Expedition Team: Dave Miller
Date: February 6, 2024
Established in 1861, this 160-acre facility trained Union soldiers for the Civil War. It then transitioned into a Confederate prison. During its lifespan approximately 26,000 prisoners were held here, 9,000 at one time. Sadly, over two thousand prisoners died at the camp due to cold winters, lack of clean food and water, dysentery, and smallpox. While many were buried in individual plots, many victims of contagious diseases were dumped into mass graves. In 1908, most of Camp Chase land was bought and sold to build residential housing.
After my cancer checkup at the OSU James Hospital, I drove over to the cemetery. Near the front gate entrance was a State of Ohio Historical Marker talking about the history of the camp. The cemetery is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. I squeezed through the heavy, front gate entrance. Inside were rows of white grave markers on each side of a main stone arch. The arch has a confederate soldier on top with the inscription, “Americans”. A large stone below the arch is inscribed “2,260 confederate soldiers of the War 1861-1865 buried in this enclosure”. As for ghosts, neighbors claim to hear sounds of soldiers marching but the most reported apparition is the Lady in Gray. She wears a gray dress, is sometimes heard crying or just standing between the grave marked “Unknown” and the grave marked “Benjamin Allen, Tennessee 50th Regiment”. She has been seen since the early 1900’s. Wife, girlfriend, sister, no one knows who the ghost is. I took lots of photos and did an EVP but obtained no evidence. Other than cars going by on the nearby street, the cemetery was eerie and quiet. Several people peered through the iron bars above the five-foot-tall outer gates to see what I was doing. It gave me the impression that not a lot of people visit this cemetery.
