oh Archives - Battle of Nashville & Beyond

Camp Chase P.O.W. Confederate Prison

In May of 1861 Camp Chase was established as a training facility for U.S. Army recruits. After the fall of Fort Donelson in early 1862, it was quickly over flowing with prisoners of war from the Confederacy. In that year Johnson’s Island Prison relocated most of their enlisted Confederate prisoners here. The two acre site holds 2260 Confedarate soldiers who died in captivity at the prison.

The cemetery was vandalized in 2017, toppling a statue of a Confederate solider atop the stone monument. Visiting the site in the spring of this year, I met one of the security guards that keeps a close eye on the cemetery. He was no second string law enforcement officer. The same goes for the one at Johnson’s Island.

Confederate P.O.W. Camp in Ohio

From 1862 to 1865 Johnson’s Island Prison, near Sandusky, Ohio was a P.O.W. camp for Confederate prisoners. After 1862, the camp separated the enlisted prisoners to Camp Chase Prison in Columbus, Ohio. For the duration of the war, Johnson’s Island housed primarily Confederate officers, including General Officers: Isaac R. Trimble and James J. Archer (both captured at the Battle of Gettysburg), Thomas Benton Smith, Edward “Allegheny” Johnson, M. Jeff Thompson , John S. Marmaduke , William Lewis Cabell and William Beall.

“The 16.5-acre prison opened in April 1862. A 15-foot-high wooden stockade surrounded 12 two-story prisoner housing barracks, a hospital, latrines, sutler’s stand, three wells, a pest house, and two large mess halls (added in August 1864).” …read more on Wikipedia

Johnson’s Island is a residential community now, but the stockade cemetery remains, and is very well maintained. It has 206 headstones (a little over 20 men were taken back south after the war). The grounds are patrolled by private security, and the local community is very protective of this historical landmark. The site includes a Confederate monument, the only remaining one in Ohio (the Camp Chase monument was destroyed in 2017 by activist).

A three point 360º virtual reality tour of the stockade cemetery:

Johnson’s Island Causeway, Marblehead, OH 43440

By Bob Henderson

This authors GGGF, 2nd Lt. Walter Scott Bearden and twin brother 3rd Lt. Edwin Ryall Bearden 41st Tennessee Infantry, were sent here after their capture at Fort Donelson, TN. They were exchanged in 1862 and resumed duty at Vicksburg.