Camp Chase

Camp Chase was a military staging, training and prison camp in Columbus, Ohio, during the American Civil War. All that remains of the camp today is a Confederate cemetery containing 2,260 graves.

History

Camp Chase was a Civil War camp established in May 1861, on land leased by the U.S. Government. It served as a replacement for the much smaller Camp Jackson. Four miles west of Columbus, the main entrance was on the National Road. 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 and Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, it was a training camp for Ohio volunteer army soldiers, a parole camp, a muster-out post, and 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 1861–65. By February 1865, over 9,400 men were held at the prison. More than 2,000 Confederates are buried in the Camp Chase Cemetery (located at 2900 Sullivant Avenue, Columbus, and is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily).

Four future Presidents passed through Camp Chase—Andrew Johnson, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, and William McKinley. It also held Confederates captured during Morgan's Raid in 1863, including Col. Basil W. Duke. Early in the war, the prison section held a group of prominent western Virginia and Kentucky civilians suspected of actively supporting secession, including former 3-term United States Congressman Richard Henry Stanton.

The camp was closed in 1865, and by September 1867, dismantled buildings, usable items, and 450 patients from Tripler Military Hospital (also in Columbus) were transferred to the National Soldier's Home in Dayton. In 1895, former Union soldier William H. Knauss organized the first memorial service at the cemetery, and in 1906 he wrote a history of the camp. The Memorial Arch was dedicated in 1902. From 1912 to 1994, the United Daughters of the Confederacy held annual services. The Hilltop Historical Society now sponsors the event on the first Sunday in June.

Camp Chase today

Aside from the Confederate Cemetery, which still exists, the land that formerly housed Camp Chase is now a residential and commercial area known as Westgate, a community in the Hilltop section of west Columbus. This development was built in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and is now a stable, if aging, Columbus community.

References

* Historical Marker #27-25, located at 2900 Sullivant Avenue, Columbus, Ohio, installed by the Ohio Bicentennial Commission, 1999.

ee also

* Ohio in the Civil War
* Camp Dennison
* Johnson's Island

External links

* [http://www.lib.lsu.edu/cwc/projects/dbases/chase.htm Comprehensive Camp Chase Cemetery headstone inventory]
* [http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/5109/ More history and photos of Camp Chase]
* [http://www.civilwarhome.com/campchase.htm Camp Chase Prison]
* [http://www.forgottenoh.com/Cemeteries/campchase.html Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery]
* [http://www.graveaddiction.com/chase.html Camp Chase Cemetery on graveaddiction.com]
* [http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~rocky/Franklin_Cemeteries/chase/chase.html Camp Chase Cemetery on Rootsweb]
* [http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~rocky/Franklin_Cemeteries/chase/aerialc.jpgAerial photo of Camp Chase]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gsr&GScid=40165 Find-A-Grave: Camp Chase Cemetery]
* [http://www.nps.gov/history/NR/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/123camp_chase/index.htm "Not to Be Forgotten: Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery," a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan]