National Cemetery Administration

Visitation Hours: Open daily from sunrise to sunset.

Office Hours: Monday thru Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Closed federal holidays except Memorial Day.

This soldiers' lot is closed to interments.

Burial in a national cemetery is open to all members of the armed forces who have met a minimum active duty service requirement and were discharged under conditions other than dishonorable.

A Veteran's spouse, widow or widower, minor dependent children, and under certain conditions, unmarried adult children with disabilities may also be eligible for burial. Eligible spouses and children may be buried even if they predecease the Veteran.

Members of the reserve components of the armed forces who die while on active duty or who die while on training duty, or were eligible for retired pay, may also be eligible for burial.

» Eligibility for Burial in a VA National Cemetery

Fax all discharge documentation to the National Cemetery Scheduling Office at 1-866-900-6417 and follow-up with a phone call to 1-800-535-1117.

For information on scheduled burials in our national cemeteries, please go to the Daily Burial Schedule.

The private and community cemeteries that contain NCA soldiers' and government lots, and Confederate cemeteries, do not always have staffed offices on site. When administrative information for the larger cemetery is available, it is provided below.

This soldiers' lot is overseen by Dayton National Cemetery.

Please contact the national cemetery for more information.

For educational materials and additional information on this cemetery, please visit the Education section, located below.

Natural, fresh-cut flowers may be placed on graves at any time of the year and will be removed when they become unsightly or when it becomes necessary to facilitate cemetery operations.

Artificial flowers are permitted on graves only from October 10th through April 15th. Christmas wreaths, grave blankets and other seasonal adornments may be placed on graves from December 1st through January 20th.

One small American flag may be placed on the grave and will be removed when it is damaged, faded or tattered.

At no time shall any object be attached to a grave marker, placed directly on top of a grave marker, or encroach on an adjacent grave.

The following items are prohibited for placement at a gravesite, and are subject to removal by cemetery staff:

• Alcoholic products or other similar items
• Balloons, pinwheels, wind chimes, lights, candles, statues, stuffed animals, or other similar items
• Decorative and breakable glass or plastic items such as: vigil lights, glass vases or decorative glass
• Non-government supplied floral containers (pots, planters, vases, etc.)
• Any objects that could become projectiles when caught in grounds maintenance equipment (such as rocks, coins, or other small durable objects)
• Offensive items or those deemed inconsistent with the cemetery setting
• Permanent in-ground plantings
• Weapons of any kind, explosives, or ammunition
• Any object attached to headstones, markers, or niche covers

Using permanent markers or paint on headstones is always strictly prohibited.

Cemetery personnel will inspect each grave for unsightly or unauthorized items on the first and third Wednesday of each month. Durable items removed from graves will be held for one month. These items remain property of the donor but are under custodianship of the cemetery. If not claimed within 30 days, they are governed by rules for disposal of federal property.

Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery is located in Franklin County, Ohio, six miles west of downtown Columbus. The federal government purchased the site in 1879.

Camp Chase shifted from a training camp for Union Army recruits to a prisoner-of-war camp early in the war. The facility was named after Salmon P. Chase, Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln, and former governor of Ohio. The first inmates at Camp Chase were chiefly political and military prisoners from Kentucky and Western Virginia allegedly loyal to the Confederacy. Union victories at Fort Donaldson, Tennessee, on February 16, 1862, and at Mississippi River Island No. 10, on April 8, 1862, brought an influx of prisoners. All of the officers taken at these battles were moved to Camp Chase, save for generals and field officers, who were sent to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor.

The establishment of the Confederate Stockade on Johnson's Island in Lake Erie led to the transfer of most of the officers to the new prison. Subsequently, enlisted men and non-commissioned officers made up the bulk of the Confederate soldiers confined at Camp Chase. By 1863 Camp Chase held 8,000 men, the peak of the prison population. Similar to many prisons in the north, Camp Chase was ravaged by disease; during late 1864, a smallpox epidemic resulted in many deaths.

Prior to the establishment of the cemetery at Camp Chase, the Confederate dead were interred in the city cemetery of Columbus. Their remains were re-interred in the prison cemetery after its opening. In addition, the remains of 31 Confederate soldiers who died at Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati, were removed to Camp Chase Cemetery shortly after the cessation of the Civil War.

By the mid 1890's, efforts began to mark the graves of the Confederate dead within Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery. Led by William H. Knauss, a wounded Union veteran, this movement succeeded in bringing together both Union and Confederate veterans organizations to pay tribute to those interred in the cemetery. In 1904, Congress allocated funds for the maintenance of Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery.

Officially, there is an estimate of 2,168 remains in 2,122 gravesites in Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery. However, this does not match the inscription on the Boulder monument.

The Camp Chase site, including the Confederate Cemetery, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Monuments and Memorials
There are two monuments in Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery. The first depicts a bronze figure of a Confederate Civil War soldier standing atop a granite arch, his rifle held vertically in front of him, with both hands resting on the top of the barrel. Originally the memorial consisted of a wooden arch inscribed with the word AMERICANS, but in 1902 the wooden arch was replaced with this 17' tall stone memorial.

The second monument is a 3' tall boulder underneath the stone arch. Installed in 1897, the inscription reads: "2260 Confederate Soldiers of the war 1861–1865 buried in this enclosure."