(Photo)
When the federal government took control
of Camp
Chase, stricter rules applied: visitors
were
prohibited, no prisoners
left the camp, and almost 7,000 Rebel
soldiers and
some "disloyal" citizens were crammed
into
facilities meant to house
4,000. Prisoners were put to work
extending the
camp, but overcrowding remained a
problem, and the
prison held more than
9,000 prisoners by the war's end. As
the war
lingered on, conditions worsened.
Already scanty
food rations were cut by
two-thirds to retaliate for lack of
food in
Southern prisons. Unlike superintendents
of prisons
in the South, however,
Yankee officials had food available,
but withheld
it from prisoners. Filth, overcrowding,
disease,
starvation, and
exposure to the elements, especially
the freezing
winters, caused as many as 40
Confederate prisoners
to die each day.
Camp Chase was named for Secretary of
the
Treasury Salmon P. Chase, who had also
been governor
of Ohio. Located
four miles west of Columbus, it was
first used as a
training camp for Union volunteers, but
it also held
a few
prisoners. In November 1861 Camp Chase
received a
large influx of Confederate prisoners.
As long as
the state of Ohio
administered the camp, Rebel officers
were
permitted to go into Columbus on oath of
honor to
return. State authorities
also allowed the public to tour the
grounds as if
the camp were a tourist attraction.