Confederate Cemetery in Ohio
While I was attending other business, I just happened to come upon a Confederate Cemetery in Columbus Ohio. I never knew that this place existed, especially in such an unlikely place in the middle of a large metropolis in the North. I doubt whether the locals even know of it’s existence, or the history behind this graveyard.
The area where the cemetery is presently located was a training camp for Ohio Soldiers during the Civil War. Called Camp Chase, it also served as a parole camp, a muster-out post, and a place of confinement for confederate prisoners-of-war. As many as a 150,000 Union soldiers and 25,000 Confederate prisoners once lived here from 1861-1865. And where more than 2,000 Confederates died and are currently buried in the existing cemetery. Some of the Confederates prisoners that were interned here were participants in Morgan’s Raid, a diversionary incursion by Confederate cavalry into the Union states of Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. More than likely they were probably captured after the Battle of Buffington Island in 1863, the largest battle in Ohio during the Civil War and a future subject for a painting I plan on doing.
You would expect a cemetery containing the graves of enemy soldiers of a war that was fought over 150 years ago would look run down and unkept, but it is quite the opposite. For the most part, the headstones look clean and fresh, arranged in neat rows. The grass is cut short and well maintained. The look is quite similar to other military cemeteries containing the graves of fallen soldiers of more recent wars. In the middle of the cemetery sits a large boulder, over which is built a stone arch topped with a statue of a Confederate soldier. Inscribed in the boulder it is written “2260 Confederate soldiers of the war 1861 – 1865 buried in this enclosure.” In the stone arch above is inscribed the words “Americans”. A reminder that all of the fallen warriors, blue and gray, are americans.
There are also other features that are in the cemetery. There is a small plaque topped with a cannonball from the Battle of Vicksburg. A roadside marker just outside the front gate along Sullivant Ave. gives a brief description and history of Camp Chase. 
Inside the walls of the cemetery is a an interpretive marker with photos giving a more detailed description of the site. Since my time there was limited, this is all I saw giving the time I had, so there may be other points of interest at the cemetery. I have read that interpretive sign in front of the Westgate Masonic Temple at 2925 West Broad Street, which is not far away, sits at the site of the main entrance to the Camp. But there was one sight that particularly got my attention. Placed on the grave of a sergeant was a fresh set of flowers. That someone had the time to place this on the grave of a soldier from Alabama buried so far away in the middle of Ohio reminds all of us that the sacrifice that these men made over 150 years is not forgotten.