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Camp Chase edit

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Camp Chase was a military staging and training camp established in Columbus, Ohio in May 1861 after the start of the American Civil War. It also included a large Union-operated prison camp for Confederate prisoners during the American Civil War.

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 containing 2,260 graves of Confederates who died in captivity both in Camp Chase and in Camp Dennison near Cincinnati. Camp Chase was located in what is now the Hilltop neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. Camp Chase is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

History
Camp Chase was an American Civil War 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 4 mi 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, 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 1861–1865. 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 and Kentucky civilians suspected of actively supporting secession, including former three-term United States Congressman Richard Henry Stanton were held at the facility. The prison camp also held Confederates captured during Morgan's Raid in 1863, including Col. Basil W. Duke.

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. 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 focused on feeding its own soldiers first it often left the prisoners with little to no food. The largest amount 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 amount of prisoners crowded in relatively small area, there was also a large outbreak of smallpox 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.

Vandalism
In August of 2017 the confederate solider on top of the camp memorial was pushed off the arch and in the process had its head broken off. The vandals never were found and it is believed they stole the head of the Confederate statue but not the hat.