1912 to 1994, the United Daughters of the Confederacy held annual services to commemorate Confederate soldiers who had been held and died there. The Hilltop Historical Society now sponsors the event on the second Sunday in June.

Prison conditions

The living conditions at Camp Chase were inadequate for a number of reasons. The prisoners were never intentionally starved, but because the

Union army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...

focused on feeding its own soldiers first it often left the prisoners with little to no food. The largest number of soldiers and officers held at Camp Chase at a single time was in 1863 when the prison camp held around 8,000 men. Because of the large number of prisoners crowded in a relatively small area, there was also a large outbreak of

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

and other deadly diseases. This resulted in the death of hundreds of prisoners in the winter of 1863–1864. Many POW camps had the same conditions on both sides of the war. Because of this, the Union and the CSA agreed to exchange prisoners to stop the suffering of men on both sides. Ultimately around 10,000 soldiers were exchanged between both sides.

The Lady in Gray

The Lady in Gray is purportedly an apparition that haunts Camp Chase Cemetery. The story goes that the ghost is looking for her lost love, and cannot find him in the cemetery. The woman is described as young, in her late teens or early twenties, dressed entirely in gray, and carrying a clean white handkerchief. The legend of the Lady in Gray dates back to just after the Civil War, when visitors to Camp Chase spotted the woman walking through the cemetery, trying to read the carved names on the marked grave markers. She was seen quite often for several years, before disappearing completely.

Camp Chase today

Aside from the two-acre Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery, the land that formerly housed Camp Chase has been redeveloped as a residential and commercial area known as Westgate. A corner stone to the camp is located in front of the Westgate #623 Masonic Temple, in a community in the Hilltop section of west Columbus. This development was built in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Camp Chase is listed on the

. Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery is managed along with five National Cemeteries by the Dayton National Cemetery.

Vandalism

On August 22, 2017, part of a chain of removal of Confederate monuments and memorials, the statue of a Confederate soldier on top of the camp memorial was pushed off the arch and in the process had its head broken off. The vandals were never found. They stole the head of the Confederate statue but not the hat. The statue has been repaired under the auspices of the Dayton National Cemetery and was re-installed in May 2019.

Photos

File:Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio. Prison of the rebels captured by U. S. forces. LCCN2007675765 (cropped).jpg, Camp Chase File:Camp chase 2.jpg, The Confederate Soldier Memorial before vandals broke off the statue at the top in 2017 File:Camp Chase, Colombus, OH, US (13).jpg, The memorial after vandals broke off the statue in 2017 File:Camp_Chase,_Colombus,_OH,_US_(08).jpg, Gravestones and the main memorial File:Camp_Chase,_Colombus,_OH,_US_(04).jpg, Text of the carved stone

References

* Historical Marker #27-25, located at 2900 Sullivant Avenue, Columbus, Ohio, installed by the Ohio Bicentennial Commission, 1999. Miller, Robert Earnest, "War Within Walls: Camp Chase and the Search for Administrative Reform," Ohio History 96 (Winter Spring 1987): 33 56

External links

*
Comprehensive Camp Chase Cemetery headstone inventory

Aerial photo of Camp Chase

Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery
at

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Letters from Camp Chase inmate

Knauss, William H.; The story of Camp Chase; 1906

* * ttp://CampChase.us Columbus Sons of Confederate Veterans: Camp Chase Website
Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery - National Cemetery Administration
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Chase Chase or CHASE may refer to: Businesses * Chase Bank, a national bank based in New York City, New York * Chase Aircraft (1943–1954), a defunct American aircraft manufacturing company * Chase Coaches, a defunct bus operator in England * Chase C ...

Forts on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio American Civil War army posts

American Civil War prison camps Defunct prisons in Ohio Historic American Landscapes Survey in Ohio History of Ohio Ohio in the American Civil War Military monuments and memorials in the United States 19th century in Columbus, Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Columbus, Ohio 1861 establishments in Ohio