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Re: Camp Chase and Evansville, IN

Hello Ron, Just returned from the West Coast a long drive. LOL

Your question yet simple is sort of complicated.

There is a large boulder at Camp Chase with the inscription 2,260 Confederate soldiers 1861-1865 lay buried within this enclosure. William H. Knauss had this inscription made and was the author of "The Story of Camp Chase" printed in 1906.

Interestingly I have access to his notes and his original book that are in private hands now.

There were more than 2,260 Confederates who died at Camp Chase but less than 2,260 buried there even at the time of the books printing by Knauss. Knauss did not arrive in Columbus until well after the war.

The current Camp Chase Cemetery is really made up of three separate grave yards. 31 soldiers buried at Chase who were wounded and taken POW at the Battle of Shiloh were taken to Camp Dennison where they died and removed to Camp Chase in May 1869.

Not all of the Confederates who died as a result of Shiloh and who died at Camp Dennison where reinterred to Camp Chase for some unknown reason. At least eight of them are now buried at the Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.

And you are correct about other Confederates being taken to various places along the Ohio River due to the Battle of Shiloh and also from Fort Donelson, Island No. 10 etc.

And then we have one Confederate POW who was being transferred from Camp Alton, Illinois to an eastern POW Camp but died while being transferred on a train. The train stopped in Columbus, Ohio and his body was taken off and buried at the Chase Cemetery. Did he die at Chase? No but he was buried there.

And then we have take into consideration the definition of a Confederate. There were many dozens of southern civilians who died at Camp Chase. There were at least three civilians who were really Confederate deserters but were taken POW as civilians. And then we have several who were former Confederate soldiers but had received a discharge but weeks later were arrested as soldiers.

And then we have at least 7 Union soldiers who have Confederate tombstones at Camp Chase. Personally I don't think they should be counted and in my opinion they are not even buried within the Chase Cemetery but rather at Green Lawn Cemetery in section M.

And then we have the six Confederate soldiers that were snatched from their graves by Doctor Flowers and company. They died at Chase but don't have tombstones.

And then you have a few soldier who died in 1861 and are not accounted for. I know who they are but they do not have tombstones at Chase and were buried in a separate place.

And then you have 30 plus soldiers whose bodies were taken from Chase after the war and taken south.

The largest discrepancy of course is the East Cemetery where the Confederates and southern civilians were buried prior to the establishment of the Camp Chase Cemetery on August 1, 1863. According to the historical plaque at Camp Chase by the National Cemetery Administration they were buried at Camp Chase. Knauss also said they were buried at Camp Chase. If that is true then the NCA owes these men about 80 tombstones. But in a recent publication by the NCA they do not feel as though they were buried at Chase. I have found nothing about them being reinterred to Chase. Rather I've found a mass grave at Green Lawn that the city of Columbus paid for in 1881 when the cemetery was removed. Green Lawn said this did not happen but I have a copy of the receipt found at the Ohio Historical Society the begs to differ. There were 50 Confederate graves moved to the Chase Cemetery from the East Cemetery in 1869. In a report to General Bingham of the quartermasters department Agent Mark. E. Irving said he dug 58 Confederate graves at the East Cemetery and that 8 were empty and the 50 were moved to the Chase Cemetery. Which 50 is still under investigation.

Today there are 2,169 grave inscriptions at the Chase Cemetery. But this too is sort of complicated because some of the soldiers are buried twice. And some tombstones have a double inscription.

And then we have at least four blacks and one native American Indian who died at Chase. Do we include these as Confederates? Some were listed as black and free and others had no statements. They were taken as contraband at Fort Donelson.

Insofar as identifying the men this too is rather complicated. If you mean do I know their names then the answer is yes. However a few of the soldiers gave false names. One was a soldier who has a tombstone at Camp Chase. Toward the end of the war many soldiers were paroled and released. One of the soldiers who was to be transferred knew he was going to die and had only a few days left. So he told a fellow soldier who was well to take his place. The soldier who the Yankees had thought died at Chase was alive and well. He filed for a pension well after the war and told of how he made his escape. He mentioned some things in his pension that only he would have known and I checked the barracks to see if he was telling the truth. Everything checked out and the State of Texas also believed him and gave him a pension. These were the most common ways of escape during the latter part of the war was to take someone else's identity who died or was about to die. These make researching much more difficult.

I'm over one million three hundred thousands words now in the Camp Chase biographies and they cover birth to death including family members physical descriptions when found if they owned slaves prior to the war and a wide variety of information including prior occupations etc.

As a side project ........like I need one......... are compiling mini biographies of Mississippians who died in northern prisons. I just finished up with Fort Delaware and 165 Mississippians died there and are buried at Finns Point, New Jersey. According to the plaque there are 166 plus two civilians but one soldier turned out to be a Georgia soldier and not a Mississippi soldier. He should have been with the 40th Georgia and not the 40th Mississippi. And a few had their names misspelled and had wrong units. But the vast majority were correct.

BTW there were 214 Mississippians who died at Camp Chase.

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Re: Camp Chase and Evansville, IN
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